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[jdg]

how long is the longest project you've ever worked on:

actual length of disc(s)

and/or actual length between start and finish.

im still working on a project that i started in october.

many revisions, mix changes, order changes, etc later, im still doing another revision today.


as for length, i did a 4 CD set once... took me two days. everyone was happy

[24-96 Mastering]

jdg wrote on Tue, 01 February 2011 00:02

how long is the longest project you've ever worked on: actual length of disc(s) and/or actual length between start and finish. im still working on a project that i started in october. many revisions, mix changes, order changes, etc later, im still doing another revision today. as for length, i did a 4 CD set once... took me two days. everyone was happy

I'm working on a project this week that has been going on since August... of 2009.
Revisions, order changes, mix changes, remixes, re-recordings, new songs, the lot.


The longest continuous work I did on a project was a 5 album restoration job. That one took two weeks all in all, lots of manual spectral editing involved. A very satisfying project though, the box set came out great and the effort put in was very much appreciated by the client.
The longest running single disc I did was a DVD-Audio with a playing time of over 5 hours. To my knowledge, it's the longest running surround sound DVD-A.

[bkuijt]

For me that would be a 5 SACD disc set that spans 20 hours and 8 minutes of all Bach's organ works.
aprox. 240 minutes per disc (max is 256 in stereo)

[Greg Reierson]

That's an easy one. It was an album of Chopin Etudes. 17 versions over about three years. The guy kept re-recording and editing new chunks in. It had more stitches than a quilt. Sort of a time capsule of what his piano sounded like over time. Old, new, summer, winter, hot day, cold day, moved mics, re-tuned piano, etc.

Fed my kids for months on that one.


GR

[hnewman]

I finished a 5-disc set today in fact, although a few of the discs were fairly short (under 40 mins.)

[chrisdoremus]

Currently working on a 13 disc box set since about a year ago. It comes in very little chunks at a time. Maybe that counts. It involves tons of tape transfers, mastering and indecision.

[Jerry Tubb]

I did 13 versions of a CD project for a great hippie musician here in Austin back in the 90s.
He kept recording new songs, wanted the new songs up front in the project.
Here's the kicker; version 12 was even pressed and released, but we still did a version 13 that got released later.

Every October for the past 18 years we do a double CD project for a great Americana radio station here in A-town
Usually 40 songs, a lot of rough live recordings, with lots of repairs to make to each track.
Full editing, EQ and perhaps a dash of reverb.
We usually spend about 8-10 full blocked out days on it.
One year the length of both discs was well over 79 minutes... 79:58 iirc.
Great repeat client, they throw a huge anniversary party every year for it's release.

Another set of 5 projects were new age meditation chants, the pickiest client ever, a great ol' hippie guy as well.
These were done over a period of about ten years.
In addition to the audible sound of the project, results had to produce the desired effect in resonating the chakras, etc.
We'd do a dozen+ versions of each project over a period of months until it was tweaked to perfect Om-age.

Cheers, JT

[crna59]

did a 30th anniversay 6 disc set a few months back. Took about a month.

[lowland]

A few years ago I edited and mastered half an unabridged audiobook of War and Peace, 26 of 52 CDs. I often wondered who and how many eventually bought it.

[Viitalahde]

Number of revisions: Seven or eight, most of them being small edits like adding 0,5dB of gain to the chorus. Picky but pleased customers, and nice people in general.

Longest time period: A couple of months, but I can't remember what the project was. Must've been traumatic. Many mix changes anyway.

Longest continuous work: a 7-disc box of the artist's career of 30 years. Three weeks, not everyday but almost. Mostly CD's, some cassettes. The track order kept on changing, which was a good thing because the final arrangement works really well.

Longest album: A hip hop album, on which two tracks were left off after the customer realized there would be no way to fit them in. I think it was still only some seconds away from being absolutely stuffed.

[bigaudioblowhard]

Jan Berry (of Jan And Dean-RIP) 2 years ('94/'95'ish) mastering "Second Wave" album, I was accompanying him to Cherokee to record extra guitars onto DAT, lined up and bounced in Sonic Solutions, pitch correcting 3 frames of a full mix, many times (!?!), overdubbing keyboard in the mastering room, adding spoken word outro's, recorded in the mastering room, most tracks had about 10 dB of compression on Bob Norbergs modded LA2A's, with Jan begging for more, about 40 sequences later, we had it, a fully completed disaster!

bab

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Did a mastering for a "cover band" we went through so many revisions I lost count. 1/4 dB here, a little more top eq there and that was only the first 30 seconds of the first song. 14 songs in all. It took about a month and when it was done the "band" disbanded but luckily they paid me first.

Longest single day of mastering was 13 hours strait with no breaks. Still feeling that one in my back.

It was one of those "it has to get done today because it needs to be at Disk Makers tomorrow" types of jobs. We started at 7 pm and went until 8 am the next morning. I had a another client at 10 am so I did not get to bed until about 4 pm in the afternoon. I was really tired.

[Nick Sevilla]

As to length of final program material : 14 hours of self-hypnosis CDs, ranging from weight loss to IBS.

As to length to complete a single album = 1.5 years continuously, 40 hours per week.

Cheers

[Greg Youngman]

bigaudioblowhard wrote on Mon, 31 January 2011 23:41

Jan Berry (of Jan And Dean-RIP) 2 years ('94/'95'ish) mastering "Second Wave" album, I was accompanying him to Cherokee to record extra guitars onto DAT, lined up and bounced in Sonic Solutions, pitch correcting 3 frames of a full mix, many times (!?!), overdubbing keyboard in the mastering room, adding spoken word outro's, recorded in the mastering room, most tracks had about 10 dB of compression on Bob Norbergs modded LA2A's, with Jan begging for more, about 40 sequences later, we had it, a fully completed disaster! bab

I miss MGM/Cherokee.  What splendid sounding rooms.

[Rick O'neil]

i did a rolling  4 month session which involved.. finding baking transferring EVERY recording a from a famous local rocker (johnny okeefe)  ( total 260 songs ) with many many multiple versions   ( so 600 transfers)  - due to the state of the masters it was deemed the "last time we do this - so lets do it right "

the label lost interest  early in but kept paying the bills - the artists family were not in the loop so at the end of it all the label guy said to me  .. hey you probably know this catalog better then anybody now with all this unreleased stuff showing up  - so guess what  ....your the A&R guy now !
you decide the tracks for the record - you decide the running order i will keep the label  paying the bills ... but get me a finished record within the deadline

the end result was the highest selling album the artist ever had ..and the highest rate we have ever invoiced  for an album

every week when i am out fishing on my boat at night  i keep thinking  i should rename it  the  "johhny okeefe"    


then there is the boys next door- first record  ( nick cave) i found some unreleased tracks on a wierdly marked  tape once while doing another project  and the label have been messing around with that record in various forms  with me now for 6 years  - i dont think it is ever coming out

[bblackwood]

Actual length of material - mastered an en entire year's worth of NFL Films' music about five years ago, took just over a week to do it.

Actual time span spent on a project - spent six months on an album last year, though that was due in large part to the fact we were mastering as each mix was finished (and much time was spent on each mix).

[Andrew Hamilton]

Actual length of program:  apprx. 140 hours on 280 reels of Ampex 456.

Source:  open reel 1/4" half-track and mono at 7.5 and 15 ips.

Issue: All reels suffered SSS.   Got a multi-stack food dehydrator and did them in batches as I loaded in.

Complications:  un-splices! No tones!  Wild level changes between the announcer and the music.  



Time to fulfillment: about a year.  







Andrew

[Rick O'neil]

i like how varied all the types of jobs we do  even if we are talking the long ones  !

for the untrained eye it could be a good  insiders look into the real  lives of working mastering engineers ..
its not all hit singles and awards nights .. that is for sure

[Waltz Mastering]

Rick O'neil wrote on Thu, 03 February 2011 10:42

i like how varied all the types of jobs we do  even if we are talking the long ones!

I agree.  
Longest project was a 4 cd hd 24/96 project of Raga (Sitar/Tabla/Violin) for a client in India.  None of the recording parameters changed from piece to piece so it was relatively easy but had to get done over night.

By the time I was done I felt I had been enlightened by the Maharashi... or maybe I was just tired.

[Rick O'neil]

I just had that thought that i have done several box set collections where you remaster the artists entire  career catalog  ie 10 or so discs  in a box set or a itunes bundle

does it count if you mastered it the first time around then remastered it again  20 years later ?

[Jerry Tubb]

Rick O'neil wrote on Fri, 04 February 2011 01:08

does it count if you mastered it the first time around then remastered it again  20 years later ?

Did a few remasters recently that I had originally mastered back in the early 90s.

They actually weren't too bad considering my humble setup back then.

Brought them into the new millennia with the new chain though : -)

JT

Another related topic:

You know you've been mastering for a while when you master records for an artist, then in a few years, their children, and a few years later, the grandchildren. If you do your best work with a musical family, their loyalty can run for generations. One of the best compliments ever.

Cheers, JT

[SafeandSound]

I had a mastering project which started in October 2009 ended 2 days ago. (double album)

[Waltz Mastering]

Jerry Tubb wrote on Fri, 04 February 2011 15:50

Rick O'neil wrote on Fri, 04 February 2011 01:08  does it count if you mastered it the first time around then remastered it again  20 years later ? Did a few remasters recently that I had originally mastered back in the early 90s. They actually weren't too bad considering my humble setup back then. Brought them into the new millennia with the new chain though : -) JT Cheers, JT

It's always interesting to go back and hear things you've done many moons ago.

I got a call last night from a former/current client who is sending me  the tracks for a cd to re-master that I mixed for him in 94' and that Rodney Mills originally mastered... wants to bring it a little more current.

[zenmastering]

Hi All,

a 7-disc set of Mozart piano sonatas, clocking in at ~406 minutes. It was an SA-CD, including multi-channel. My assistant and I still shudder at the ~21 hour QC on that one.

All told, it took about 3 years to complete (recording, editing, re-recording, more editing, schedules, more editing, ridiculous amount of Renovator processing, etc.)

Otherwise, a 10-disc DVD set of a series of live jazz concerts that only took about eight or nine days to master, etc. The 2-disc SACD version took waaay longer due to the extremely 'primitive' tools that existed for DSD/SACD back then (16 hours for an hour-long EQ render, etc.)

Cheers,

Graemme