Hi Jim,
I m surprised about Lee Hulko s initials being on some of the parts. In all these years I had never come across any copies with his initials before.
When there were big orders of certain titles and there wasn t physically enough time for one person to crank out the lacquers as fast as the record company wanted, sometimes we would help each other out.
For instance, my initials might appear on a Beatles record that Lee mastered.
In every case, compared to now, those titles were relatively easy to master. Once one of us mastered an album and it was approved, we made careful notes, either one of us could cut it and it should come out the same. Back then, Lee and I shared the one room and worked different hours so it is possible one of the plants blew a part and needed a replacement right then with no delay.
So after I mastered the album which Eddie Kramer Atlantic approved it was shipped to all the radio stations and the initial pressing was all from me and Sterling Sound.
Amhet Ertegun at Atlantic heard the album which Eddie demanded be as hot as possible and apparently it skipped on his daughters little turntable. Instead of calling us at Sterling and asking us to lower the level a little and telling us where it skipped, they had the disk cutters at Atlantic use my EQ d cassette file copy and they cut it WAY lower than my original cut plus, in my opinion, it sounded dull and generally not very good sounding in comparison.
So all the disks that were played at the radio stations and all the initial pressings world wide came from me and apparently Lee cut a part or two and that was what sold the record and made it a hit. A year later, whenever I visited someone I would look at their Zeppelin II album to see if it was my cut or Atlantic s cut. It was easy to see by eye, the Atlantic cut ended much farther from the label and the grooves to the naked eye looked very conservative.
I still got to Master Houses of the Holy later on, no skipping problems with that as far as I know
I hope this clears this up for you.
All my best,
Bob Ludwig
Gateway Mastering Studios Inc
428 Cumberland Ave
Portland Maine 04101
207 828 9400
staff AT gatewaymastering.com
