DiscMakers???

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chazba

terminally hip
Has anyone had their project mastered/manufactured by Discmakers. I sent for their promo material and their prices look pretty competitive. Can anyone comment on quality issues??

chazba
 
I had my CD manufactured by them, but not mastered. They did the graphic design for my CD as well. I thought they did a good job. Professional and met all the deadlines.
 
We had a project with them back in 2003. Great price, great services, packaging was great, very quick turnaround, etc.

The ONLY complaint I have is that the finished CDs all sounded noticeably different than the master we sent. I made two masters at the same time -- sent one to DiscMakers and kept the other as a back up. I believe they make a glass master to dup from.

A few months later, I unwrapped a few of the DiscMakers CDs and compared them to my master back up copy. The back up master copy sounded noticeably "clearer" than the copies. If I were to guess, it sounded to me like something to do with the D/A converters.

I don't think it's something anyone else would really notice, but it was obvious to all our ears when comparing the copies to the master.
 
RezN8 said:
The ONLY complaint I have is that the finished CDs all sounded noticeably different than the master we sent. I made two masters at the same time -- sent one to DiscMakers and kept the other as a back up. I believe they make a glass master to dup from.

I had exactly the same experience with them! I didn't mention it earlier because I've always thought it was just me or my ears or something. But the manufactured CD's did sound different from my masters. I'm so glad to hear someone else confirm they had the same thing happen.

It bothered me because I went to a great deal of trouble getting great masters of my CD. It sounded almost like they did their standard "mastering" job on my album, even though I specifically said I didn't want any further processing. Mastering probably being running the tracks through a TC Finalizer.
 
my uncle just had a CD made from them, they did the cover art and duplication (and some posters as well) and it came out real nice. they didn't do the mastering, since it had already been mastered. i haven't had a chance to compare the sound between the master and the DiscMakers CDs though so i can't comment on any loss of quality.
 
I've had that happen also... Hmmm...

Although they always do a fine job on the printing and pressing.

I might be a little biased to comment on the mastering part.
 
One question that I would ask is what type of service will you receive as far as mastering.

Do they provide a proof of your mastered material before receiving the CD?
Can you speak to the ME if you need any changes?
How do they handle any special requests you may have?
etc ...
 
Now you guys have me curious...
One of the the bands I did gave me a copy of their Discmakers CD, but I don't think I ever actually listened to it versus the original master. It sounded good, so that was good enough for me; but now I wonder...

What reasoning would they have to tweak the sound up unrequested? I would think the fewer steps that they have to take in manufacturing, the better for them. Can any of you guys try a null test?
 
So, for those of you who have noticed a difference between your mastered CD and the CD produced by DiscMakers, HOW did the CD's sound different?
Were the DiscMaker's CD's not as loud, EQ'd differently, distorted? Describe what's different please. I was just about to send a CD to them.
 
ask them

I think you should call and ask a rep at DiscMakers. Our CD was released early in 2003 and they might've updated equipment/processes since then.

Maybe you could request a copy of the masters along with the print proofs, if that is at all possible. It wasn't an option for us back then.

In our case, it didn't sound like there was any additional processing. The best way I can describe it is that it sounded to me like it was redigitized. Similar to the degradation I heard with lower quality D/A converters back then. Jitter or clock sync issues? I'm just taking a guess, it's not my area of expertise.

For what it's worth, we did get a very sweet deal on the whole package. Considering the amount of goods and services for the price, it was well worth it. Out of all the CDs we sold or gave away, we very rarely got feedback that a CD skipped or didn't play at all -- maybe like one or two. You have to take all of that into consideration when shopping for these types of services.
 
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