The RVG sound is determined not by the cutting EQ curve but by the session recording and mastering stages. A 3-way LTAS comparison of three CDs of the 1958 Somethin' Else (1987 McMaster / 1999 RVG Edition / 2009 AP)

Where is the RVG sound made? A 3-way LTAS of Somethin' Else

Question answered on this page: Where is Rudy Van Gelder's "sound" actually shaped? Is it determined by the cutting EQ curve, or is it built up at other stages? Three CDs of the 1958 Somethin' Else recording (1987 McMaster / 1999 RVG Edition / 2009 AP) are compared via long-term average spectrum (LTAS) to find out.

← For the cutting equipment and EQ curve discussion, see the related FAQ: What equipment did Rudy Van Gelder use for cutting?

The "RVG sound" is not about the EQ curve

Van Gelder's recordings have a distinctive sonic character known as the "RVG sound." Some have attributed this to differences in EQ curves, but in reality it was the entire signal chain that created "that sound."

Around 1951, Van Gelder acquired a Neumann U47 — a German condenser microphone that barely existed in the United States at the time — and began using it on sessions from January 1953. Its sensitivity and detail in the high frequencies, unrivaled by the American RCA ribbon and Western Electric microphones that came before it, was one of the starting points of the RVG sound (RVG Legacy).

Beyond microphone choice, program EQ, tape dubbing techniques, and compression processing all combined across multiple stages to shape a single, distinctive sound. Importantly, Van Gelder's work can be divided broadly into two stages — the session recording stage (microphones to tape) and the mastering stage (LP cutting master creation, and later CD remastering) — and his involvement with the sound was qualitatively different at each stage.

Session recording stage — "no radical EQ"

In the article Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack: Defining the Jazz Sound in the 1950s, published by jazz historian Dan Skea in Current Musicology nos.71-73 (Columbia University, 2002), there is a quote from a 1999 telephone interview with guitarist Les Paul, who knew Van Gelder over many years:

"The most impressive thing about Rudy ... is that Rudy was conservative and not being radical with any equalization or extreme experiments. He was one to remain stable. ... if something good went in, it came out that way."

— Les Paul, telephone interview, 1999, quoted in Dan Skea, "Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack: Defining the Jazz Sound in the 1950s," Current Musicology nos.71-73 (2002), p.67

Note that Les Paul does not explicitly distinguish which stage (session recording, cutting, or overall working approach) he is referring to; but at minimum, "not running radical EQ experiments" can be read from this.

That said, Van Gelder did not do nothing at the session recording stage. The center of his sound shaping was not EQ manipulation, but rather the use of his Hackensack home living room as a recording space, and the choice and placement of microphones for each instrument.

The Hackensack studio was the living room of the home Van Gelder's parents had built in 1946 (25 Prospect Avenue). With its 10-foot (about 3-meter) ceiling, the archway opening into the adjacent dining room, and the corridors and irregular nooks running off toward the kitchen and bedrooms, the space happened to produce a sound well suited to recording small-group jazz: moderately dry, but with a sense of dimension that did not muddy the reverberation (Skea 2002, pp.57, 68).

Rather than the standard practice of the time — placing a single microphone at a significant distance from an orchestra — Van Gelder adopted a style of using multiple microphones, including the Telefunken U47, placed close to each individual instrument. The U47's amplifier section was not designed for such close-range use, but engineer Rein Narma modified its circuitry so that it could handle close-miking without distortion (Skea 2002, p.61).

For the piano in particular, Van Gelder painstakingly tried different microphone positions, asking the player to repeat the same phrase while he experimented, in order to arrive at his distinctive piano image. Pianist Billy Taylor, who began recording at Van Gelder's studio around 1949–1950, later recalled:

"He was the first engineer that I worked with who was that sensitive, and really just took time and cared about mike placement and all that sort of stuff. ... I'd play something, and he'd put a mike in one place and go back in the other room. And then say, 'Okay, let's try that again,' and put a mike somewhere else. ... And he actually captured the sound that I was looking for, and ultimately that seemed, to my ear, to be the basis of his piano sound."

— Billy Taylor, telephone interview, 1999, quoted in Dan Skea, "Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack: Defining the Jazz Sound in the 1950s," Current Musicology nos.71-73 (2002), pp.59–60

In 1959, Van Gelder left the Hackensack living room and built a dedicated studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The design was entrusted to architect David Henken, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Van Gelder drew on Boston Symphony Hall, where he had recorded and studied the acoustics, and Columbia Records' 30th Street Studio (of the latter, Van Gelder said, "I liked virtually everything I heard out of there") in shaping the design. The construction featured cinder-block walls cast in tan-pigmented blocks, a tall pointed ceiling supported by four massive laminated Douglas fir arches with cedar tongue-and-groove decking, and no professional acousticians were hired — none of the contemporary soundproofing practices were used. Until isolation booths were added in the 1970s, the live room was a single large space, much like Columbia's 30th Street Studio (RVG Legacy Construction, Opening).

Whereas the Hackensack era relied on the room's accidental acoustics, at Englewood Cliffs Van Gelder deliberately designed the room sound itself. That the center of his sound shaping at the recording stage lay not in EQ manipulation but in the design of space and microphones is borne out by the direction of effort and money he poured into it.

This sound shaping — the studio's acoustics, close-miking of each instrument, and the trial-and-error microphone work exemplified by piano — is locked in once it is captured to the recording master tape. It cannot be rewritten at later stages such as LP cutting or CD remastering, and it is the recording-side fingerprint that all reissues derived from the same recording master tape inherit in common.

Van Gelder himself also described his role at the session recording stage in a 2005 Michael Cuscuna interview, quoted in Chris M. Slawecki's All About Jazz article:

"I had a different responsibility at that time. ... I was trying to make these individual people be heard in the way that they wanted to be heard."

— Van Gelder, interview by Michael Cuscuna, quoted in Chris M. Slawecki, "Blue Note and Recording Master Re-Present RVG's Heritage – Rudy Van Gelder," All About Jazz, June 14, 2005

Van Gelder himself, in a 2012 JazzWax interview that journalist Marc Myers conducted at the Englewood Cliffs studio over the course of a year, recalled that the Blue Note sound was not his judgment alone but was the technical realization of producer Alfred Lion's intended sound:

"Alfred was rigid about how he wanted Blue Note records to sound, so I just had to give him what he had in mind."

— Rudy Van Gelder, interview by Marc Myers, JazzWax Pt.4, February 16, 2012

And in Pt.3 of the same interview, Van Gelder made it clear that he did not intend to limit his work to the recording stage but treated the subsequent mastering as his own area of responsibility:

"I always wanted to be in control of the entire recording chain—from the initial recording through mastering. Why not? It had my name on it."

— Rudy Van Gelder, interview by Marc Myers, JazzWax Pt.3, February 15, 2012

In other words, the original Blue Note sound is the result of joint work that includes Van Gelder's recording, Alfred Lion's sonic direction, and the entire mastering process that follows — a finished product built up by stages distinct from the sound captured on the recording master tape.

Mastering stage — the "intentionally changing the sound" process

Here, distinct from the choice of the cutting EQ curve (RIAA, etc.), we use "mastering stage" broadly to mean the process of adjusting volume, frequency balance, dynamics, and stereo image. The constraints and goals differ between LP cutting master creation and later CD remastering, but they share the trait that (starting from the recording master tape) some kind of sonic shaping is added.

Van Gelder himself, in his 1995 Audio Magazine interview, frankly admitted that he is "intentionally changing the sound" in this mastering stage:

"Intentionally changing the sound! Changing the loudness to softness, the highs to lows. Yes, it's a very elaborate procedure; it is a part of the recording process that most people don't even know exists."

— Van Gelder, interview by James Rozzi, Audio Magazine, November 1995

Note that "changing the sound" here refers not to the choice of the cutting EQ curve (RIAA, etc.) but to program processing such as level, dynamics, and frequency balance.

Van Gelder's view of LP as a medium constraint is equally direct:

"The biggest distorter is the LP itself. ... It was a constant battle to try to make that music sound the way it should. It was never any good."

— Van Gelder, interview by James Rozzi, Audio Magazine, November 1995

About the Blue Note RVG Edition CD series that began in 1999 (the reissue series in which Van Gelder himself remastered the original recording master tapes for CD), Van Gelder said in the 2005 Michael Cuscuna interview, quoted in the Slawecki article:

"When you first called me, I thought, 'Wow. That's the best job I ever had.' ... This is my opportunity to present my version of how those things should sound. What a great job this is!"

— Van Gelder, interview by Michael Cuscuna, quoted in Chris M. Slawecki, "Blue Note and Recording Master Re-Present RVG's Heritage – Rudy Van Gelder," All About Jazz, June 14, 2005

"The remastering series has enabled me to get closer to the music ... much closer than I ever could before. ... I could do a much better job."

— Van Gelder, interview by Michael Cuscuna, quoted in Chris M. Slawecki, "Blue Note and Recording Master Re-Present RVG's Heritage – Rudy Van Gelder," All About Jazz, June 14, 2005

What can be read from Van Gelder's own phrases — "how those things should sound" and "do a much better job" — is that the RVG Edition CDs were not work to recreate the LP-era sound on CD, but rather Van Gelder reconstructing "how those things should sound" within the freedom of the CD medium.

Van Gelder himself, in JazzWax Pt.4 (2012), recalled the process of cutting a lacquer master from the final tape as follows:

"I'd put a blank lacquer disc on the Scully's platter and make adjustments for lines per inch and levels. Then I'd start the platter turning and lower the lathe's stylus."

— Rudy Van Gelder, interview by Marc Myers, JazzWax Pt.4, February 16, 2012

Van Gelder himself describes the lacquer master cutting process only as "adjustments for lines per inch and levels," without speaking to specific operations such as EQ or compression. What kinds of sound shaping took place at this stage cannot be derived directly from his 2012 testimony alone, and must be examined through other testimony or measurement.

Steve Hoffman's interpretation and Van Gelder's own account

Regarding what specific sound shaping took place at the mastering stage — and especially what happened at the LP cutting master stage — the U.S. mastering engineer Steve Hoffman has published an interpretation on the web along the following lines:

(1) at least 3:1 dynamic range compression; (2) a +5 to +6 dB boost in the upper midrange (around 3 to 6 kHz); (3) a boomy boost in the upper bass; (4) a complete cut of the low bass (below 60 Hz); (5) a complete cut of the tip top end (above 12 kHz). Hoffman's interpretation is that these five items combined as a "midrange-forward 'old hi-fi' tonal shaping with heavy compression" formed Van Gelder's sound shaping at the LP cutting stage (Hoffman's own website, and a Music Matters Blue Note reissue forum post).

That said, this is Hoffman's interpretation, not Van Gelder's own statement. Van Gelder, in the 2012 JazzWax interview, tends to avoid going into technical details:

"nothing is simple and everything is complex."

— Rudy Van Gelder, interview by Marc Myers, JazzWax Pt.3, February 15, 2012

His response style does not lend itself to specific EQ-and-compression checklists.

In any case, all of these sound-shaping items belong to the mastering stage, and are a separate process — independent from the choice of the cutting EQ curve (RIAA, etc.). In the next section, we measure three CD sources of the 1958 Somethin' Else recording and look at the correspondence between Hoffman's five items (interpretation) and the objective measurement results (observation).

Measuring the 1958 Somethin' Else

The following is a case study illustrating with a concrete example this FAQ's central point: that "mastering-stage sound shaping is a separate matter from the cutting EQ curve."

What the axes of Van Gelder's mastering-stage sound shaping are can also be seen in objective measurement of digital sources. For Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else (Blue Note BST-81595, recorded 1958) — a towering masterpiece — the author compared three CD sources arranged in release-year order:

1. Capitol / Blue Note 0777 7 46338 2 6 (1987): a CD made in the early CD era by Ron McMaster. The sleeve credit reads "Digital Transfer by Ron McMaster," which is presumed to be a plain transfer from the tape, dating from before the term "remaster" was established
2. Blue Note 7243 4 95329 2 2 (1999): RVG Edition, a CD remaster by Van Gelder himself
3. Analogue Productions CBNJ 81595 SA (2009): SACD/CD hybrid disc, CD layer, by Kevin Gray + Steve Hoffman. Both engineers have publicly stated their "minimal mastering" philosophy (Steve Hoffman, Tape Op interview), and this disc is also presumed to be a transfer close to "minimal active sound shaping"

(1) is a plain transfer from the early CD era, (2) is a CD remaster by RVG himself, and (3) is a transfer from the recording master with active sound shaping kept to a minimum — the three differ in character.

Below are the results of the author's long-term average spectrum (LTAS) comparative analysis of all 6 tracks on these three discs (analysis conditions: Welch PSD, Hann window, 64k FFT, 50% overlap, 1/12-octave smoothing, 6-track duration-weighted average).

Loudness and dynamics

(1) and (3) show roughly the same RMS level and roughly the same crest factor, with per-track peaks varying naturally. By contrast, (2) RVG Edition alone is about +6 to +8 dB louder, has a crest factor about 5 dB smaller, and pins all 6 tracks' peaks to the value of -0.18 dBFS. This is strong evidence that limiter / normalization processing has been applied in (2).

Spectral shape (1 kHz normalized)

In the midrange (500 Hz - 4 kHz) the 3 discs match completely (a sanity check that they originate from the same recording master tape). In the low end at 100-200 Hz, (1) and (3) show roughly the same value, and only (2) RVG Edition is reduced by about -3 dB. In the high end, (1) and (2) are relatively close, while (3) AP is somewhat suppressed (likely some kind of noise reduction processing in the recording master tape's hiss region).

Mid/Side power ratio (degree of stereo image centering)

(1) Mc and (3) AP both retain a natural stereo image of about +1 to +4 dB (the wide stereo image of the 1958 recording is alive); whereas (2) RVG Edition alone is on a different order, sitting at +13 to +21 dB and far more centered.

Centering and compression are processing newly added at the RVG Edition CD 1999 stage

A decisive fact emerges from the comparison of the 3 discs.

(1) Mc 1987 is a plain transfer from the early CD era; (3) AP 2009 is a transfer with active sound shaping kept to a minimum — both retain a natural stereo image and a natural crest factor. That both discs independently show the same property means it is a property common to both the recording master tape and the LP cutting master tape, not a coincidence of having been made from different master tapes (in the previous AP-and-RVG-Edition-only 2-disc comparison, the possibility that the two used different master tapes logically remained).

Only (2) RVG Edition CD 1999 holds together centering (M/S +14 to +21 dB), compression (limiter + crest factor about -5 dB), and low-end reduction. The 3-disc comparison objectively confirms that these are processing newly added at the remastering stage of (2) the RVG Edition CD (1999).

Correspondence between Hoffman's five items (interpretation) and the 3-way LTAS (observation)

The 5 items from Hoffman cited in the previous section (Steve Hoffman's interpretation as published on the web), arranged alongside the 3-way LTAS observation, look as follows.

(1) compression and (5) centering were decisively confirmed by 3-way LTAS as new processing introduced at the RVG Edition CD 1999 stage. Hoffman's 5 items are merely Hoffman's interpretation, not statements by Van Gelder himself, so the stage to which each item belongs (the recording stage, the LP cutting master stage, or the CD remaster stage) needs to be backed up individually by objective measurement.

"A spectrum of straightness": McMaster ≧ AP ≫ RVG Edition

If the 3 discs' sound shaping is arranged by straightness, the ordering is as follows.

• Most straight: (1) McMaster 1987: A "Digital Transfer," as the sleeve credit literally indicates. A plain transfer that includes the recording master tape's hiss
• Almost straight: (3) AP 2009: Consistent with the Kevin Gray + Steve Hoffman "minimal mastering" approach. Yet not entirely untouched — there is some kind of noise reduction processing in the very high end
• Prominent sound shaping: (2) RVG Edition 1999: Of the 3 discs, the only one with active sound shaping (loudness, compression, centering, low-end reduction) added

The cutting EQ curve and sound shaping are separate matters

What the foregoing leads to is simple:

• The cutting EQ curve has been consistent as RIAA from early 1955 onward, based on equipment records and Van Gelder's own testimony (→ What equipment did Rudy Van Gelder use for cutting?)
• The sonic shaping done in the mastering stage (whether for LP cutting masters or for CD remasters) is a process independent of the cutting EQ curve. The centering, compression, and low-end reduction observed above are all processing that was newly added at the (2) RVG Edition CD 1999 stage, as confirmed by objective measurement
• Perceptual differences such as "the original sounds different from the reissue" or "CD A sounds different from CD B" are not, on their own, grounds for inferring a difference in the cutting EQ curve

→ What factors besides the EQ curve affect the sound of a record?

Further reading

• What equipment did Rudy Van Gelder use for cutting? — RVG's cutting equipment lineage, the AES → RIAA transition, and Van Gelder's own 1955 Down Beat testimony
• EQ curve vs. mastering — which determines the sound? — A conceptual organization of how large the mastering-stage influence is
• What factors besides the EQ curve affect the sound of a record? — How each stage of the signal chain affects the sound

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