Remix MJ’s songs in the way they were intended?

[NatureCriminal7896]

'billie jean' was still too long after it was edited. I've been trying to find a radio edit for ages. this was the closest I could find. I wonder if this edit, or similar ones, were available in other countries as well?

This version i usually hear on the radio. they usually play it for 3 mins where i live.

 

[mj_frenzy]

Ok, now the story makes more sense.

So they say they were unhappy when they had played the first vinyl test pressing (more likely meaning a test cut (acetate), not pressing), not a tape with the master of the (at that point) final mix.

That's an important detail because it shows that the problem was actually not that the mix itself was sonically bad pre-vinyl because of time pressure (as one could think from what Michael wrote in Moonwalk), but that indeed the runtime was too long for vinyl and they had to adjust things to work against the decrease of sound quality that naturally comes from vinyl. (There is always a bit of decrease compared to tape or digital, just with runtime that is that much too long (14 min?) it becomes very obvious.) It baffles me though that they didn't have this in mind from the start, and still attempted to put way too much runtime per side. Thriller was surely not the first album they had worked on, and back then vinyl was still the main release format.

That's correct. But you can't turn that logic around and say "the better the mix, the more space it needs".
The quality of the mix itself before vinyl and the state of sonic quality after vinyl are two things.
A sonically bad mix won't become better the more space is has on vinyl. It's just that the vinyl won't worsen the sound additionally.

The devil is in the detail again with this wording.

Cutting minutes out is editing, not mixing. "we're gonna edit them down", Bruce quotes Quincy in the video. That's the part that refers to making things shorter. Back then things were recorded on large multi-track tapes. To shorten things, these tapes were physically cut and glued back together, just like film was edited. You can't shorten songs by changing the mix.

Changing the mix can only be an additional thing. Vinyl (and especially with too long runtime) always also decreases things like the stereo panning. So depending on how exactly things were not sounding right on the test pressing / cut, they possibly also tried to adjust those things to have them come out better on vinyl.

Anyway, the info given is still very simplified, and so it's hard to really see what went on in detail. It's all a very long complecated process so there's still much room for speculation. For example the mastering also always plays an important role when preparing things for vinyl. Even the cutting engineer that prepares the master for the transfer to vinyl has room to worsen things by adding / not adding the wrong / right filters and limiters etc.

Like I said before, at first they listened to the final mix of the vinyl test pressing (of the ‘Thriller’ album) which was even mastered.

I confirmed that information from two different books.

Bruce Swedien:

“…In those days, 18 minutes per side on an LP was just right for good sound. We were way over! I kept telling the guys (Michael, Quincy and Rod) that the sides are too long for good sound! They didn’t listen to me! I took the tapes to Bernie Grundman Mastering to master them and returned to Westlake Studios to play the mastered album… I played the reference LPs in the control room. We listened, and the sound on the LP was dog doo. It was horrible. Quincy remembers that we had 28 minutes on each side. I felt like shooting ‘I told you so!’…” (Bruce Swedien, ‘In The Studio With Michael Jackson’ book)

Quincy Jones:

“…He [Bruce Swedien] left with the tape to go to Bernie Grundman’s studio to master the record… By twelve o’clock we had to be back to hear the test pressing that was going out to the world… This was it, the big moment: Rod, Bruce, Michael, his managers Freddie DeMann and Ron Weisner, and myself sat down and listened to the final test pressing of a record that was to be the follow-up to Off The Wall. It was a disaster…” (Quincy Jones, ‘The Autobiography of Quincy Jones’ book)

As it also becomes apparent from those quotes, only Bruce Swedien had that in his mind (that they put a lot of playing time, around 28 minutes on each vinyl side, which affected in a negative way the sonic quality of the album).

The other three men (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Rod Temperton) were unaware of that technical sound issue.

Cutting minutes out is editing, not mixing.

I know.

But, an aspect of mixing has to do also with removing unnecessary sounds, which can lead to cutting minutes of playing time.

 

[DuranDuran]

long long long

thriller came out the end of the disco years. that's why some Michael songs were longer. during the disco years songs were longer because they use play them at dance clubs and parties.

There were long songs before disco. Like some jazz, funk, psychedelic rock, & progressive rock songs. Even the longer version of Billie Jean is short compared to a lot of other songs. Supper's Ready by Genesis is around 23 minutes long. Miles Davis' song B-----s Brew is 27 minutes and takes up an entire side of the album. A bit shorter than those is the much played southern rock track Free Bird (Lynyrd Skynyrd) which is around 9 minutes. Even today the classic rock station plays the full version. Probably the first longer song put on a 45 is Hey Jude by The Beatles. Paul McCartney did not want the song to be shortened, so George Martin & the engineers had to figure out a way to put it on a 45 without losing a lot of sound quality.

 

[Electro]

Like I said before, at first they listened to the final mix of the vinyl test pressing (of the ‘Thriller’ album) which was even mastered.

You didn't say that. "Vinyl test pressing" first came into this thread with the video ("How To Make Sonic Sound...") you posted. (Or I'm blind.)

As I tried to point out before, that's an important detail to understand how the problem came to be, because from what Michael wrote in Moonwalk, it seemed like the problem only came from time pressure during mixing.

And of course a pressed vinyl has mastered sound on it.

The order of steps is:

Production studio:
1.) production including mixing

Mastering studio:
2.) mastering (for the specific sound carrier format)
3.) cutting music from the master tape to a soft 10" or 12" acetate/lacquer disc for testing (can only be played a few times before the needle destroys the soft material)
...if approved:

Pressing plant:
4.) cutting music from master tape to a soft 14" acetate/lacquer disc
5.) this is then used for the complecated production of metallic pressing stampers via electro plating (several steps of negatives and positives)
6.) test pressing
...if approved:
7.) final pressing

... I took the tapes to Bernie Grundman Mastering to master them and returned to Westlake Studios to play the mastered album ... and the sound on the LP was dog doo ...

This quote from Swedien now confirms, that what they listened to was not a test pressing, but a test cut. Bernie Grundman Mastering was not a pressing plant. And a pressing definitly can't be made within one day. A cut is not as precise for a vinyl-sound preview as playing an actual pressing, because the electro plating always decreases sound quality a tiny bit (adding background noise etc), so the first play of a test cut will sound better. But a test cut is always a good quickly done first vinyl-preview anyway.

But, an aspect of mixing has to do also with removing unnecessary sounds, which can lead to cutting minutes of playing time.

Try to see it like this:

The mix is a "horizontal" thing. When a sound within the mix is changed (for example a snare drum is made louder or gets a reverb effect added), it is one setting on the mixing desk that will apply dynamicly to all snare drums in the whole song from start to end. That is the original meaning of mixing in music production.

Editing / Cutting is a "vertical" thing done to the multitrack tape that the music is on. Cutting something out of a song only applies to that specific small section of the song.

So again: No, mixing will not lead to a song getting shorter.
Changes in the mixing might somehow trigger the creative decision to also edit the song. But it's far fetched to see a direct correllation there. The idea to edit usually comes from song composing aspects or from being forced to make a song shorter for whatever purpose.

 

[mj_frenzy]

You didn't say that. "Vinyl test pressing" first came into this thread with the video ("How To Make Sonic Sound...") you posted. (Or I'm blind.)

As I tried to point out before, that's an important detail to understand how the problem came to be, because from what Michael wrote in Moonwalk, it seemed like the problem only came from time pressure during mixing.

And of course a pressed vinyl has mastered sound on it.

The order of steps is:

Production studio:
1.) production including mixing

Mastering studio:
2.) mastering (for the specific sound carrier format)
3.) cutting music from the master tape to a soft 10" or 12" acetate/lacquer disc for testing (can only be played a few times before the needle destroys the soft material)
...if approved:

Pressing plant:
4.) cutting music from master tape to a soft 14" acetate/lacquer disc
5.) this is then used for the complecated production of metallic pressing stampers via electro plating (several steps of negatives and positives)
6.) test pressing
...if approved:
7.) final pressing

This quote from Swedien now confirms, that what they listened to was not a test pressing, but a test cut. Bernie Grundman Mastering was not a pressing plant. And a pressing definitly can't be made within one day. A cut is not as precise for a vinyl-sound preview as playing an actual pressing, because the electro plating always decreases sound quality a tiny bit (adding background noise etc), so the first play of a test cut will sound better. But a test cut is always a good quickly done first vinyl-preview anyway.

Just to mention a correction to a minor typing error that I made in the last sentence of the quote from Bruce Swedien’s book:

The correct is of course ‘I felt like shouting’, not ‘I felt like shooting’.

Now, all of those people who have first-hand information (Bruce Swedien, Quincy Jones, etc) wrote about listening to a final test pressing, not a test cut/acetate.

Mark also Quincy Jones’ words who emphatically wrote that they listened to what exactly was going to be released to the world.

Also, John Randy Taraborrelli used the word 'pressing' too, and specifically wrote that they listened to the master pressing (final mix) of the ‘Thriller’ album:

“…However, once they played back the album - the ‘master pressing’, as the final mix was called - it didn’t sound as good as Michael thought it should…” (John Randy Taraborrelli, 'Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness’ book).

After those quotes from the three books, it is safe to say that they listened to the final test pressing, which was in the stage right before the final stage of approval.

Also, it appears that Michael Jackson erroneously thought that the very bad sound initially was due to that they rushed the mixing process because of a strict deadline.

Michael Jackson apparently lacked the technical knowledge to understand at that time the importance of the inverse relationship between vinyl playing time and sonic quality.

Try to see it like this:

The mix is a "horizontal" thing. When a sound within the mix is changed (for example a snare drum is made louder or gets a reverb effect added), it is one setting on the mixing desk that will apply dynamicly to all snare drums in the whole song from start to end. That is the original meaning of mixing in music production.

Editing / Cutting is a "vertical" thing done to the multitrack tape that the music is on. Cutting something out of a song only applies to that specific small section of the song.

So again: No, mixing will not lead to a song getting shorter.
Changes in the mixing might somehow trigger the creative decision to also edit the song. But it's far fetched to see a direct correllation there. The idea to edit usually comes from song composing aspects or from being forced to make a song shorter for whatever purpose.

But it is fairly common during the mixing process certain things to be shortened or even removed (such as, reverbs, delays, etc), which automatically leads to less playing time.

This is also called mixing.

 

[wonderouzmj]

You didn't say that. "Vinyl test pressing" first came into this thread with the video ("How To Make Sonic Sound...") you posted. (Or I'm blind.)

As I tried to point out before, that's an important detail to understand how the problem came to be, because from what Michael wrote in Moonwalk, it seemed like the problem only came from time pressure during mixing.

And of course a pressed vinyl has mastered sound on it.

The order of steps is:

Production studio:
1.) production including mixing

Mastering studio:
2.) mastering (for the specific sound carrier format)
3.) cutting music from the master tape to a soft 10" or 12" acetate/lacquer disc for testing (can only be played a few times before the needle destroys the soft material)
...if approved:

Pressing plant:
4.) cutting music from master tape to a soft 14" acetate/lacquer disc
5.) this is then used for the complecated production of metallic pressing stampers via electro plating (several steps of negatives and positives)
6.) test pressing
...if approved:
7.) final pressing



This quote from Swedien now confirms, that what they listened to was not a test pressing, but a test cut. Bernie Grundman Mastering was not a pressing plant. And a pressing definitly can't be made within one day. A cut is not as precise for a vinyl-sound preview as playing an actual pressing, because the electro plating always decreases sound quality a tiny bit (adding background noise etc), so the first play of a test cut will sound better. But a test cut is always a good quickly done first vinyl-preview anyway.





Try to see it like this:

The mix is a "horizontal" thing. When a sound within the mix is changed (for example a snare drum is made louder or gets a reverb effect added), it is one setting on the mixing desk that will apply dynamicly to all snare drums in the whole song from start to end. That is the original meaning of mixing in music production.

Editing / Cutting is a "vertical" thing done to the multitrack tape that the music is on. Cutting something out of a song only applies to that specific small section of the song.

So again: No, mixing will not lead to a song getting shorter.
Changes in the mixing might somehow trigger the creative decision to also edit the song. But it's far fetched to see a direct correllation there. The idea to edit usually comes from song composing aspects or from being forced to make a song shorter for whatever purpose.

Thanks for the free class! I learn so much about quality from this forum

 

[Electro]

Now, all of those people who have first-hand information (Bruce Swedien, Quincy Jones, etc) wrote about listening to a final test pressing, not a test cut/acetate.

Mark also Quincy Jones’ words who emphatically wrote that they listened to what exactly was going to be released to the world.

Also, John Randy Taraborrelli used the word 'pressing' too, and specifically wrote that they listened to the master pressing (final mix) of the ‘Thriller’ album:

“…However, once they played back the album - the ‘master pressing’, as the final mix was called - it didn’t sound as good as Michael thought it should…” (John Randy Taraborrelli, 'Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness’ book).

After those quotes from the three books, it is safe to say that they listened to the final test pressing, which was in the stage right before the final stage of approval.

If they listened to a test PRESSING at that point, then Bruce Schwediens quote about going to the Bernie Grundman mastering studio to master the album and then returning to the Westlake Studio with an "LP" that sounded "dog poo" makes no sense. Ignoring for a second that Bernie Grundman definitly ran no pressing plant, please show me a vinyl pressing plant that can create pressing tools and press a vinyl within one day (or even a few hours, as Bruce probably spent most of that day tweaking the master with Bernie). It's 100% not possible. It is only possible with a test cut. Creating that only takes as long as the runtime of the record.

It is possible though that, apart from Bruce, none of these people understood or cared about the difference between a cut and a pressing. They maybe understood it just as "test vinyl", and everyone knows that vinyl gets pressed, and so erroneously called it "test pressing". IF they knew the difference, it can be a matter of bad memory or of simplifying things in interviews that are made for non-experts. Or a combination of all that. To tell the dramatic story of having to redo the world famous Thriller album, the test cut / test pressing detail is not important.

Several Bernie Grundman 12" acetate test cuts of Michaels music from the Thriller and Bad era have surfaced over the years (just check discogs). So we know they had these made. The bad-sound-because-of-way-too-long-runtime-problem would have been audible on a test cut as well, so why would they only notice it on a later test pressing?

Also, it appears that Michael Jackson erroneously thought that the very bad sound initially was due to that they rushed the mixing process because of a strict deadline.

Michael Jackson apparently lacked the technical knowledge to understand at that time the importance of the inverse relationship between vinyl playing time and sonic quality.

Either that or he also simplified things to tell the story without unnecessary techy details. Also, remember that he actually had a ghostwriter who interviewed Michael and then wrote this book (Moonwalk).

But it is fairly common during the mixing process certain things to be shortened or even removed (such as, reverbs, delays, etc), which automatically leads to less playing time.

This is also called mixing.

Please, no. Removing reverbs and delays will not lead to less playing time of a song. (Well maybe a second or two, if the very last sound of the song has such an effect on.) I can't explain it better than I already have.

 

[Electro]

He's not mentioning the initial problems here, but anyway,
this is the man that mastered much of Michaels music, talking about Thriller:

 

[mj_frenzy]

If they listened to a test PRESSING at that point, then Bruce Schwediens quote about going to the Bernie Grundman mastering studio to master the album and then returning to the Westlake Studio with an "LP" that sounded "dog poo" makes no sense. Ignoring for a second that Bernie Grundman definitly ran no pressing plant, please show me a vinyl pressing plant that can create pressing tools and press a vinyl within one day (or even a few hours, as Bruce probably spent most of that day tweaking the master with Bernie). It's 100% not possible. It is only possible with a test cut. Creating that only takes as long as the runtime of the record.

It is possible though that, apart from Bruce, none of these people understood or cared about the difference between a cut and a pressing. They maybe understood it just as "test vinyl", and everyone knows that vinyl gets pressed, and so erroneously called it "test pressing". IF they knew the difference, it can be a matter of bad memory or of simplifying things in interviews that are made for non-experts. Or a combination of all that. To tell the dramatic story of having to redo the world famous Thriller album, the test cut / test pressing detail is not important.

Several Bernie Grundman 12" acetate test cuts of Michaels music from the Thriller and Bad era have surfaced over the years (just check discogs). So we know they had these made. The bad-sound-because-of-way-too-long-runtime-problem would have been audible on a test cut as well, so why would they only notice it on a later test pressing?

Either that or he also simplified things to tell the story without unnecessary techy details. Also, remember that he actually had a ghostwriter who interviewed Michael and then wrote this book (Moonwalk).

Please, no. Removing reverbs and delays will not lead to less playing time of a song. (Well maybe a second or two, if the very last sound of the song has such an effect on.) I can't explain it better than I already have.

According to available, reliable information that so far exists about that:

Bruce Swedien went with the test pressing of the album in his hands to Bernie Grundman for the final master process, and he returned back to Westlake Studios having now an exact copy (final test pressing) of what was going to be pressed in millions of other copies for the world to buy.

Also, on that day, they arrived at the Westlake Studios top executives from Epic Records (including, Larkin Arnold) in order to listen to, approve and then take with them (on the same day) that final test pressing for mass reproduction.

Quincy Jones also remarked in his book, that “in its present state, this record is unreleasable”, which indicates a final test pressing of the album (in other words, the reference LPs that Bruce Swedien writes about).

 

[Electro]

According to available, reliable information that so far exists about that:

Bruce Swedien went with the test pressing of the album in his hands to Bernie Grundman for the final master process, and he returned back to Westlake Studios having now an exact copy (final test pressing) of what was going to be pressed in millions of other copies for the world to buy.

Also, on that day, they arrived at the Westlake Studios top executives from Epic Records (including, Larkin Arnold) in order to listen to, approve and then take with them (on the same day) that final test pressing for mass reproduction.

Quincy Jones also remarked in his book, that “in its present state, this record is unreleasable”, which indicates a final test pressing of the album (in other words, the reference LPs that Bruce Swedien writes about).

Please, just stop. You clearly don't understand what you're talking about nor what I've tried to explain. There's a certain logic to the steps of vinyl production that can't be overruled just because some quotes mix up terms.

As I already wrote, in the end for most people this is a rather unimportant techy detail of this whole story and also regarding the question of the original post in the thread. Sorry everyone for going a bit off topic with this. I only noticed and mentioned it because of my own direct knowledge about vinyl production and because I like to smartass

. I explained to you why it can only make sense this way, and how it can fit together very well with the available quotes. Let's leave it at that.

 

[mj_frenzy]

Please, just stop. You clearly don't understand what you're talking about.

As I already wrote, in the end for most people this is a rather unimportant techy detail of this whole story and also regarding the question of the original post in the thread. Sorry everyone for going a bit off topic with this. I only noticed and mentioned it because of my own professional knowledge about vinyl production and because I like to smartass

. I explained to you why it can only make sense this way, and how it can fit together very well with the available quotes. Let's leave it at that.

I am just saying what these people wrote about that in their books.

They all wrote about ‘pressing’, and I will go by what these people wrote because of their first-hand information.

 

[Electro]

I am just saying what these people wrote about that in their books.

They all wrote about ‘pressing’, and I will go by what these people wrote because of their first-hand information.

You just wrote this:

Bruce Swedien went with the test pressing of the album in his hands to Bernie Grundman for the final master process, and he returned back to Westlake Studios having now an exact copy (final test pressing) of what was going to be pressed in millions of other copies for the world to buy.

The quote from Bruce you shared was this:

…In those days, 18 minutes per side on an LP was just right for good sound. We were way over! I kept telling the guys (Michael, Quincy and Rod) that the sides are too long for good sound! They didn’t listen to me! I took the tapes to Bernie Grundman Mastering to master them and returned to Westlake Studios to play the mastered album… I played the reference LPs in the control room. We listened, and the sound on the LP was dog doo. It was horrible. Quincy remembers that we had 28 minutes on each side. I felt like shooting ‘I told you so!’…

Does not match. Nor will your version make sense to anyone who ever produced a vinyl release.





One more try. The logic of Bruces' above quote explained, by his exact own words and simple provable facts:

Bruce "took the tapes" with the mixed songs to Bernie Grundman Mastering Studio "to master them and return" from there to Westlake "to play" the "LP" and it sounded "dog poo". Meaning there was no necessary week time between that mastering session and possibly getting a test PRESSING done at a PRESSING plant. It is not possible to have a PRESSING done within one day and certainly not at a place that isn't even a PRESSING plant.

So unless he has his story badly mixed up in this quote, it is crystal clear that "LP" can only mean acetate cut. Because that's the only thing he could get at that Bernie Grundman Mastering Studio. Look up this studio / company on the internet, it never was a PRESSING plant. You can't PRESS a vinyl in a mastering studio.

So if he noticed "dog poo" sound on an acetate test cut, why would he let things proceed unchanged and let CBS have an expensive test PRESSING made, to only then notice "dog poo" due to too long runtime ...again? That makes 0 sense.


mj_frency, if you want to discuss this any further please directly debunk anything of the above explanation, or please just let go now.


Btw, this is an example of what an acetate test cut of Michaels music made at the Bernie Grundman Studio looks like. A few more of them surfaced over the years. They all look like this, standard Bernie Grundman design and handmade/typewriter individual writing.

https://www.discogs.com/Michael-Jackson-Liberian-Girl/release/3297288

 

[Hudson112]

I just realized very few people actually answered my question. Lol.