Okay, they for sure can't use the ADAT tracks, well, because they need to be mixed.
If the duplication plant can't accept a CDR, well, go somewhere else. I have never submitted a DAT tape to a duplication plant. I have ALWAYS submitted a CDR, and the 5 different plants I have submitted to PREFERRED CDR over DAT. I COULD have sent a DAT tape, but there was more of a chance that they would have charged a bit extra to format everything properly to make the Glass Master. By sending them a mastered CDR, I mostly insured that the duplicated CD's would be an exact copy of the submitted CDR.
I do know that they usually want a CDR that was authored in DAO mode as opposed to TOA mode. But this is changing too. Many duplication plants will accept CDR's authored in TOA mode, and will not mess with anything unless it is messed up in some important way. And they also want the Track sheet for the CDR. I believe they use the Track Sheet to compare to what is actually on the disk, and if all is well, they make the glass master from the CDR, and just manually input track data into their machines. Of course the Track Sheet needs to be accurate to like the 1/100th of a second for their purposes.
Anyway, if they won't accept a properly authored CDR, go to another duplication plant.
Now, rereading your post, I guess I am not sure exactly what was said. I am going to assume the the duplication plant somehow thinks that the CDR is not authored correctly. Maybe they were told that it was not mastered by a professional mastering facility.
I DO recommend that they have someone master it before duplicating. Not only would this assure that they have the CD sounding exactly the way they approved, but many sonic enhancements can be made to make the CD sound more like the big boy recordings do. Every big time band has their material mastered! Without exception, someone like Bob Ludwig, or Bernie Grundman has at least took a listen, and made at least a .5 db volume change to a song, or applied a tad of compression, etc....If the mixes were not mixed with the high dollar stuff you find at the state of the art studios that these big time bands record it, then there is a pretty good chance that the material would benefit greatly from some EQ and compression to make it sound better on just about any playback system. That is the other side of mastering, sonic improvements of the mixes.
I can be of help to them (I am in Portland) at a very reasonable rate. Non of my CDR masters have ever been turned down by a duplication house, and if one was, I would glady fix the problem (which more then likely was just a lazer burn with too many errors, a rarity on my burner I have never seen...) and send a new CDR to the plant.
Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio
www.echostarstudio.com
[This message has been edited by sonusman (edited 06-06-2000).]
