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| Here are some useful tips to ease you through the process of mastering and to make sure that everything goes through smoothly! |
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Timescales
Please don’t leave your mastering until the last minute! Allow as much time as possible. Once you are near to completing your mixing give us a quick call or email to let us know when to expect your material. Although we will do our very best to turn around your mastering as quickly as possible, we often get very busy. If you are on a tight deadline then please do tell us so that we can try to accommodate your needs. A bit of forward planning means a lot less stress and rushing if we can book you a slot in advance.
In addition, please allow a bit of extra time for things that you may not have thought about. Masters getting lost in the post, remixes required, illness etc. It may sound obvious but we have seen deadlines missed through failed time planning!
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Your masters
Please label your masters clearly. Include your name, band/company, phone number and email address. We have hundreds of CDRs in the studio at any one time. We are very careful, but please help to make our job easier!
Allow at least 1-2 seconds of silence between your Start IDs and the beginning of your tracks. This prevents the beginning of your tracks being cut off.
Please include a track sheet containing a list of your songs along with song times. For a guide please download our template here.
Also include:
- Any changes that you want made. Include comments about clicks, EQ, noise etc with track times.
- Any examples of commercial recordings that have a sound that you are after.
- Any fade-ins, fade-outs and cross-fades you want. Also include approximate start and end points.
- Think about the gap you want between tracks. We will try and make the album flow as we think best, but if you have some definite ideas then please let us know.
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Formats
Given the increasing popularity of computer based DAW mixing, the most popular format to provide masters is now data files supplied on CDR or DVDR. If you have the option of mixing your files in wav or aiff format then please do this. These files will be of higher quality compared to burning them to an audio CD. We can accept files up to 192Khz / 32bit.
Our studio uses PCs so if you are using a Mac then please make sure that you are burning to a PC compatible disc.
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ISRC Codes
If your CD is for commerical release then you will probably need ISRC codes. The ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is the international identification system for sound recordings and music video recordings. Each ISRC is a unique and permanent identifier for a specific recording which can be permanently encoded into a product as its digital fingerprint. Encoded ISRC provide the means to automatically identify recordings for royalty payments.
ISRC codes must be encoded at the mastering stage, so if you intend to use them then you must aquire them before the master CD is burnt. We can add ISRC codes at a later date if you obtain them in the future. However, you will be charged for a new master.
To find the ISRC agency for your territory click here:
http://www.ifpi.org/isrc/isrc_agencies.html
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Payment
You don't have to pay until you have approved your mastering online. However we won't release any masters until you have made payment in full. So think about how you wish to make payment and be prepared to do it on time so that we can get your masters to you quickly.
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Mixing
Mixdowns
Try and mix your track at the greatest resolution available to you. This is the case even if your individual instrument files are 16bit.
Overall processing
Please do not apply any overall processing to the final mix. Applying any form of mastering yourself seriously hinders our job and your end result. This includes processing such as normilisation, EQ, compression and limiting. We often receive mixdowns that have been squashed to death leaving us with no alternative but to send them back requesting the raw files. If you are using a limiter to stop the meters from overloading then you should re-think your mix and turn down your individual instrument channels. Remember that it is not important to get your mix “loud” at this stage. That is our job! If you are using an external studio then ask the engineer to provide the raw mixdowns with no overall processing applied. It is quite common for an engineer to apply mastering to make their mixes sound good when you leave.
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Reading more....
We have collected a series of articles to help you with all assepcts of your writing, recording, mixing and mastering. Click here to find out more....
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