list of cutting engineer signatures/etches?

[dietrich10]

I found a page online last year listing many cutting engineers of the past 3+decades and how they signed their lacquers.

anyone have this link?

Best
D

[flozki]

hello.
funny i came across this list today...its on discogs.

http://www.discogs.com/help/forums/topic/182130#preview

[TotalSonic]

I can add that the scribes of the DMM's cut at Europadisk were (based by cutting engineer):

Jim Shelton (Europadisk's president and founder) whose scribe would generally say "Europadisk DMM NY" -

and then from 1993 until 2004 (when he left to briefly become a staff engineer at Masterdisk) Don Grossinger (whose scribe would say "Europadisk DMM NY USA DG" (with the DG sometimes scribes as a stylized intertwining that often looked almost a treble clef) or "Europadisk DMM NY USA Don Grossinger")

and then finally for 2004 & 2005 (when it closed) myself (with a scribe that said "Europadisk DMM SB" - with the first part in stylized block letters but with my initials in cursive).

afaik Art Blavis and aDavid Brick also cut some sides at Europadisk in the early part of its run - but I don't know what their scribes looked like.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[leo gonzalez]

http://www.discogs.com/groups/topic/168918

[leo gonzalez]

http://www.discogs.com/groups/topic/168918

though i don't think it covers the past 3 decades. or yes... if we count this decade like already gone!

also thinking that the list is basically independent mastering studios.

trying to figure out who cut in the 60-70s etc is like going into a black hole.
serial codes all over the place, de-humanizing the cutting engineer.

I'd like to know who cut this jeff beck/ian hammer lp i found some days ago! it's an A&M record, maybe bernie grudman...

would love to know that, i think doug sax cut "the wall" in LA but i think it has a serial code too as etching.


leandro.

[thomas]

Hello all,

Off topic, sorry.

Congratulations to Leandro on 1st production cut!

[dietrich10]

congrats leo!
i need to come by and see his system soon.

back on topic...i need to start doing the same sig on cuts, i change constantly

[leo gonzalez]

thanks dietrich!

lot's of work but finally getting there. enjoying every single bit of the road so far!

could not do this without thomas, fern, albert, len horowitz, flo scully-westrex-vinylium gods! everyone very supporting and patient!

monitor console next project coming!

back to the topic.

porkys:
A Porky ‘Oh yes’ Prime cut -> George Peckham
A Porky Prime Cut -> George Peckham
A PORKY PRIME CUT -> George Peckham
A Porky Prime Er-Er-Er Goldfish I Think -> George Peckham
A Porky Prime sniff sniff cut -> George Peckham
A PORKY PRIME TANGO -> George Peckham
porkeys prime cut -> George Peckham
Porky -> George Peckham
Porky Prime Cut -> George Peckham
Porky Primed -> George Peckham
Porkys -> George Peckham
Primed -> George Peckham

looks like he also changed them all the time!


probably missed: "yet another porky cut"!

[thomas]

Hello all,

Enlightening, did not realize George Peckham was Porky's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpidqcG7sSo

[dietrich10]

so who's mark is the 'RC' written in top/bottom of a large 'S'?

S =sterling
rc=?

[cd4cutter]

I believe the SRC logo that you are referring to is the logo of Specialty Records Corp. which pressed the Warner catalog in the 1970s. It's not a signature of the cutting engineer. Specialty started out as an independent pressing plant but was later bought by Warner. FYI, the cutting engineers at most of the label studios like RCA and CBS weren't allowed to sign their work, so you won't find any identifying marks showing who mastered those famous discs. Many of the early classic rock albums were mastered by label studios, not by independents, and their work is anonymous these days. Wally Traugott at Capitol was one of the few label studio engineers who signed his work.

[dietrich10]

ahhh makes sense. i see the scr on a lot of records...

[W.B.]

I believe the SRC logo that you are referring to is the logo of Specialty Records Corp. which pressed the Warner catalog in the 1970s. It's not a signature of the cutting engineer. Specialty started out as an independent pressing plant but was later bought by Warner. FYI, the cutting engineers at most of the label studios like RCA and CBS weren't allowed to sign their work, so you won't find any identifying marks showing who mastered those famous discs. Many of the early classic rock albums were mastered by label studios, not by independents, and their work is anonymous these days. Wally Traugott at Capitol was one of the few label studio engineers who signed his work.

At Columbia's New York studios, the earliest example of a mastering engineer signing his work was Stu Romaine who worked there in 1971-72; I have a few with his "SJR" signature in the deadwax including a copy of Ten Years After's A Space In Time LP (Columbia KC 30801) and a few copies of the Looking Glass' big hit "Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)" (Epic 5-10874). Romaine would later go to work at Frankford/Wayne's New York outpost starting in 1974.

In addition, a few of the mastering engineers at RCA's Chicago studios (up to its closure in 1973) had signatures and/or symbols pointing to who mastered what. One person had an "ohm" symbol, and another had what looked like Columbia's "Lp" logo interlocked, but the one engineer who is known (scribbles followed by a "K") was Randy Kling who, after 1973, transferred to Nashville (and remained a mastering engineer in that town for years after RCA shut down its Nashville studios in '77).

[Maistrow]

Good work Leandro. I know you have been
working very hard at this.
Ron
Sound Affair

[W.B.]

Some early 1970's lacquers emanating from MCA Records' Universal City, CA studios bore a signature of "B.D.I." (which sometimes, when written in script, looked like "B.D.J."). Those initials stood for Brian D. Ingoldsby, a mixing and mastering engineer of the early to mid-1970's who later worked elsewhere in the industry, and died in 2005.

Now which of MCA's mastering engineers there bore the initials "DWJ"?

[Deke Dickerson]

On the same subject, but probably not of much interest--

If you look at the trailout of many early 1960s 45's from Memphis, you'll see a stamp with the "Phillips" logo, for Sam Phillips Recording Studio, and the initials "SM". These discs were cut by Scotty Moore, Elvis' first guitarist. He went on to work for Sam Phillips recording studio for several years in the 1960s, then went on to work in Nashville for the next few decades.

For a music geek, though, finding one of these 45's or LP's with "SM-Phillips" engraved in the matrix is exciting, given Scotty's place in rock and roll history.

Deke

[W.B.]

I just stumbled upon the answer to the question of the DWJ initials in lacquers mastered for MCA in the 1970's. On this page, a scan of such initials in the deadwax were on the page for a mastering engineer who later went to work at JVC Studios by the end of the decade - Darryl (W.) Johnson.