The Voodoo of CD Mastering

The Voodoo of CD Mastering

The Voodoo of CD Mastering


June 19: Finally, a major update!

This site is best viewed with

Netscape Navigator something-point-something. Screw Microsoft Explorer.


Maintaining this resource takes a lot of time. I personally dislike
blatant commercialism on the net,
but I have to put in this plug: If you would like to
support this ever-growing collection of information on the art and science
of music mastering, please send some business my way at
The Carpeted Dungeon. I make CD-R’s from DAT’s and cassettes,
along with basic level matching and limiting (using the Waves L1),
song ordering and spacing
adjustment, with fade in/outs as needed. Several of my clients have used
CD-R’s I’ve made as the source for the plant to make the glass master for
mass replication. Call Aaron
at 314-291-1783 or email
adl@essrl.wustl.edu for
more info. In my copious spare
time (HA!), I’m working on a Carpeted Dungeon website… stay tuned.

*.txt files are discussions I’ve been archiving
from the the sonic,
ddesign, and daw-mac mailing lists and rec.audio.pro
newsgroup and a few other places. I’ve generally edited out the bulky
headers and sigs. I update these every once in a while.
The latest update is shown in parens. (Sorry the articles aren’t always
in any particular
order…)

Some of these threads contain posts that are at times
critical of
some products… please remember these are just one person’s opinion, and
that many folks swear by the products discussed here, so when reading these
remember there is a larger context…






































Mastering Houses


recommendations.txt – every once in a while, somebody asks for names and
numbers of good mastering engineers… here’s the nets collected two cents
(10-7-95)

MUST VISITS
(highly informative)

DRT

Digital Domain

MasterMakers

Mastering Houses

M Works

Frankford/Wayne

Rocket Lab

Ultimate One (Hong Kong)

Trevor Sadler

Restoration and Mastering

Audio Mechanics

Quintessential Sound
Omega

Mastering & More

Soundworks (w/NoNoise)

HotWax

Nilson Creative Media Corp.

The iNTERLAB

Overtom

Editing, etc.

Riehl Communications

Editel

Low cost, digital only

Sandbox

Academia


Univ. of North Texas College of Music

























Digital Audio Workstations


digid-vs-sonic.txt – Digidesign vs. Sonic Solutions, what’s
right for you? (12-26-95)



Sonic Solutions

usp-dangers.txt – Dangers lurking in the Sonic Solutions USP (12-26-95)


sonic-digid-fusion.txt – Integrating Digidesign stuff with
Sonic Solutions stuff (12-26-95)


ABG (dealer page)



Digidesign
digi-init-dae.txt – Problems
with Digidesign INIT’s and the DAE (12-26-95)


audiomedia-issues.txt – issues concerning the Audiomedia card (12-26-95)


audiomedia-noise.txt – getting the SCSI chatter out of your
Audiomedia audio (12-26-95)

PC-Based

Sadie |

Spectral |

Digital Audio Labs

Standalone

Fairlight



























Audio Hardware and Software

D-A, A-D, sample rate converters, digital meters, etc.

Apogee |

dB Technologies |

Mytek |

Z SYS.


analog2digital.txt – thoughts on A-D converters (12-26-95)


connections.txt – interfacing digital audio equipment (9-6-95)


jitter.txt – with some general DAC issues (12-26-95)


overs-and-metering.txt – and clipping and distortion etc. (12-26-95)



T.C. Electronics

m5000.txt – tidbits on the T.C. Electronics M5000
(12-26-95)


l1_vs_m5000.txt – which is better? (a moot point
since they’re totally different animals, but still interesting discussion)
(12-26-95)

DSP Plug-ins

Waves |

Arboretum

Misc. Processing

valley.txt – Tidbits on Valley DSP’s (12-26-95)

Other cool stuff

Gallery Software


























CD-Recording Hardware, Software, and Media


cdr-drives.txt – CD-R hardware and software (12-26-95)

CD-Prep Software

Toast |

Golden Hawk

CD Writers
Yamaha |

cd-9xx.txt
on Sony’s writer (also known as cd-2xx by Sonicians) (1-3-96)

Media

cdr-media.txt – CD-R media (including the yellow vs. green controversy)
(12-26-95)


cd-art.txt – printing and silkscreening on CD-R’s (9-6-95)

Don’t forget…

hard-drives.txt – trials and tribulations of hard drives
for digital audio (9-6-95)


backup.txt – backing up large soundfiles (10-7-95)


audio-from-cd.txt – converting audio on CD to soundfiles (10-7-95)















The Art (?) and Science (???) of Mastering

Artistic Choices

bass.txt – how to stop bass which sounds cool on great monitors
from going blech on cheesy boom boxes (9-6-95)


compression.txt – use of compression in mastering (10-7-95)


dithering.txt – techniques for reducing quantization distortion (12-26-95)


equalization.txt – use of equalization in mastering (12-26-95)


mastering-adv.txt – advice on “problem solving” in mastering
(9-6-95)


mastering-importance.txt – colorful exchanges on the importance and role of
the mastering engineer (9-6-95)


noise-be-gone.txt – tools and tips for dehissing, declicking, decrackling,
etc. (12-26-95)


normalization.txt – to normalize or not to normalize (and issues related
to matching apparent volumes) (10-7-95)


pitch-shift.txt pitch shifting and time stretching/squishing (12-26-95)


stereo-image.txt – improving the stereo image during mastering (9-6-95)

Technicalities

1630-vs-exabyte.txt – (and vs. CD-R) What’s the best
mastering format? (12-26-95)


error-correction.txt – (in CD’s, DAT’s, etc.) (12-26-95)


filter-formulas.txt – conversion formulas
for filters specified with differing units (12-26-95)


golden-ears.txt – do these lessons in listening work? (12-26-95)


redbook.txt – CD format standards (12-26-95)


hidden-track.txt – NEW!
(12-26-95)

General philosophy


  • canonical-jokes.txt     – including Gabe Wiener’s list of engineering jokes
    (9-6-95)


  • copy-protection.txt     – NEW! the bane of much music software (12-26-95)


  • costs.txt     – articles with specific price info (12-26-95)


  • crippling.txt     – on the annoying habit
    many companies have ofreleasing crippled versions of programs
    as marketing gimmicks (12-26-95)


  • mailing-lists.txt     – info on mastering-related (sometimes vaguely)
    mailing lists (9-6-95)

Monitors

Duplication facilities/brokers (including one-offs)

Sales


  • Audioforce     is a rental outfit whose stock includes some high-end
    mastering gear like the DAE-3000. (Apparently they also have a
    studio where they do mastering things, but the info on that isn’t on-line yet.)


  • CD Archive     sells CD-R recorders,
    software, and media, and does mass replication and one-offs



  • Mission Recording and Audio     carries digital audio
    software and hardware, including the Waves plug-ins


  • The Cassette House     also
    sells CD-R media and DATs and other such things

More info

Misc.

Click

here
to learn about the ever expanding, ever improving St. Louis
area local music scene.

Last modified 19 June 1996

Maintained by

Aaron Lanterman



adl@essrl.wustl.edu