Mastering For Vinyl | Cos Once It's Pressed, It's FINAL!
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- čas přidán 27. 01. 2022
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Mark answers a great question posed by one of our subscribers in the comments section of yesterday's video:
How does mastering for vinyl differ from mastering for digital? Do you do any high/low passing, compression, stereo folding etc, or do you go for a neutral master and leave any vinyl specific requirements to the cutting engineer?
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I used to get my 10" acetates cut at a notorious cutting room in Holloway Rd. Chatting with the mastering engineer as my masters evolved from B77 half inch to crispy DAT was a very useful education. The last few that we cut there had been wooshed through a Focusrite Red 3 to tame any dangerous transient peaks, and the mastering engineer was relaxed enough with the levels and eq to sit back, hands off the emergency attenuation knobs, with a large bifter. I still have a few of them, because I looked after them, and didn't plough them with heavy Stantons with coins blu-tacked on top.
US 12s in the 80s/early 90s were much higher quality and played at 33rpm. They were thicker, and made with virgin vinyl, rather than the thin recycled material that was used in the UK and most of Europe, wih the notable exception of Holland.
You could plant cabbages in the grooves on those US 12s, and the likes of Def Jam would never have been able to get such vast n bulbous 808 bottom end on UK 12s of the era. Compare Run DMC's early US cuts to the UK licensed 45 pressings and it's chalk and cheese.
Early House imports were invariably 33rpm virgin vinyl, because that's what the big sound systems wanted. A ton of rocksteady low mid and bass, with no loose wub clouding the sound stage.
DJs are notoriously keen to push everything into the red on the mixer, because they confuse gain with volume, so it made sense to filter the extreme high and low end at the mastering end to stop them wrecking the amps and speakers (and clubbers' hearing) with relentless cludgy square waves.
This is probably the most complete information about vinyl manufacturing in the least amount of time I've ever heard and you should see if it's some kind of... record...
I'm sorry, I'll see myself out.
Oh, but I'm also glad you addressed the whole environment/quality thing. It's the reason I decided against vinyl for my release (well, that and my dog needed surgery that wiped out the vinyl budget).
For mastering for vinyl, what you need is an app!
Something that can calculate in real-time the Lines Per Inch (LPI) processing on a cutting lathe. You’d pass your audio through it and on an LPI meter see how much land the signal is using up moment by moment. It would give at the end, a calculation of the overall level you should be able to get on the disc for the entire side.
A useful bonus would be if it also had a simulation of the lathe’s Acceleration Limiter (ACL), so that you could see how much controlling of sibilant frequencies is needed. That way, you can spot dangerous stereo bass and sibilance events and sort them out while you master, and also have a good idea of how loud the final cut is going to be.
Without that, even given your vast experience and skills Mark, you’re basically working in the dark. It’s something that in my years as a cutting engineer, I never envisioned we’d be able to do in software, but I think would be quite possible now, and amazingly, actually required in today’s market!
Fascinating video well explained and what a wonderful nostalgia trip for all us +50 year olds.... just hearing the word vinyl makes me purr!
Thanks a lot! Half-speed cutting trick is new for me!
My appreciation from Kiev, UA
Super interesting stuff, guys. I've really been enjoying all the technical details lately. Who could ever have predicted we'd all be interested in Vinyl now in 2022!
Cheers Derek!
This was DENSE! How do you speak so flawlessly and to the point for such a long time? Extremely well scripted! And I probably knew - and forgot a long time ago - most of the content at some point, but I never knew about the high end roll-off of LPs coming from not overheating the stylus.
Voted dislike for lack of Flop Cat content. No, not really. Great explanation of the vinyl cutting process Mark.
Soooo great - thanks - and your little nod to HDvinyl - I liked that. Not many are aware.
You have been working hard this week guys, well done
Thanks for taking the time to give us all an inside look at what goes on with mastering and also with the process of making records. I look forward to using you as my master engineer, your mastering sounds awesome.
I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a nostalgic attractiveness to listening to well-made vinyl records. They sound like I remember, even though they’re measurably, empirically “worse” than 48k 24-bit digital. I don’t, however, have any idea what the hell people are thinking going back to cassettes. They were worse than records then, they’re worse now, they were a necessary evil for making music portable and personalizing “mix tapes”. I think the people going back to cassette four- or eight-track recording are nuts. Talk about a necessary evil. Back then, we didn’t use those ports-studios because they were better than a JH-24 or ADATs, let alone Pro Tools. But, hey, you do you, man!
Back in the day, I bought a $1 Mama's & Papa's LP at a garage sale. I loved the band and did not pay much attention to the disc apart from noting that it had only minor scratches. On getting it home I found they had squeezed 30 tracks on it. It sounded like a very old radio with no depth to it at all. Even the interlude between tracks was 1 second wide. I gave it to my baby brother to use as a frisbee with the dog.
Well done, especially the the end….
Have you ever listened to an entire album without skipping because it was just that good? What is the key to having a no-skip album, or playlist? The answer to that question is sequencing. Sequencing is what makes the songs into a story with a beginning and end, and gives it a special flow. When it comes to album sequencing a question that you should ask yourself is, what song should come first? What goes last? And what is in between?From a Wikipedia definition, sequencing is “The restatement of a motif or longer melodic (or harmonic) passage at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice. It is one of the most common and simple methods of elaborating a melody in eighteenth and nineteenth-century classical music”. In plain man words, sequencing is the process of ordering musical notes to create a harmonic flow. For albums, this means curating the order of songs to create a dynamic story through techniques of fade-ins, fade-outs between songs.
Think of sequencing as writing a story, it would be odd if in the 1st chapter the characters are introduced, and in the next chapter, they are dead. For your listeners, it would be awkward to hear a soft song that transitions into a heavy fast-paced song. Singles are what attract your listeners, but an album is how you make them into fans. You have worked hard to create and produced every part of your story, so take the time to focus on the sequencing. Listeners will easily skip from one song to the next, you need to give your listeners a reason to stay for the whole story, and not to skip chaptersthejadededge.com/album-sequencing-lost-art/.
Thanks for educating us, as always, Mark, in a way that a non-engineering muso can understand! Had a good laugh at the punchline at the end... now you need to do a video on how to master for cassette! 😂
As always - very thorough. Yay for Mark pointing out the shortcomings of vinyl. In the early 70s, my first wife was a professional violonist and I played flute in student orchestras and a blues/rock band. I had a good HiFi rig with hand lapped double pharabolic stylus (Garrett Brother Australia), Class A power amplifier and transmission line speakers. We did not listen to our classical records after three plays (had two cleaning systems and anti-static sleeves), yet enjoyed modern muisc because it did not have the dynamic range of classical and noise floor was not such an issue.
For thems that say vinyl sounds better, I quote Mark and say "it depends".
BTW, I have trouble concentrating when you sit in front of the ATC monitors with that wonderful mid-range driver. Pure lust. Luckily these are too big for you to carry into the ocean.
Great info! Thanks for sharing. I had never heard about the toxic aspects of vinyl manufacturing.
If this wasn’t first class service I don’t know what is… THANK YOU!!!! ❤️
Well it’s a case of “do it NOW or you’ll forget, Mark!” Thanks for the GREAT question!! ❤️❤️
Fascinating and so clearly explained as ever.
Possibly the most interesting yet, mainly because I didn't really know anything about mastering for vinyl let alone all the cutting but find it all incredibly interesting. Great background to a format that played such a big part of my younger years.
Vinyl CAN be recycled though, I remember turning several Bay City Rollers albums into bowls with the help of a storage heater as a student. ;)
Yo, a Cassalbum (as I don't think they were ever called.
Doubleplus points for using amateur in a non-negative way. Cheers!
Most excellent - as usual ---- These presentation are models of how to do it - content - style and production values
Thank you!
Fascinating video, thanks! Particularly about the order of songs on vinyl being determined by their loudness
Thank you … this was very helpful
Fascinating stuff. Love it - more like this please. Keep up the good work !
Thank You for the insights Mark. Great video. Cheers from Belgium :-)
Fantastic explanation Mark, thanks for the video!
Deadly interesting information. I love the final considerations about vinyl ...
One of your best videos.
Well said!
👏👏👏
very informative . i am having 3 singles 0n 12 inch vinyl and glad the track times are average length . did not know longer track times reduce the quality of the audio being played i produce drum & bass and i am happy with my own mastering . but to know my tracks might not sound as weighty in the low end is a little concerning . i honestly thought my frequencies would stay as i intended in the first place . its a bit of an eye opener this is the first time on having vinyl pressed and learned a huge amount , great vid & very educational ,,
It’s not the cutting that’s the time issue it’s the manufacturing capacity. Current EU manufacturing slots are 2023.
The US has a bit more capacity currently.
Awesome insights! Thank you Mark.
You're right, that vinyl is is sonically nferior to modern formats. I love vinyls as my son does for the tactile experience. Well, since I have no clue whether my Bandcamp campaign will be successfull, or not, the vinyl release is a huge maybe.
I love your work on my stuff, even though my music is as far from your main genres, as possible. (Nope, it's not Ukranian metal.)
Very good explanation , thanks a lot ! cheers
Thanks Mark for the good explanation. It's very helpfull. Korrespondence is everything :-)
Fascinating stuff. It filled in a lot of holes (much like the holes in my head) regarding mastering to vinyl.
When I played back this video at 4k, the hello kitty cup really pops up..lol
4K is the best!
Damn, Vinyl is still kicking in 2022? Not bad.
It’s hotter than ever!
Once again honest and informative... This is a great source, educational and often entertaining. Kudos:)))
A very enjoyable and educational video! As you clearly stated it's all about communication and you certainly and very succinctly made this point! Mark you are in my opinion CZcamss best educator on the subject of mastering and the formats that follow! A great video, even with out the aid of Flop Cat 😻
Awesome video; super informative, and definitely learned a thing or two that I wasn't aware of!
What an incredibly informative video. So interesting to understand this from this perspective
Thanks for the info. Great stuff.
One of the best description of the actual process! as always, smashed it
Cheers Shaw!
2:33 "Sonically I haven't done a thing" haha Andrew Scheps describes mastering as a con, he said "mastering? what's that? when my mix is finished that's it, it's finished and ready for release" hilarious that you said the mixes come to you with basically nothing needing doing :))
But sometimes they do! Sometimes they need something doing that saves a label £100,000 on a vinyl run that won’t play and needs to be destroyed. But importantly it’s a second set of ears.
It's a very school boy computer thing, but Sometimes naming the Folder is not enough - The File names inside them need to reflect the same discriminating info (and if the person identifying the files THEN doesn't pay attention..). Whether there's a reason for only naming the folder (if that's what's specifically required, or is the case), is another story altogether I'm sure :p
This was awesome!
Would you back a slacker to knacker a lacquer..? Does half-speed loved-up House Music record-making produce a sedate Acid-8 acetate..?
Of course, some records are very ‘green’... but then such prompt the ancient argument about whether coloured vinyl doesn’t sound as good as black vinyl.
just fantastic
I went from vinyl only as a club dj to digital. Recently I went back to vinyl as I got into jazz and a lot of good reissues are coming out on vinyl. Yes vinyl sounds different in a very good way. However, I can honestly say that the vinyl format even for jazz is outdated. Even a pristine and perfect piece of vinyl generates surface noise. Throw in pops, clicks and non-fill issues and it is a deal breaker for me. The vinyl pressings from the 80s and even 90s were much much better. Now I am back at digital and getting my jazz through online streaming, CDs or SACDs.
Vinyl and casette tapes deals with intermission that’s what it’s similar between vinyl vs casette the difference vinyl don’t have a skip ⏭ while cassette tapes does have a skip ⏭ button. But vinyl and cassette tapes does have intermission but cd 💿 don’t have any intermission but to me I think album sequencing is not lost but according to the article I think everybody should stay on the song not skip ⏭ the track but grant from pc3 told me that I don’t believe album sequencing is a lost art. I still listen to albums from beginning to end and I am not alone. It’s super important! But it is true to say that fewer people are listening to albums from beginning to end. Many seem to prefer listening to single songs, or a playlist created by themselves or other people. except for Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever where he acknowledges that it’s the point of the album where a vinyl listener would have to turn the album over and adds a “intermission”. Some recordings were ordered differently because of this. The original master tapes would not have this intermission as they are continuous like a CD. To get the original flow you’d have to have a reel to reel which would be analogous to the original studio recording. The order was changed for vinyl or cassette. thejadededge.com/album-sequencing-lost-art/ Have you ever listened to an entire album without skipping because it was just that good? What is the key to having a no-skip album, or playlist? The answer to that question is sequencing. Sequencing is what makes the songs into a story with a beginning and end, and gives it a special flow. When it comes to album sequencing a question that you should ask yourself is, what song should come first? What goes last? And what is in between?
In this article, we will be answering all of the important questions of how to create a captivating sequence, how to fade and zoom out, and how to create a dream sequence. From a Wikipedia definition, sequencing is “The restatement of a motif or longer melodic (or harmonic) passage at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice. It is one of the most common and simple methods of elaborating a melody in eighteenth and nineteenth-century classical music”. In plain man words, sequencing is the process of ordering musical notes to create a harmonic flow. For albums, this means curating the order of songs to create a dynamic story through techniques of fade-ins, fade-outs between songs.
Think of sequencing as writing a story, it would be odd if in the 1st chapter the characters are introduced, and in the next chapter, they are dead. For your listeners, it would be awkward to hear a soft song that transitions into a heavy fast-paced song. Singles are what attract your listeners, but an album is how you make them into fans. You have worked hard to create and produced every part of your story, so take the time to focus on the sequencing. Listeners will easily skip from one song to the next, you need to give your listeners a reason to stay for the whole story, and not to skip chapters.
I'd love to know what your favourite limiter is you use most?
I don’t have a favourite, I pick different ones for different jobs.
Hi Mark,
Wow, that was an education.... love your channel and I am always learning from it. I know little about Mastering as i'm an audio post engineer, my question is when an album is 'remastered' how does the process differ from the original mastering process?
It depends on the project. I’ve just remastered a load of back catalogue for a major jazz artist and it’s all be transferred straight from tape and mastered for the digital world, as well as versions for new vinyl releases. When it was originally released it was just for vinyl, so a lot of low end and stereo information was lost. But sometimes ‘remasters’ are just marketing tools for labels!
@@PresentDayProduction Great info Mark thanks! It makes perfect sense what you're telling me because I've heard some classics that sound revitalised after remastering and some that sound awful!
great video
Cheers!
well laid!
The thing about funk dj's still carrying around 7" records was the best thing i heard today. It's funny because it's true.
i'm sure flopkat would make good vinyl cutter.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, I learned so much from your video Mark. I’d like to know what your mixing and mastering price would be for one song and if you offer a discount for an 8 track album? My band has sort of a Folk Pop/ Rock Pop sound. We recorded the vocals and basic tracks on analog tape in 1989. We had the tracks digitally transferred to digital in Nashville, Tennessee U.S.A. We have added additional tracks to the songs and we are currently trying to find the right fit for us to make our music come alive. Thanks again for the video.
Hey Rami! James here - Thanks so much! If you could drop us an email at info@presentdayproduction.com we’d love to find out more.
Thanks so much!
Back in the day .. did they use to send it to a stereo reel to reel for saturation then onto vinyl ??
Mixes were mixed to stereo quarter or half inch open reel machine and then that was what was sent for mastering. But what a lot of people forget is that we were trying to avoid saturation and distortion, not add it!
He's a poet and he know it!
Great in depth video as usual guys!! Somewhat unrelated question but would you ever consider online/remote tuition for engineers of different abilities? A massive undertaking no doubt but I'm sure it would be incredibly well received
Hey Ben! Thanks!
This is something we’re looking into but not sure how it’ll work just yet :)
Given the issue with lacquer, why isn't direct metal mastering more prevalent?
Because it just doesn’t sound as good… yet!
Mark: And that’s why learning about mastering on CZcams is awful.
Us: And that’s why learning about mastering on CZcams is awful.
John Cleese: Now just a minute ….
😂
Kidding. Super interesting answer to a great question.
Is there a LUFSi average that indie rock is mastered to ? (Vinyl)
I’m getting mixes though at -7LUFS. And suggesting we aren’t a good fit and that they should try a different mastering engineer…
Vinyl enforces some discipline and should result in better sound than the loudness wars versions on CD. Maybe that's the real reason vinyl sounds better than modern CDs.
As a Transcription technician myself, I'm not comfortable with the monkey reference.
IMO vinyl is just like a photo filter, the sound of it can be simulated by digital technology very close.
But people just like collecting and put a vinyl player at home.
👍👍👍
Here it comes forgive me 🤔… can the laquer or plate be 3d printed?
It can, but it doesn’t sound as good, yet!
brilliant
But wrong
@@andygrove285 please enlighten us all!
@@PresentDayProduction No problem mate (sorry to be so provocative, late night). Firstly, regardless whether cutting to vinyl or not, making a master to any format, below a certain frequency, bass should be mixed to mono.
(To those who are reading - mixing to mono at the bass means two woofers vs one reproducing the bass notes, or to control excursion of the cutter head. The hard decision, and where the skill and equipment comes into play as to where you make that transition.)
Simply speaking, you want to know where the bass player is in the image, but you want both woofers reproducing the low fundamentals.
(In retrospect, I may have misinterpreted what you said in the vid.)
Secondly, lacquers, are around £100 each from memory? So, expenditure wise, they are only a small part of overall production costs. I guess it depends on budgets. But, if you want to get it absolutely right for a high quality pressing... 🙂
Thirdly, the RIAA pre-EQ curve does mean that 20kHz is boosted by 19.6dB compared to 1kHz, the actual energy there, in any normal music means it's not really a problem for the cutter head as long as care is taken.
And, bear in mind, vinyl was (and still is to a certain extent) a massive industry with millions and millions of records cut and produced each year - the technology is highly evolved and developed.
It's highly unlikely a cutter will explode and burn your studio down, and it's going to be the size of a vending machine with a fridge next to it.
Shortform answers, with a few edits, but there you go! Shoot me down in flames, hahahaha! 🙂
Towards the end you pretty much say the same as my own feeling on vinyl in 2022. Just why?!
I wonder how many ‘audiophiles’ praising the vinyl sound now praising ultra high digital resolution claiming the godlike experience with ‘enhanced’ frequency response.
Wait what cut at 15,000 cycles? Don't be silly I clearly hear that bat in the background.
Vinyl can be recycled but it's a labour heavy process to turn processed vinyl back into reusable vinyl to the point where the reprocessed vinyl is equal to virgin vinyl. There is something sensual about vinyl that CD never accomplished. A lot of that has to do with the packaging and the record covers as well as the beauty of the labels. Most CD's are just black printing on silver rather than the full colour artwork of many of the vinyl record labels of the past. And although the CD booklets can supply a lot of information you generally need magnifying glass to be able to read the notes. I remember sitting in record mastering rooms in the vinyl days and seeing the care and professionalism of the cutting engineers as they setup the volume, compressor and equalization levels to get the best possible sound to the masters to both protect the equipment and to preserve (and sometimes improve) the sound. I have personally mastered for digital but have always passed on the vinyl projects to engineers that specialize in mastering for vinyl. It is a different artform that is under appreciated in todays World.
PRO'S
So, there is more than one vinyl solution, then.
Easy first
I want to be a record cutting monkey, Mark. Where do I start ?
You and Guy Michelmore are friggen brothers!
Except he’s a bit older and much more clevererer
@@PresentDayProduction Bring me all the knowledge of the balding English men! Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Love it!
So I'm not alone in noticing the resemblance. When I first chanced on this channel, I really thought it was Guy in these videos 😂
You are so fucking likeable
Quieter mix
Roll off your highs after 14k
Mono your lows below 150
My amateur summation before i send these Dubplates to be cut
😂
Try my music and you'll quit mastering forever! Being deaf :)
Environment? Your video is online. In order to be online somebody must burn fuel in order to keep you online. Without counting all the pollution to produce chips , computers and so on.