Hi Neil,
A while ago you mentioned you and your team were working on reversing the CSG process of your first album. Any luck so far?
Regards,
Harm
Hi Harm,
Your request got to me, and I did some research. The short answer is -yes – we did get a musical reversal of the CSG process and it sounds great. The first thing to go up, I believe, will be the mono version which is why a CSG was generated.
If you are interested:
Holzer Audio Engineering-
Compatible Stereo Generator
It was developed by A&M in the late 60’s to service the still mono FM stations and most all AM stations. The engineer there was Howard Holzer, along with Tom May. To research what really happens to the audio I connected with Tom “Beno” May at Bernie Grundman Mastering, as he grew up running around A&M and his father worked on the CSG project.
He explained: “It split the right side up into 8 bands, and in the analog domain shifted the polarity 90 to 120 degrees so that when combined with the left side the common center channel build up of 3db would not happen”. The existing tape copies are all post CSG; Back in “the day” allot of mixing was done through the device to tape.
Funky, but it sort of worked.
I asked Beno if I could borrow the (now very dusty) units they may have on a shelf to try and go backwards and he explained, “They were all built by hand and all different; If you go backwards through the wrong unit you just compound the error and who knows what they did…?” Thank you Beno – (who by the way is the genius behind all the current electronics at Grundman Mastering).
Enter Jonathan Little, of “LittleLabs” fame. Himself an A&M engineer he designed a polarity adjusting plug in and I got it from him. Using two of them daisy chained, and a shift around 90 degrees to the right side the CSG file, the recording came to life with a wonderful original balance. So I processed two versions for you all – one in true mono as was intended for broadcast, and one in stereo as was the original mix.
I hope you enjoy the listening as much as I enjoyed the hunting! This is the first time I have heard “The Loner” as it must have been on the console. Amazing!!
My best – Neeks
Folks, The mono version is up now in the cabinet. I think this version is closest to what the original master sounded like before the CSG process. It’s truly a gift to have this, my first album ever, restored, finally sounding like its old self – 50 years later, much more like Briggs and I made it. Thanks Niko!
The CSG process was a disaster. I was a young artist and they tried it out on my first release. I didn’t even know about it until I heard my record and wondered what the heck happened to its sound. Maybe that is part of why I am so obsessed with making records sound as good as they can today.
peace ny