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Here's Bob Ludwig's statement regarding the engineering and mastering of Beck's new album Morning Phase:

"As the mastering engineer for Beck's "Morning Phase" album I can guarantee with 100% certainty that the album was mixed and mastered at 96kHz/24 bit. There were no Mp3 mixes, nor any mixes at any sampling rate other than 96kHz that were used.

When artists create an album, especially over a long period of time as this one was, the original multi-track sessions are often recorded at differing sampling rates, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 48kHz or 44.1kHz depending on the local studios standards, computer stability issues with high track counts etc. They may be put together as an album and mixed through an analog console at 96kHz to more accurately represent the sounds the artist and mix engineer are hearing from the mixing desk. If one looks at the resulting spectrum analysis of the master, naturally one can still see the brick-wall anti-alias filters from the original sessions, often with some low level spectrum that continues out to 48kHz (the Nyquist frequency of 96kHz) due to the harmonics generated by the analog desk, effects, filters, reverbs, noise etc. This is totally legitimate engineering.

Another thing I can guarantee with 100% certainty is that every note of "Morning Phase" has been carefully auditioned and represents Beck's artistic intention. We spent an enormous amount of time choosing mixes and mastering this album and nothing was left un-examined by myself and Beck. Beck often mentioned to me that he wanted the album to have a certain 'gritty' element to it and indeed I was sent both clean and purposefully distorted mixes on several tracks. The crushed, distorted kick drums, vocals and bass on some tracks are completely intentional and thus it represents how Beck wants this album to sound. This is art, not widgets or FFT displays."

In addition, Bob told me that he used his turntable, Dynavector cartridge and Manley Steelhead phono preamplifier to transfer a Bernie Grundman cut test pressing for the "vinyl experience" MP3 download that is included when you buy the LP. It's a good playback system, Bob told me, but contrary to what's been written online, it does not increase dynamic range! Bob told me that Chris Bellman was supposed to cut it but he was very busy and when Bernie heard the master he liked it so much he asked to cut it.