Some "Massive" Mastering Questions

[rodvonbon]

Hey,

I was going to send this to massive directly, but thought it might be helpful to others too.
I'm sending my bands album off to get mastered in the next week or two and have some questions. I recorded and mixed everything myself over the course of about five months and tracked 18 songs (total running time, about 45 min). Then we tracked 3 more tunes, 1 will be used on a comp and the other two will go for a 7" (total running time, about 8 min ).

We are doing a CD and Vinyl album. Each will have 13 songs (out of the original 18). The extra songs we still want mastered, so they can be used for later comps or 7"s. Now here is where it will get kind of tricky - the CD and vinyl will have 1 diffrent song each. So say both will have tracks 1-12, but the CD will also have for example track 15 and the vinyl will have track 17 making a total of 13.

Do I need two diffrent master discs with the the proper track orders for each medium?
Can the vinyl plant use the same master as the CD plant and just pull the tracks they need?
If so, can I have just 1 master disc with all 21 songs on it and just burn the tracks I need when needed from home?
Can anyone remember how long a 12" 33rpm plays per side?

Trying to think this stuff out is beginning to hurt my brain, so I hope this post makes sense.
Thanks in advance for all help,

RODVONBON

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by rodvonbon

Hey,

I was going to send this to massive directly, but thought it might be helpful to others too.
I'm sending my bands album off to get mastered in the next week or two and have some questions. I recorded and mixed everything myself over the course of about five months and tracked 18 songs (total running time, about 45 min). Then we tracked 3 more tunes, 1 will be used on a comp and the other two will go for a 7" (total running time, about 8 min ).

We are doing a CD and Vinyl album. Each will have 13 songs (out of the original 18). The extra songs we still want mastered, so they can be used for later comps or 7"s. Now here is where it will get kind of tricky - the CD and vinyl will have 1 diffrent song each. So say both will have tracks 1-12, but the CD will also have for example track 15 and the vinyl will have track 17 making a total of 13.

Do I need two diffrent master discs with the the proper track orders for each medium?
Can the vinyl plant use the same master as the CD plant and just pull the tracks they need?
If so, can I have just 1 master disc with all 21 songs on it and just burn the tracks I need when needed from home?
Can anyone remember how long a 12" 33rpm plays per side?

Trying to think this stuff out is beginning to hurt my brain, so I hope this post makes sense.
Thanks in advance for all help,

RODVONBON

Vinyl mastering is kinda like a specialty these days, so yeah ask Massive But I know an LP is about 20 min per side max, depends on how wide you need the groove.

As for the CD master, if you send a CD premaster to the plant that they have to pull tracks off of and rearrange, they will probably charge you for the setup.

[Reggie]

I would send the master exactly how you want it to your replication plant; leave less possibility for error in their hands. Even if that means making 2 separate masters. It shouldn't bring up your mastering costs too much I wouldn't think.
Trutone in NYC still masters a decent amount of vinyl. They would be another good choice.

[Farview]

Mastering for vinyl and CD are 2 completely different things. You will likely be sending the vinyl masters to a different place than the CD masters so you will need two disks. Even if you send everything to the same place, they will, most likely farm out the vinyl work.

[FALKEN]

yeah I don't think you want the same "mastering" done on both mediums. unfortunately this will probably increase your costs beyond what you thought you were going to spend. *but* the bright side is that the vinyl place was probably going to charge you for mastering anyway. I would send two different copies.

[Farview]

Most of the mastering done to vinyl has to do with the physical limitations of vinyl. The mix will have to be mono below a certain frequency and any phase problems (between the left and right channels) will have to be adressed or else the needle will jump right out of the groove.

Here is a little thing I found in an FAQ
http://www.customrecords.com/prepare...for_vinyl.html

And another one that explains in laymans terms how and why.

http://www.recordtech.com/prodsounds.htm

[rodvonbon]

Thanks to everyone for their input.
I think what I will do is get one master disc with all of the songs on it one for vinyl and one for the CD plant.
The guy at the label can deal with getting the vinyl mastered. Actually he offered to have everything done, but he says the guy he uses would charge $150 and that price alone doesnt scream quality to me. Know what I mean?
Another thought crossed my mind today also. When I send everytinhg to massive, is there a quality difference between DVR and CDR?

thanks again,

RODVONBON

[Farview]

Originally Posted by rodvonbon

is there a quality difference between DVR and CDR?

thanks again,

RODVONBON

Nope! no difference.

[PlnsMstkn4Jacob]

I'm going to add to the questions.

This may be a silly question to some, but I've never gotten anything mastered so I was wondering when you send it off to get it mastered, you're sending a stereo track for each song, correct? You want to send the final mixdown, not seperated drum, guitar, vocal, etc tracks. Someone tried to tell me different recently and I told them I was almost positive that you would send a stereo track, or else they would be mixing and mastering your songs if you sent them individual tracks.

Another question, whenever I run a mixdown for a band, I always have a light overall compression on the mix that I use to bring up the volume to a decent level. If I were to send off some songs to get professionally mastered, would I want to remove that compression and just send them the mixdown without any overall compression even if it means the mix may be a fairly low volume?

Thanks,
-Jacob

[Farview]

Originally Posted by PlnsMstkn4Jacob

This may be a silly question to some, but I've never gotten anything mastered so I was wondering when you send it off to get it mastered, you're sending a stereo track for each song, correct? You want to send the final mixdown, not seperated drum, guitar, vocal, etc tracks. Someone tried to tell me different recently and I told them I was almost positive that you would send a stereo track, or else they would be mixing and mastering your songs if you sent them individual tracks.

You are correct, you send the stereo master of your mix to the mastering engineer.

Originally Posted by PlnsMstkn4Jacob

Another question, whenever I run a mixdown for a band, I always have a light overall compression on the mix that I use to bring up the volume to a decent level. If I were to send off some songs to get professionally mastered, would I want to remove that compression and just send them the mixdown without any overall compression even if it means the mix may be a fairly low volume?

You can put your compression on the final mix, but it can't be undone. Chances are ,the mastering engineer will have much better compressors to use. The mix is supposed to be quiet before mastering.

[rodvonbon]

Jacob,

Yes you do send a stero mix of each song, and no you do not want an overall compression. Part of getting mastered is brining the volume up to a listenable level.
This is the first time I've ever sent stuff on my own too. I've always let the label take care of things, but this time I spent so much time on the recording I want to be more hands on.

RODVONBON

[rodvonbon]

Damn, Farview got to it first!

[Farview]

I'm everywhere!

[PlnsMstkn4Jacob]

Thanks to both of you!