Steve Hoffman is an American audio mastering engineer.

Career

In the 1970s, Hoffman worked in radio before joining MCA Records as catalog research and development coordinator. For the next decade, he was responsible for compiling hundreds of budget cassette releases for MCA's Special Products division. His primary focus was on jazz and big band recordings.

In February 1984, Hoffman sent safety copies of several Buddy Holly master recordings to John Pickering of the Picks[1] who took them to Sound Masters studios in Houston, Texas. There, the reunited group overdubbed new vocal parts onto at least 60 recordings, and sent them back to Hoffman at MCA. The belief was that, under Hoffman's influence, MCA would have issued these "new" recordings as an album,[1] perhaps to commemorate the 25th year since Holly's death. This did not occur, and Hoffman was subsequently fired from MCA.[1] In 1992, Pickering approached Viceroy Records to arrange a deal for nationwide distribution of these overdubbed recordings, but MCA made it clear that Pickering did not have legal clearance to release such recordings.[1]

In 1985, Hoffman worked on a series of releases aimed at the CD market which bore the title "From the Original Master Tapes." This series included works of artists such as Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and John Coltrane. He also plied his trade with the Dunhill Compact Classics[2] and Audio Fidelity labels, owned by Marshall Blonstein, former vice president of Ode Records.

Approach

The adjustments Hoffman makes depend on the quality of the tape source and the equalization choices of the mixing engineer. While he avoids noise reduction, he does add subjective "colorations" through subtractive equalization and up to five layers of vacuum tube distortion.[3][4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "A Bone To Pick". Houston Press. Archived from the original on December 21, 2014.
  2. ↑ In Search of the Holy Hi-Fi Grail JazzTimes, March 2007
  3. ↑ Tape Op Magazine > Articles > Steve Hoffman
  4. ↑ Sreedhar, Suhas (August 1, 2007). "The Future of Music". IEEE Spectrum. IEEE. Retrieved March 1, 2018.
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