chrishisey
New member
Okay... so this is a topic i am a little slow on... were would a good place to send out to get masterd... and do I just send them mixed versions on a cd, someone spread some light, sorry to sound really dumb.
chrishisey said:Okay... so this is a topic i am a little slow on... were would a good place to send out to get masterd... and do I just send them mixed versions on a cd, someone spread some light, sorry to sound really dumb.
chessrock said:. . . And don't apply any sort EQ, compression, normalization, or limiting of any kind to the final mix.
Massive Master said:I'd like to append that - Don't do anything to the mix for the sake of volume alone. If the mix needs a little EQ tweaking, it's best to do it at the track level. Same with compression. HOWEVER - If the mix needs a few dB of compression to "hold it together" that's fine. If it's being thrown on just to increase the level, leave it off. And yeah, don't normalize. Leave the mastering guy a little room to work.
It's not that black and white, Tom. If they are all C1 (avg BLER of <220), no C2, no CU, then there is zero degradation....masteringhouse said:CD errors degrade audio.
mshilarious said:Massive, what do you like for CD-R media?
bblackwood said:It's not that black and white, Tom. If they are all C1 (avg BLER of <220), no C2, no CU, then there is zero degradation....
masteringhouse said:I realize Brad, I'm just trying to keep things simple. Most folks on this forum don't have a clover system, or Plextools to check their CDs for BLER rates and types of errors.
For clients sending data CDs, here's a good tool for verifying your disc:
http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/
An alternate method is to use the built-in CRC check of a program like winzip by using the following procedure:
1. Zip your audio files on the hard drive.
2. Burn the zip file(s) to the CD
3. After burning, copy the zip files from the CD back to the hard drive and unzip. If no CRC errors appear during unzipping, you should be fine.
In regards to CD-R media, you can check out Glenn Meadows test pages at:
http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id=11/pmdmode=fullscreen/pageadder_page_id=89
Keep in mind that the best CD-R media will depend on the type of burner and the speed that you are burning at as Glenn's tests will show.
glynb said:Sorry guys, but i really have a problem understanding this error rate stuff. If the song sounds fine (no clicks or skips or jumps or distortion) then what does it matter if the reader has had to do some error correction while it's reading the CD? I understand that if you start off first generation with a CD with lots of errors and then copy it and copy that copy you may run into unrecoverable errors on future generations, but why does this matter for the first generation you send off for mastering? Surely as long as the errors aren't critical causing the reader to skip the track or get stuck in a loop (as we've all experienced with CDs on home systems) then why is it a serious problem? Can some one explain please?
I'm interested because I'll be sending off my home produced album for mastering later this year. Currently my songs have all been stored on cheepo white label CDs from the supermarket and yes written on with marker pen!!! So I'm getting a bit worried here...
glynb said:Hmmm, I looked at the article but it was a bit too technical for me.
So, when i come to do my CD album and I use top quality CDRs, and put the tracks in order on the master CD burned at slow speed (say 1x) and I listen back and it sounds fine, no distortion and no skips and I send it off to a reputable mastering house, then they presumably would get back to me and tell me if there are any major problems with it right? (I hope so!)
Us home recordists on small budgets can't all go out and buy the best burners and fancy equipment to ensure completely error free copies, but we can take reasonable sensible steps to minimise errors right?
(sorry to go on about this)
Er...and thats a GOOD thing right?lpdeluxe said:I use 4X with my Plextor Premium (the slowest speed it has) and get typically 10 C1 errors/sec and no C2 or CU.