Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler half-speed mastering details revealed.

Abbey Road mastering engineer Miles Showell provides Super Delux Edition magazine with a fascinating insight into researching tape sources as well as some of the processing involved that includes Analoguetube's AT-101.

SDE: Could you remind us what your go to analogue mastering chain is, again?

Miles: Sure, I have various EQs, my go to is a SONTEC MES-432C which is a hand built esoteric American unit, I also have EQs from Manley (Massive Passive Mastering edition), Dangerous Music and Maselec as well as some original EMI TG mastering EQs. Although, unless faced with an audio salvage situation, then I adopt the less is more approach when it comes to processing, preferring to let the original recordings speak for themselves. Therefore, for both of these albums, only the Sontec & Dangerous Music EQ were used as the original recordings are excellent.

Compression-wise I have a gorgeous Analogue Tube AT-101 which is a really faithful recreation of the legendary Fairchild 670, but without 60 years of wear and tear and indifferent maintenance. This is an all tube (valve) design and it is incredible. I should stress that at no point is the sound seriously compressed for these albums, but if you want a rock record to rock, then some subtle compression can really hit the spot. In the console here I also have a Shadow Hills Industries compressor, but the Analogue Tube AT-101 was the order of the day.

Universal Music has reissued half-speed mastered vinyl pressings of Dire Straits‘ 1985 album Brothers in Arms and Mark Knopfler‘s 1983 soundtrack to Bill Forsyth’s film Local Hero.

Both albums have digital master tapes, but Abbey Road mastering engineer – and half-speed specialist – Miles Showell talks exclusively to Super Delux Edition magazine about the detective work required to source the correct tapes in preparation for the half-speed mastering process and some surprising discoveries along the way.

You can also see Miles Showell's AT-101 compressor here where he unboxes Mark Knopfler’s Studio Albums collection.