CD MANUFACTURING:
AUDIO MASTERING SERVICES
Mastering Facility
Individual Services
Mastering Packages
FAQ
Preparing Your Tracks for Mastering
LET MUSIC MANUFACTURING SERVICES MASTER FOR
YOU!
In order to provide state-of-the-art audio mastering for our clients,
MUSIC MANUFACTURING SERVICES has chosen to utilize the superior
capabilities of João
Carvalho Mastering (JCM), a world-class, state-of-the-art, dedicated
mastering facility located in Toronto, Canada. Deemed to be the
most acoustically precise room in Canada, the mastering suite is
a completely neutral sonic canvas.
JCM is fully 5.1 capable and can accommodate full DVD sound production.
In addition to working from digital sources, the studio can accept
almost any analog tape source.
INDIVIDUAL SERVICES
- Analog to digital transfer
- Equalization
- Compression
- Change Track Order
- Remove a Track
- Add track(s) from a different master
- Raise or lower levels of an entire master
- Raise or lower levels of a specific track
- Reduce length of pause
- Mute the pause area
- DAT transfer
Individual services are $125 (US/CDN) per hour, or you might find
it more cost-effective to look at our mastering
packages:
MASTERING
PACKAGES FOR EVERY BUDGET...
Each of these packages includes one CDR production master, and one
CDR reference copy, and is based on an average of 10 tracks/40 minutes.
Any additional time or revisions will cost $100 (US/CDN)per hour.
Call your MUSIC MANUFACTURING SERVICES rep to get a better idea
of how much your individual project will cost, or if you're not entirely
sure what you need.
If you're interested in CDs with enhanced content, the multimedia
experts at MUSIC MANUFACTURING SERVICES can add video animation, sound,
text and digital files to exactly suit your needs.
Plan A
Song-by-song Analog/Digital Mastering |
|
- Song-by-song analog and digital mastering (equalization, compression, image enhancement, maximization)
- Includes Manley tube compression, Focusrite EQ for added clarity and warmth
- Clean heads and tails
- Adjust fades
- Sequence and space songs
| |
Plan B
Song-by-song Digital Mastering |
$760
(US/CDN) |
- Song-by-song digital mastering (equalization, compression, image enhancement, maximization)
- Clean heads and tails
- Adjust fades
- Sequence and space songs
| |
Plan C
Assemble and Level |
$530
(US/CDN) |
- Overall digital mastering (equalization, compression, maximization)
- Level match between songs
- Clean heads and tails
- Adjust fades
- Sequence and space songs
| |
Plan D
Simple Assemble |
$290
(US/CDN) |
- Overall level digitally maximized/normalized
- Clean heads and tails
- Adjust fades
- Sequence and space songs
| |
Plan E
Simple Assemble |
$110
(US/CDN) |
- Encode CD text into customer supplied master
- No actual "mastering" is included
in this package
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FAQ
What should I send to my session?
* A hard drive (PC formatted if possible), CD or DVD of your
source files. It’s a good idea to send a back-up as
well. Source files should be in the highest resolution you can provide
with the highest rate you recorded at. We can deal with pretty much
any format, but given our druthers, would prefer stereo interleaved
broadcast WAV files.
* Mastering Information Form. Download and complete
the form, and include with your source files.
Download form.
How do I electronically deliver my files?
Many of the projects we master are uploaded to our FTP server. Just
let us know if you’re interested in that option and we’ll
provide you with the URL and a username and password.
What’s an ISRC?
It stands for “International Standard Recording Code”,
and it’s a “digital fingerprint” that’s permanently
encoded onto a CD. It’s used as an identifier for royalty collection
and rights administration. To find out more and to apply for your
own ISRCs, visit www.cria.ca (Canada), www.riaa.com (USA), www.ppluk.com
(UK). Please note that it’s not a necessity to have ISRCs encoded
on your final master. It’s your call.
Will
the CD text you encode on my final master appear when I use iTunes?
The CD text we encode on your references/final masters will appear
on text-capable CD players, but iTunes (and other computer-based players)
require information to be entered separately by you. For example,
with iTunes, you would enter your information (song name, artist,
genre, album title, etc.) in their CDDB database via internet connection.
PREPARING YOUR TRACKS FOR MASTERING
1. Make sure your mixes sound exactly the way you want them to be.
Mastering can do wonders for a good mix and mastering can help out
a bad mix, but mastering can’t make a bad mix into a good mix.
2. If you think your vocals are mixed slightly too loud, they are
probably just right. The number one question from the mastering engineer
to his/her client is “do you have a vocal-up mix?” Vocals
and guitars tend to sit in the same frequency range, making it very
difficult to “bring out the vocal” when they are buried
under a pile of loud guitars.
3. Use all of the dynamic range you have at your disposal. When bouncing
down your final mixes, make sure they are as loud as they can possibly
be, without clipping. Your waveforms should look big and fat and reach
all the way to the “top” and “bottom” in the
loudest sections.
4. Use all of the bit resolution you have at your disposal. 16bit
files don’t sound nearly as good as 24bit files and should only
be used if there are no other options. Even if you recorded everything
at 16bit, your audio program (ProTools, Logic, etc) should be able
to bounce your final mix down to a 24bit file. This will help retain
more of the information generated during audio processing, like reverbs,
etc.
5. Use all of the sampling rate resolution you have at your disposal.
Although not as critical as bit resolution, higher sampling rates
(88.2, 96) should be used whenever possible. Of course, most mixes
are still done at 44.1 or 48, so don’t lose any sleep over it.
Unlike bit resolution, your audio program will not bounce your final
mix down to anything other than the original session sampling rate.
This is fine. Whatever you do, please don’t try up-sampling!
It is a potentially destructive process that should only be performed
using the best sample rate conversion algorithms. At present, JCM
can handle masters at resolutions up to 96/24bit with ease. Higher
resolutions are manageable, but please let us know in advance.
6. Unless you have some creative or artistic reason for doing so,
don’t compress or limit your final mix. If you absolutely must
give it a squeeze, or you’ve always mixed with a little compression,
that’s fine, go ahead. But please, for the love of all that
is sacred, go easy! There’s very little that can be done to
breathe life back into an over-compressed or over-limited mix.
7. Unless you have some creative or artistic reason for doing so,
don’t do any fades on your final mix. If you’re particularly
concerned about the length or type of fade, just let us know exactly
what you would like. We’re great listeners.
8. Leave several seconds of dead air before and after your mix, wherever
possible. Many audio programs introduce a ‘pop’ at the
end of a file. It’s important to make sure there is no audio
near the beginning or end of a file…just in case.
9. JCM can easily accept WAVE and AIFF files. Other file formats can
be managed, but there may be a charge for conversion time. If you
are sending a disc, please ensure it is a data disc which can be read
by PCs. This will save a lot of time. Dual Mac and PC discs are also
fine. Audio discs are a last resort only, as they are 16bit (see #4).
10. Remember, there’s no such thing as a stupid question…especially
when it comes to making your music sound as good as it possibly can.
If you’re in doubt, just ask.
Call your MUSIC MANUFACTURING SERVICES rep to
discuss your mastering needs. |
