JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Recording Studio and Gear Forum What to Bring to The Mastering Facility ?

I have some questions on any given Pro Mastering facility's potential work on my own finished product.

As I have been learning and practicing with EQ and Compressors and all that on my work at home on the PC (Cakewalk HS XL), I have been trying to educate myself on the Mastering process. I have seen on a few different discussion boards that there is a sometimes heated debate about whether a person can do the job at home, or must take it to a pro facility to get "radio ready" product. Those issues of quality are a whole other discussion whose technical details I couldn't comprehend yet.

So, let's assume for this discussion that I WILL be taking my stuff in to a pro mastering engineer....

Can anyone help me answer these things?:

1) how much effects processing should I labor on if I am eventually going to a mastering facility? It seems more logical/economical to do as much processing myself as I can ahead of time.

2) BUT, Are all my effects (simple Cakewalk stock effects) going to translate?

3) If indeed my own processing work is compatible with the Mastering place's stuff, in what form would I bring my work ??

Thanks

As you have observed, there are many opinions on this. Here is some basic stuff to keep in mind.

1. Anything you do to make YOUR mix complete should be done. This includes any individual reverbs, delays, compression (on individual tracks), EQ, etc.

2. Avoid using effects on the WHOLE mix such as compression/EQ on the master buss or fader. The tools at a mastering facility will be of much higher quality and sound better. You may also mess something up that the mastering engineer will then need to "undo". Their monitors will expose flaws that you probably won't be able to hear. Many times they have monitor speakers that can cost $10-20,000 (or more): they are VERY revealing of flaws.

3. You can provide many different formats to mastering companies, but mostly they prefer 24-bit files to 16-bit files - so don't use dither to go from 24 to 16 bits either. They will have a means to dither to 16-bits that will most likely sound better than your plugin (whatever it is).

4. You can usually give them wav files, aiff or sdii files, or even an audio CD (although audio is not the best format since it's 16-bits). Some people bring in DATs (although they're also 16-bits). Some people bring in their 1/4" or 1/2" analog master if they have one. Some people bring in DATs, wavs, AND 1/4" analog masters and decide there which to use.

However, many mastering facilities can run your 24-bit files through an analog tape machine to warm it up a bit, if you want.

The main thing to keep in mind is that their tools are better than yours so you want to minimize what you change on the overall mix buss and leave that part to them.

A pro mastering facility can accept just about any format you give them. If you over-compress your mix, it's difficult to undo that, so don't compress your mix buss.

Just get your mix sounding as much like a commercial recording as you can without any effects or plugins on the master buss. Then give them a 24-bit file on a CDR (not audio) and you'll be fine.

You will also want to take some commercial CDs to the mastering facility to give them an idea of the "sound" you'd like to get. That will help them immensely.



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Larry
www.audibleresponse.com

Thank you Larry -One question-

the idea of 24-bit vs. 16-bit.

I had originally thought going simple with 16/44 was best. Every thing I had seen said that "CD Quality" was 16- bit, and not to mess with 24 bit because it wouldn't make a huge differnce for the type of music I was doing (heavy rock). But you're saying that a mastering facility would have to convert it upwards to 24-bit? This is all fine but I want to get it straight for myself before I really do much more.

Thanks

Sorry one more thing-

Is it possible to go up to 24 bit /48 k sampling ?. I mean are those numbers compatible? I'd like to avoid 24/96 but if thats the only way to get 24-bit I'll work with it-

thanks

If you've recorded your material at 16-bits, then the mastering facility will decide whether to add 8 more bits to do processing on it or not. If they do everything with analog equipment, it doesn't matter, but if they are going to use digital processing, they will probably want to convert it to 24-bits to give them more number-crunching bits. Let them do this.

Remember, the bit depth is totally separate from the sampling rate (44.1, vs 48 vs 96K).

If you've recorded everything at 48K, then they will eventually need to convert it to 44.1. This can be done any number of ways and it's probably best to let them decide how to do that. Do NOT try to convert from 48 to 44.1 yourself. Their equipment will do a MUCH better job of it.

My suggestion for people planning CDs has been to record at 44.1 and 24-bits. Using 96K is also an option, but it's not as common as it will be in a year or two.

Some audio programs/cards can record up to 192K. The word is that that doesn't get you anything audibly better than 96K, but 96K does sound better than 44.1 or 48K - this has mainly to do with the heavy filtering that must take place in the upper audible frequencies for digital audio. It has less to do with using frequencies only dogs can hear.

Converting from 48 to 44.1 will ALWAYS degrade the sound. You can do this with sample-rate converters (good ones are very expensive), by going through another analog-to-digital conversion while recording the new version at 44.1, or by recording your material to an analog tape format. All of these methods are best left to the mastering studio.

48K was introduced for a couple of reasons, neither of which really helped the producer/artist:

1. To make it impossible to do a direct digital transfer directly from 48K onto a CD (since redbook CDs are 44.1K). This was an early attempt to minimize any digital counterfeiting of music.

2. To be compatible with video and game music. Music for video is recorded on VHS at 48K; DVD-Audio is mostly 96K. Some games also use 48K (or even 24K) sampling rates.

However, there are plenty of good-sounding CDs made at 16-bits and 48K. Let the mastering facility convert them to 44.1 using the best equipment they have.

Hope that helps!


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Larry
www.audibleresponse.com

Great/thank you very much

Its settled then, I will go to 24 bit/44.1 sample

I had been doing alot of tinkering and test runs with a couple of my songs on my new computer and Cakewalk and have been completely thrilled with the whole thing. That was at 16/44.1.

The tinkering and training are over now, so now I am facing the facts and going through choosing and revising/de-constructing/re-constructing the songs for my CD. Its going to take a while before I get back on the computer. I am glad I asked about this. I will reset my Bits to 24 and keep the 44.1 sample rate.

Thanks again!