who does the mastering for mosaic anyway?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

has it been multiple people, or one person for all? and yea, do you know on steve hoffman, some people absoutely positivitly, HATE RVG, they talk about like this "mystery buzz" which is on all his recordings that cant be corrected

[Shrdlu]

Aric, they have used a variety of guys over the years - alas, including you-know-who. Malcolm Addey has done some outstanding work for them, including the wonderful Mulligan Concert Jazz Band set.

[Guest Bixieland]

Great Topic! I love discussing this, as any art--mastering is absolutely an art. It's the presentation of a work, probably the funnest part, since the blood and tears part is over...now,...how are you going to present it? Dark? Warts and all? Crisp and upfront?

For Mosaic there's been many. In addition to the amazing remastering/engineering work of Mr Malcolm Addey, there's been Ted Kendall, Doug Pomeroy and I believe Ron McMaster. McMaster seems to do much or all of the Capitol stuff. He's good. He's a nice balance between the crisp and dynamic Addey and the smoother Kendall. Kendall has gotten some bad reviews for noise reduction. I would probably have agreed, but I'm currently collecting the JSP complete Fats Waller's that he did...and they're gorgeous! They're mellow and kind of distant...which is a fascinating way to view Waller. Like John RT Davies, the sound is full and warm but still has detail. You know your listening to old analogue music, and there's no digital feel...so you can forget you're listening to a CD. I also like how he added just a smidge more silent space than usual between the tracks--allows the previous track to fade from your mind's ear.

I think Pomeroy did the Venuti/Lang set...which is absolutely scary good. They sound like they could of been recorded yesterday. It's amazing to hear stuff from the 20s that sounds so clean and crisp.