[Andy VanDette On Remastering 15 Rush Albums]

In a recent article/interview for the Masterdisk website, Masterdisk chief engineer Andy VanDette reveals several details regarding his experience remastering the Rush catalog for the Rush Sector box sets, which released last week. VanDette has been working with Rush sound engineer Rich Chycki on handling most of the mastering duties for Rush since Snakes & Arrows Live, having worked on that album along with Retrospective 3, the R30 Blu-ray and the Moving Pictures deluxe edition earlier this year. Here's Andy on his overall approach to the remasters along with his comments on the condition of the original master tapes:

I wanted to do as little as possible so that the masters could truly speak for themselves. Being recorded in the vinyl era, they were optimized for that medium. People like more bottom end these days — and with earbuds and laptops as the primary playback monitors, it is understandable. I tried to nudge them in a warmer, thicker direction, but not cloud the guitars or the legendary Neil Peart snare. ... Handling analog masters that are over 30 years old makes people nervous. (Laughs.) I cleaned the tape heads after every song to make sure tape shedding hadn’t even started. Indeed, some tapes didn’t sound as good as others — after all, they’ve been sitting on a shelf for however many years. In some cases the 192 kHz digital master tape copies from the Rush archive sounded better. I think those transfers would have been made about seven years ago. ...

And here's what he had to say regarding surprises and issues he ran into along the way:

... Some of the albums weren’t as thin toppy as I thought the were going to be. And for some I had a better source than the 1997 remasters. Some are brighter and clearer. Grace Under Pressure I tried for three days to make the tape transfer that I did sound as good as the existing CD. I figured that with the kind of care I put into the transfer — and having the original source — it would be a no-brainer; that this would be better than what’s been out there. But it just wasn’t the case: the tape didn’t age well. It had lost lots of clarity. So I ended up using the 192 kHz transfer.

The master for the first album [Rush] was a surprise — there was no shedding off the tape at all. There was still lots of top left. I imagine it had been baked before, and stored well afterwards. ...

.... [There were some issues with] All the World’s a Stage — what can you say. It’s really hard to make great live recordings — even today. Unfortunately, the original tapes for this one didn’t give me much to work with. I was a lot happier with Exit Stage Left. The tape transfer I did sounded better than any of the previous releases that I’m aware of. ...

... on Fly By Night I was really impressed with how well Richard [Chycki] brought the feel of the original album into 5.1. That classic snare sound remains intact! On A Show of Hands — I think that the clarity and punch came out more than in the previous releases. ...

You can really tell from the interview that Andy is a huge fan and took this job very seriously:

It was very important to me that these be the best representation of the catalog possible and I think we accomplished that. Look, I’m a fan. When I put up Hemispheres for the first time I nearly cried. I may not have been able to muster every bass riff, or sung every high note in my band, but the memories of trying were overwhelming. I could not let Rush fans down. Each and every one of these albums got the deluxe treatment.

The article also includes a bunch of great photos of the original master tapes that you will definitely want to check out. You can read the entire thing at this link (thanks Neil H). John at Cygnus-X1.net has scanned all the images and transcribed the liner notes for all 3 box sets. You can check them out at these links:

Sector 1: [Album Info] [Album Images]
Sector 2: [Album Info] [Album Images]
Sector 3: [Album Info] [Album Images]

You can order all 3 Sector box sets now at this link.

Related Posts:
[Rush Sector box sets release open thread]
[Rush Sector box sets preview video now online]
[Rush sound engineer Rich Chycki on Clockwork Angels recording, Sector box sets]
[Rush 6-disc Sector box sets; Fly by Night, A Farewell to Kings, Signals in 5.1 coming November 21st]
[Rush 5-CD Sector box sets to release November 21st]
[Rush signs with Roadrunner Records]

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