[Slowhand] Wheels Of Fire DCC

[Art Arias]

This is a post from Steve Hoffmans site about
remastering Cream's Wheels Of Fire....

Steve's adventures with re-engineering Cream's Wheels
Of Fire Gold DCC disk: 

Why was Wheels Of Fire a specially difficult project
for you? 

Steve:

Well, it was the first DCC gold disc I worked on. I
picked the title 
myself and there was a lot of pressure to get it to
sound good. 
Also, it had to be a double disc and was going to cost
$50.00 right 
out of the gate. Ouch.

I'll skip over the artwork adventures, how we found
the original 
foil vendor and day-glow ink vendors so we could
exactly duplicate 
the first Atco LP pressing. That took months. Also,
I'll skip over 
PolyGram's righteous indignation when we reproduced
the ATCO in the 
album cover. Wow, were they mad! They were also mad
when they found 
out that our buddy at PolyGram Bill Levenson sent us
"extras" to use 
on the disc like the edit outtake pieces of "Passing
The Time" 
and "Anyone For Tennis".

When I first got the tapes, I was not thrilled. We got
many reels 
including the master mixes, retrieved by Bill Inglot
from Atlantic 
where they had sat since 1968, even though they lost
rights in the 
1970's. They sounded ok, but muddy and the safety
reels and the 
overseas copies sounded shrill and thin. Someone tried
to compensate 
for the muddiness by just jacking up the upper
midrange and top end. 
Urrgh.

I listened to all copies of the original LP, the
original ATCO, the 
recut ATCO, the Record Club versions, the Polydor UK
versions, etc. 
Also the current PolyGram CD version. I sure didn't
like the way ANY 
of them sounded. 

I guess I had forgotten how much I wasn't thrilled
about Tom Dowd's 
mixes and how there seemed to be no bass but just mud
down there. 
Some of the mixes were the dreaded CSG and some were
plain stereo. 
But, it was too late to turn back so I went into the
studio 
(Location Recording Service in Burbank) and started
listening to the 
tapes on the big ol' vintage studio monitors they had
in Studio B. I 
guess I wanted to hear what Tom Dowd heard when he
mixed everything 
and why he did what he did (soon to be repeated for
"Hotel 
California" and other strange sounding master mixes
for DCC's Gold 
Disc projects). After a week of scratching my head, I
realized that 
my best chance to get this to sound improved over
other versions was 
to NOT try and fix the top end and NOT try to "mask"
everything 
(like console noise, pops and pot crackle) and just
concentrate on 
the midrange and the bass. 

I needed a LOT of extra EQ to make my ideas about how
to fix the 
bass work, so we patched in three Sontec Paramterics
in a row and I 
set to work. I tried a lot of stuff and finally got
the low end the 
way I liked it; you could hear Ginger's bass drum now
and less mud 
in Jack's six string bass.

I lived with this a month and then tried to do
something (anything) 
to fix the "practice pad" of Ginger Baker's snare drum
sound. I 
wasted a week on this before I decided to SCREW IT and
just focus in 
on the vocal sound. If I could get that to sound
"lifelike", I could 
live with the crappy snare sound. So, I discovered
some of my (soon 
to be used all of the time) tricks to enhance the
vocals so they 
would at least sound like real people. Tubes came in
to play here 
for the first time on one of my projects. Kevin Gray
turned me on to 
the use of tubes and I always try and thank him for
that, even 
though it raises the temperature by at least 10
degrees in the room.

When I got everything fixed to my satisfaction, I
scheduled a real 
MASTERING date and we lined up all of the gear and I
gave it a shot 
in real time using the actual master tapes instead of
the tape copy 
I made to save wear and tear. Too many mastering moves
for one pair 
of hands so I drafted Kevin Gray and even my
ex-girlfriend Robin 
to "do stuff" during the songs. Six hands working the
mastering 
console was pretty trippy. Too bad I didn't take any
photos.

At any rate, I was finally happy with everything and
even though 
it's not a great recording to begin with, I think the
DCC version 
sounds the best that it can. I love the album so I
forgive the sonic 
weaknesses.

When the DCC version was issued, both Ginger Baker and
Jack Bruce 
loved it (phew!) I was worried that I would get a lot
of letters 
complaining about the noisy Atlantic mixing console
and hissy mic 
pre's because I left all of the non-musical "sounds"
of the 
recordings intact, but I was mistaken. No one
complained.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I can
still listen to 
the DCC version of "Wheels Of Fire" without thinking
that something 
needs changing or fixing; in other words, with
pleasure.

This project is where I first worked with vacuum tubes
on a master 
and where I learned many of my so called "tricks" for
bringing life 
to rather dead sounding tapes WITHOUT harming dynamic
range, etc. 
I've used many of these techniques ever since!

After mastering this I tackled CREAM'S "Fresh Cream"
but that is 
another adventure...


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