Audio Editing & Mastering

If you are an independent artist releasing a CD, we highly recommend that you contact a full-time project mastering company to get the most out of your material. But don't spend so much that you have no money left for CDs, cassettes, or vinyl pressing! The bottom line is that you need physical things to sell to your fans and to give to club owners and promoters. An MP3 may just get forgotten amongst the millions of other MP3 files.

If you are pressed for time or just need some transfers or repair work done, we have the experience and ears to do a good job. Common last-minute repair work we do:

• Editing CD-Text and ISRC codes
• Fixing the spacing between songs or moving the CD track markers
• Rearranging the order of songs
• Making multisession masters

Source Formats

We can work from the following sources:

• CD
• Vinyl (playback on a Linn LP12 turntable)
• Audio cassette
• Minidisc
• 1/4" half-track reel-to-reel tape at 15, 7.5, and 3.75 inches per second
• DAT
• WAV, AIFF, MP3, and almost any other computer file (24-bit files preferred if processing is required)
• Other equipment you can supply or we can find

We can do global EQ, noise reduction, tonal enhancement, crossfades, and more. Customers often want to raise the level of their CD master to be comparable in volume to commercial releases, and we can do that with high-end software.

We do not offer in-house attended sessions. For extra work or attended sessions, we will offer an estimate or a referral to a project-mastering studio.

Declipping

It may be possible to repair masters that have been recorded or "mastered" too loud and have harsh digital clipping. Often you will hear this unnatural sound on the loudest parts of a track. Sometimes just one track in a multi-track mix has clipping. Instead of going back to the studio and rerecording the track, it may be possible to remove the clips. Send your master or a WAV file for evaluation and a quote.

Enhanced CDs / CD-Extra

We have made many combined audio/data CD masters, so we can be sure our masters will not fail in glass mastering. The standard rate for combining an audio CD with a data session is $150, including an approval copy for you and a master copy for replication or duplication.

Quality Control

All our work is carefully checked and quality controlled. However, it is up to the client to give it final approval.

DDP

We will also convert your CD audio master into DDP files ready to send to glass mastering.

Project Mastering

We do not do project mastering. By that, we mean we do not specialize in tweaking your tracks for commercial release. We can refer you to people who do that full-time, or we can take care of the liaison for you.

Audio Cassette Mastering

We are now doing more and more cassette duplication. Our real-time cassette duplication is capable of high-end audiophile quality, better in some ways than CD, so we recommend sending high-resolution digital files. We are the only company in the world offering 24-bit direct-to-cassette real-time duplication.

Vinyl Mastering

The ideal source today for vinyl is 24-bit WAV or AIFF files at a 44.1 or 48 kHz sampling rate. We can also accept analog reel-to-reel tape; however, there are courier charges to send the heavy reel to the lacquer-cutting engineer and to return it. You will get the best results by not exceeding around 20 minutes per side and by recording and miking in conservative, simple ways. Do not put your microphone one inch from the cymbals. Make sure the vocal track does not sound like "sssss" on every "s." Record a natural sound so the mix does not have to be extremely limited and de-essed to be cut to vinyl.

If your mix is too hot, the cutting engineer will have to compress and limit the high frequencies, making for a muddy record, or reduce the overall sound level. Many mastering facilities cannot handle anything over 20 minutes per side, but we are working with a professional who is confident cutting lacquers up to 30 minutes per side.

Test copies: Compromises must be made in vinyl mastering. Lacquers, stampers, and test pressings cost a lot of money. To reduce the risk, you can order a reference cut, which saves the cost of the stampers and test pressing. Contact us for more information.