mastering question

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birdbrain

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Hi

I have a few songs which I want to send to a mastering studio. My only means of doing so is on a CD (I don't have a DAT etc). A lot of studios would seem to prefer to receive material at the bit and sample rate of the original recording, which in this case is 24bit 48Khz. Apparently it is possible to put them on disc as data files rather than as dithered audio tracks after mixdown but I'm not sure how to go about it. Can anyone tell me if there is a simple way of doing this or will I have to go the audio CDr route? The tracks are a combination of audio and VSTi and I'm using Cubase SL3 on a system running XP SP2 with dual 3Ghz CPU , 2 Gigs RAM and one partitoned 750 GB HD.

Thanks
 
I always send my stuff either on a server (ftp storage) or on a flash drive. Flash drives are cheap.

And yes, send your stuff at the bit rate and sample rate you recorded it at. Send split stereo files.

Don't use dither, don't use anything on the master bus.
 
Mixdown to a wav file using source bitrate and depth 24/48khz, then just copy the wav file to a CD-r. It won't be an Audio CD, just a data cd with a wav file on it.... ie, it won't play in your cd player. Mail it off the the mastering engineer.
 
Thanks for the response guys.

In fact Chili has said exactly what I wanted to hear. I am right in thinking that the VSTi tracks will mixdown OK without being converted to audio tracks first aren't I? I haven't used any external MIDI sources.
 
I am right in thinking that the VSTi tracks will mixdown OK without being converted to audio tracks first aren't I?

Indeed you are. That's kind of the whole point of a VSTi. I know newer DAW's have Instrument Tracks for the specific purpose of hosting VSTi's. I don't have much experience with them, but I believe they combine the midi and audio functions into one track. I don't think Cubase SL3 has instrument tracks, but I am not sure what the difference is. You put your midi data in the track, then assign a VSTi to it, then process the audio through the mixer channel, same as any audio channel. It all mixes down just the same.


Good luck and have fun!!
 
Great. It seems much less daunting now. Thanks for the help.
 
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