Close

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 18
  1. #1

    Question OT: Vinyl mastering?

    I'm about to master a double vinyl album for a local band. Pretty normal music. I've tried searching, and found some good tips, but I thought I might as well ask here too... Most of the songs (it's a "best of"-album) have been kind of mastered for cd's, and I have just a few songs in the un-mastered state. They're stretching the albums sides a bit, they will be approx 21, 22, 22 and 22 minutes long. Will there be a big difference compared to "under 20 min"-sides?

    What's a good peak/RMS level for vinyl? a bit lower than for CD's?

    What about bass response? Is it more important to keep the bass down when mastering for vinyl?

    Also read somewhere that it's more important to keep sibilance down?

    Anything else regarding treble?

    Anything else? (No, I don't mind people telling me how to do my job )

    I plan on using Sonoris LP EQ and Levelizer, great tools! Also have Sonoris MB Compressor if needed.

    Thanks in advance!
    Marvin

    ps found som interesting reading here: http://www.recordtech.com/prodsounds.htm
    Last edited by Marvin; 06-07-2007 at 05:48 AM.
    "It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black." - Nigel Tufnel

  2. #2

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    To be a little nitpicky, what you're doing is actually called PREmastering, the engineer that does the actual tranfer to the lathe to cut the lacquer or DMM master is the one that will be doing the mastering.

    Anyway - here's my suggestions (accumulated from a few years as a production manager for a vinyl pressing plant, months of study with Jim Shelton, followed by 2 years cutting vinyl masters at Europadisk - unfortunately I don't have a lathe currently):

    Here's my suggestions:
    * as far as peak levels - remember that digital dBFs does not equal analog dBVU!! The cutting engineer will still need to set the levels that are actually sent to the lathe. In general having your digital masters peak somewhere around -6dBFs is fine as it gives a little headroom and it's possible the cutting engineer won't have to attenuate it as much as if you have it maxed out - but in general as long there are no overs or clipping you can set your digital levels where ever you want them as the cutting engineer will set the levels to the lathe regardless and should be able to easily deal with it.

    * as far as average level - simply set this by ear to the place where things sound full with satisfying dynamics and punch, and consistent across the side. The cutting engineer can always apply more limiting or compression if needed - but they can't remove it. If you simply have to have a number to work from: -14dB to -12dB RMS is generally a decent place to be. The smashed levels we see on CD's simply don't work as well on vinyl.

    * center the bass frequencies - if you have things like two different simultaneous bass lines panned left & right or stereo chorusing or flanging effects on the bass it will make it extremely difficult to have your record cut with a hot level because if bass freq's aren't phase coherent the groove will actually become narrower in these parts leading to the potential for a skip.

    * tame sibilance - it's a really good idea to run a de-esser on any vocal tracks that have a lot of sibilance. esses and t's can produce a burst of high frequencies which will just distort when played back on vinyl. The solution the cutting engineer can do to make sure this doesn't happen is to just put the whole mix through a de-esser - but it's a lot more transparent if you can take care of this during the mix instead.

    * avoid excessive high end!! - ultra high frequencies above 15kHz tend to just cause distortion if there is a lot of them and if there are way too much of them will actually smoke the cutting head! Avoid boosting any of the highs above somewhere around 10kHz on your mix. If you are looking to add "presence" or brightness focus your boosts in the upper mid areas somwhere around 2-6kHz.

    * don't clip your wave forms!!!! - clipped wave forms with squared tops will often break up really really quick when transferred to vinyl master at a hot level. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever to clip your wav forms on a pre-master destined for vinyl. While it's a popular way to achieve extreme average levels for a CD master it will actually make the cutting engineer cut your record quieter than if you're wav forms have nice natural rounded tops. I've seen lots of people introduce clicks and pops into their master because they clipped their audio way too excessively and didn't notice it because of their crappy monitoring - so I think it's best to completely avoid this problem and make -0.3dbFs your very maximum output ceiling.

    * go light with the limiter! - while a little peak limiting to tame the big transients can actually be a really helpful for keeping even levels the current squash settings used on a lot of digital masters will actually make things distort more quickly because in overly limited material instead of the peaks on the vinyl master being nice round bottom transients all the upper mids are forced to the top too . Remember dBfs does not translate into dBvu!!! - the levels that go to your vinyl master are actually set by the cutting engineer - so if you're questioning how much limiting or compression to use communicate with the cutting engineer and let them apply what they see fit to do.

    * keep it "clean" - any distortion in the digital realm tends to become more noticeable when transferred to vinyl

    * sequence thoughtfully - the inner grooves will always be more susceptible to distortion dye to increased tracing errors than the outer ones - so it's always a best idea to keep the cuts you want to be the hottest for the 1st or 2nd tracks and have the last track on the side be an instrumental or acapella or quieter passage.

    * keep the side lengths realistic. For max level (around +6dbVu) on a 12" "competitive" dance single keep the side length to around 12 minutes max for 33-1/3 and 9 minutes max for 45rpm.

    For LP sides I'd say make 25 minutes a side your very maximum unless you want to possibly encounter problems with scuffing and low signal to noise ratio when the records are pressed. With long sides remember that the cutting engineer must make a compromise between bass response and level in order to fit more grooves onto the side - so if you want a really long LP side remember that you'll probably have to sacrifice some of the low end.

    * make sure the heads and tails on the tracks in your premaster are clean and have good fades, and unless you want sound in your "spirals" (the wider grooves that are placed between tracks so that dj's can see where the next track is) leave at least 2 seconds between each track. It's also best to leave at least 10 seconds between tracks at the side break or provide the pre-master for each side on seperate discs or reels.

    * communicate any requests or questions with the cutting engineer! This I've found is often the key to having you end up really happy. I also recommend getting an acetate or DMM reference disc made prior to having your masters cut so that you can be sure that you are happy with how your master sounds before incurring the expenses for plating and test pressing.

    * provide good documentation - make sure you include a track list including track number and side and length of tracks and sides. If you're providing a data disc make sure that the names of your files on the disc match the names you have listed on your track sheet (or just name them something like A1.wav, A2.wav, B1.wav etc.).

    Best regards,
    Steve Berson
    Last edited by TotalSonic; 06-07-2007 at 08:18 AM.

  3. #3

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Quote Originally Posted by Marvin View Post
    They're stretching the albums sides a bit, they will be approx 21, 22, 22 and 22 minutes long. Will there be a big difference compared to "under 20 min"-sides?
    Yes - the cutting engineer will have to balance tradeoffs of lower level sent to the lathe and/or less extended bass response (usually done by applying a High Pass Filter with progressively higher crossover freq) the longer you go. Good vinyl mastering engineers know what the best tradeoff points are from experience.

    If you cut to DMM instead of lacquer the engineer will be able to get a slightly higher level on a very long side.
    Abbey Road & The Exchange in London all still cut DMM, as does Optimal in Germany and GZ in Czech Republic.

    What about bass response? Is it more important to keep the bass down when mastering for vinyl?
    Exaggerated or heavy low end is difficult to put on long sides as the grooves need to be spaced wider the more lower bass frequencies there are present. In general for an LP side you shouldn't boost the lowend.

    Usually anything below somewhere around 30Hz (and often higher - i.e. on some long sides I had to apply one all the way up to 50Hz) will get filtered out when cutting a long playing side - so you might want to apply an HPF to hear whether this has an effect on the low end - and possibly boost a tiny bit at the octave of the kicks fundamental (i.e. somewhere around 60 - 100 Hz) to compensate.

    In general when cutting an LP side the cutting engineer will apply an HPF in order to make the side fit and filter out any unnecessary rumble frequencies, so there generally isn't a need to do this yourself if you're working with a good vinyl mastering engineer.

    I plan on using Sonoris LP EQ and Levelizer, great tools!
    They are indeed.

    Also have Sonoris MB Compressor if needed.
    To me the only reason to apply a Multiband comp when mastering is if the mix has some severe problems (such as a poky overly bright or brittle vocal track over a dull backing track - or visa versa) that for some reason can't be remixed.

    Best regards,
    Steve Berson
    Last edited by TotalSonic; 06-07-2007 at 08:17 AM.

  4. #4

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Steve, many thanks! Very useful information.
    There are some severe problems, so I will use the MB compressor here and there. There's quite a few garage recordings among the tunes... And de-ess the mix here and there too. Most of the songs are recorded a while ago, and I don't have access to the mixes. Except for the songs recorded here in my studio, but they already sound perfect...

    Thanks for your time, and for sharing this!
    Marvin
    "It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black." - Nigel Tufnel

  5. Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Wow.

    TotalSonic, you so rule!
    Thanks for the download!

    Digital Dexterity Records




  6. #6

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Absolutely great info Steve!
    It's for sure going in the notebook.

    DanT

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Fresno CA USA
    Posts
    966

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Great info Steve

    Would be interesting to approch a CD the same way. (as if to vinyl )

    Thanks

  8. #8

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Quote Originally Posted by HapHazzard View Post
    Great info Steve

    Would be interesting to approch a CD the same way. (as if to vinyl )

    Thanks
    LOL... I was thinking the same thing when I read Steve's post. How refreshing! No bleeding edge to the rails square wave compressed to hell brittle toppy sloppy engineering. It felt so good reading that

    Cheers,
    Scott

  9. #9

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Kiss all of the bass below 50Hz goodbye.

  10. #10

    Default Re: OT: Vinyl mastering?

    Quote Originally Posted by brent View Post
    Kiss all of the bass below 50Hz goodbye.
    Getting rid of bass below 50 Hz can make vinyl mastering easier, but it is not always done. Decades ago, a magazine called Audio Amateur published plans for building a LARGE subwoofer. This thing had a 24" driver and was about the size of a coat closet, maybe a little bigger. When the article was published, LP playback was still the norm for a home stereo, and the article included a description of measures taken to eliminate structural feedback to/through the turntable. There was a sidebar of "A very incomplete listing of recordings with spectacular bass", and one recording on the list was Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon".

    Shortly after my wife and I got married, I set up my stereo in our home. It was in the dining room, and the stairwell down to the basement was directly behind it. The speakers I had then had been retired from a radio station, and had an odd response that went, I think, below 20 Hz. The first cut on DSOTM includes a repeated downward synth sweep that goes to extreme bass, and is not, in fact, clearly audible on most systems. When I put the record on one evening, my wife was downstairs doing the wash, and all of a sudden she was hollering for me to turn it off! The LF sweep apparently resonated through the stairwell with and intensity that drove her to distraction to the point of being painful.

    So, I have both documentation AND personal experience to tell me that the LP does not HAVE to be limited to 50 Hz on the low end... even though it is, in fact, easier to cut a lacquer without the extreme low bass. (I'm sure Steve Berson could give a lot more detail on this than I am aware of.)
    Cary B. Cornett
    aka "Puzzler"
    www.chinesepuzzlerecording.com

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •