CD Mastering and Audio Mastering

MIDEM 2007- Cannes, France: This is home to the world's largest and most popular international music fair that is taking place from January 21st through the 25th. It is probably a little too late to get your tickets for this year! So if you plan ahead you can make it next year especially if you are looking for the best place to network in the music industry. However for those of us who are not able to attend the MIDEM there is still some exciting news to share.

JVC, the company well-known for its development of the VHS video standard, is co- hosting a booth at the MIDEM along with Victor Entertainment, and will be demonstrating their K2HD technology. The K2HD mastering is used for high quality CD sound mastering. Mastering engineers have extreme control over the fidelity by using 24-bit high resolution information, and a wide frequency range that extends up to 100kHz based on this K2HD technology.

If you would like more information on the MIDEM check out the link midem.com.

Posted by Brian at 04:57 PM | Permalink

Many mastering engineers have heard of or read the book "Mastering Audio: The Art of the Science" by Bob Katz. Bob Katz is not only an author and well known mastering engineer, but he also can add to his list of accomplishments that of inventor. Bob was recently awarded a U.S. patent for his K-Stero and K-Surround circuit designs.

These K processors will help recover lost ambience, space, and depth, it also provides post-production control of reverb returns, as well as preserving the mix, plus much more.

Posted by Brian at 04:22 PM | Permalink

What happens when you combine the very entertaining Cirque du Soleil and one of the most acclaimed bands of all time, the Beatles? Simply put - You get LOVE!

LOVE is the name of Cirque Du Soleils new musical celebration as well as the name of the Beatles new album that is a remix of some of their classics mastered by not one but two very well known producers. This all came about due to a close personal friendship between the late George Harrison of the Beatles, and Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil.

The really interesting story however is about the father and son team who produced the new album. This is no ordinary duo. It is no other than the legendary George Martin, the Beatles original producer, and his son Giles. They were fortunate enough to be allowed access to the Beatles master tapes from Abbey Road Studios. What they did with those well preserved tapes is quite impressive. I listened to a few tracks on Cirque Du Soleil's website and loved what I heard. For more information about this mastering project check out Rocky Mountain News.

Posted by Brian at 08:17 PM | Permalink

A big part of a mastering engineer's job is to actually remove as many pops, clicks, and miscellaneous unwanted noises as possible from an audio recording before they finish the final master. So why would someone purposely add crackle or sounds that normally people are paying their hard earned money to have removed? This is a question that only a select few could possibly answer. It is my opinion that this procedure is no more than a fad. I do not believe that this will be any type of process that would become common place and turn into some type of trend. Most people are probably a little perplexed as to why anyone would consider this. However, there are those out there that do this and promote it to a certain extent. So check out this link to Wired News for more information about this crazy idea.

Posted by Brian at 04:37 PM | Permalink

Let's start with the basics of handling and caring for optical discs. Most of these are common sense but it never hurts to mention them as reminders. Optical discs should be handled by the outer edge or through the center hole. Discs should not be bent or flexed and only write on the clear hub of the disc and use a water based felt-tip permanent marker.

Always keep discs that are not being used in a jewel case or some type of sleeve (paper or plastic). Jewel cases are the preferred method for storage because they are supported at the hub. Never stack discs so that they are touching each other to prevent scratches and to prevent warping due to excess weight. Also store jewel cases vertically (like a book) instead of horizontally which leads to unwanted stacking of CD's.

Lastly if a disc is dirty, dusty or smudged with fingerprints you may be able to clean it before it is permanently damaged. With dust, use a non-abrasive photographic lens tissue, or very soft brush. Fingerprints can possibly be removed by using a DVD/CD cleaning agent or isopropyl alcohol. Use only small quantities and make sure the cleaning motion is from the center of the disc outwards to the edge.

Posted by Brian at 06:33 PM | Permalink

Your first question, more than likely, will be what exactly is CIRC or Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code? I could easily write about the technical side of CIRC but then this article would easily be several pages long. I will to try to explain the CIRC concept in laymen terms.

CIRC deals specifically with the issue of error detection and correction. All CD’s are incorporated with CIRC. CIRC is a powerful error detection code that can detect and completely correct all errors on a reasonably good disc.

The first step any good and professional CD mastering company will take once they receive a pre-mastered CD, will be for the CD mastering engineer to run the CD through a high end program that will evaluate the quality of the CD. If a major error occurs and a sample cannot be perfectly reconstructed by the error control circuitry, it may be possible to "guess" the content of the sample; that is, obtain an approximation by interpolating it off the neighboring audio samples. While this concealment will not "fix" the error, it will make it inaudible, offering a graceful degradation of audio quality as clicks and pops are avoided.

This same program will tell them the compatibility between the writer and the media and which type of media works best. In return this allows the mastering engineer to optimize disc quality and avoid problems, especially since media quality varies with each batch. Then the CD mastering engineer can discover bad batches to save them time and save customers money
Keep in mind that all CD's are not made equal and quality will vary, sometimes dramatically. Any errors that occur usually are a result of poor disc quality, type of burner used, or what speed the pre-master was burned at.

In GENERAL terms, the higher the speed you burn at, the more errors you will get. Even the opposite is sometimes true as well. If you burn slower that 4X you create an emulsion of the recording and makes the recording prone to different types of errors.

Posted by Brian at 03:32 PM | Permalink

Most people are a little skeptical these days whenever they see the word 'FREE', however this particular offer is legitimate and sensible. Discmasters can actually be credited for developing and implementing the concept of the FREE test master! Why do they do this is you ask? This is a good question, which I will explain. Yet, a better question is what are you waiting for?

Depending on the mastering requirements of your music (and to help assure its maximum audio impact and quality in the marketplace) a free test master evaluation is a great idea that makes a lot of sense. This is truly evident by how many other CD mastering companies are now offering this service just like Discmasters has been doing for many years.

This free test allows the client to hear a sample of the final mastering result of their music before they make the big decision to have their new release completely mastered. Discmasters will take one song, analyze it and then actually master the track. (See previous posts for more information about cd mastering.) This gives the client the opportunity to listen to the original sample track and compare it to the newly mastered version. You will easily and instantly hear the difference in overall quality. This is why having your CD mastered is so important.

At this point you might be asking yourself what the gimmick is? Well there is none! Discmasters is so confident in their abilities and in how much you will love the results of that one mastered track you will want them to do the rest.

Discmasters is world class and offers a variety of professional mastering services. Keep in mind this free test master allows Discmasters to accurately evaluate and recommend which mastering options are best suited to your CD release or project. Check them out on line at www.discmasters.com or call them at 1-888-430-DISC (3472).

Posted by Brian at 08:25 PM | Permalink

Q.- What options or programs are available?
A.- The two largest companies that offer cd and dvd copy protection software are Macrovison and SunnComm. Macrovision handles content protection, software licensing and installation, and DRM (digital rights management) technologies. SunnComm helps publishers, record companies, and various artists protect their content ownership rights. There are many various other software programs out there such as: Alkatraz, CD-Cops, X-Protect, CDShield, and Crypkey to name a few.

Q.- Does it really work?
A.- Like any software or technology, there is always someone who is looking for ways to hack or bypass any type of security measures. So this also means that this type of software is ever evolving. The majority of the programs originally blocked consumers' ability to copy or "rip" digital files from CD's/DVD's altogether. To make matters worse some copy protection systems have caused various CD players to malfunction and made some computers crash. This obviously did not go over well with consumers. So the manufacturers looked for a new way to put protected pre-ripped files directly on CD's, which could then instead be transferred to PC's. So the long winded answer is yes, but you also need to ask yourself if it is really cost effective.

Q.- Is it cost effective?
A.- Depending on what you are planning to copy protect, there are a few facts you should keep in mind. You can buy the software to incorporate copy protection to your release for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. If you plan on doing a very large project for retail release you can pay a company tens of thousands of dollars for licensing fees and copy protection and have them do all the work for you. This particular option would only become a low-cost variable when you hit approximately 50,000 units or more. So if you plan on making it big and becoming the next Michael Jackson or Britney Spears of the music world you may want to consider these options. Otherwise copy protection is probably not very cost effective or worth while to do for your new release.

Posted by Brian at 12:15 AM | Permalink

As we are all aware, technology is ever changing. The invention of the CD (compact disc) obviously did not happen over night and it's history is quite interesting. It evolved through the normal trial and errors associated with the inventing process. After doing a little research, which included an on-line visit to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, I have found the inventor of the compact disc to be James Russell. Unfortunately it is the big names of corporations, like Phillips and Sony that you hear about more often than the researchers themselves.

James Russell was born in 1931 and started inventing at a very early age. After receiving a B.A. in physics at Reed College in Portland (1953) he moved to Washington and went to work for General Electric, surprisingly enough, as a physicist. More than 10 years pass when James decided to expand his horizons and take a position as senior scientist with Battelle Memorial Institute, (Battelle) where he submitted his patent for the cd concept in July of 1969.

Batelle can be accredited for the development of xerography, which led to today's office copy machines and spawned XeroxTM, plus breakthroughs such as improving tool bits to understanding the behavior of materials that were crucial to the space age, and of course the development of algorithms and coatings for early optical digital recording that led to the compact disc.

Eventually other companies, like Phillips, started experimenting with audio-only optical discs. Their researchers used video Laserdisc technology to help in the development of their first prototypes of digital audio discs. Sony and other companies quickly followed suit. In 1979 Sony agreed to join efforts with Phillips to fully design the new digital audio disc. A year later this giant task force proposed worldwide standards and called it the "Red Book". Some of these proposed standards may have included the sampling rate (44.1 kHz), the 16-bit stero sound, the Reed-Solomon code, and the maximum playing time of 74 minutes, to name a few.

This collaboration ended fairly quickly and the race was on to see who could produce the first compact disc player. Supposedly, as the story goes, due to Sony's expertise on the implementation of digital electronics they beat Phillips by one month. In 1982 compact disc technology was finally released in Europe and Japan. Then in 1983, the United States got their chance to help with the phenomenon that took the music industry by storm. Some 30,000 players were sold at about $1,000 a piece and a mere 800,000 cd's were sold as well. Just three years later the numbers continued to grow by leaps and bounds. These numbers are truly astonishing. About 3 million players and 53 million cd's were sold. It is my guess that it will probably be a long time coming that an invention will take off like the introduction of the compact disc, but no one really knows.

Posted by Brian at 09:50 PM | Permalink

Is there a big difference between cd duplication and cd replication? The answer is No. The discs will function the same, but the overall production process will be slightly different. Let's look at the differences of duplication and replication a little more closely.

CD duplication is simply a method of copying CD's (also known as 'burning') onto pre-made discs such as CD-R media. The term burning comes from the laser that is used to write the data to the disk. CD duplication is usually used for small run projects for quantities under 500. It is cost effective, has excellent quality, and has a very quick turn around time if you plan on duplicating only a small quantity.

CD replication is a process of taking your cd master and through injection molding, it is pressed and then encoded to a glass master. This glass master then can be used to make exact clones with the use of a stamper mold. The final steps includes adding a coat of reflective aluminum to the cd and then it is sealed with a protective lacquer that is hardened and cured by ultraviolet light. Replication is normally requested and recommended when a project will excede a quantity greater than 500. However keep in mind that most companies will be able to give a customer the best price point when they order a thousand or more. Replication also offers 100% compatibility with all types of playback media.

If you have further questions about the difference between duplication or replication and what is right for your project contact Discmasters or even call them at 1-888-430-DISC (3472).

Posted by Brian at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You just recorded your first album, demo, or single and you're having mixed emotions, feeling extremely proud and enthusiastic, perhaps a little nervous, maybe even lost. Is it ready to be duplicated or replicated and passed on to the various radio stations, record labels, or music producers? Probably not! First ask yourself whether or not your new studio mixed CD sounds great or pretty good. If you answered pretty good, that will not cut it in the competitive world of the music industry. If you answered great, what are you measuring it against? How will the overall sound quality be if you just leave it alone compared to the competition? The real question should be, can my CD be made to sound any better? So now what?

The next step should be to locate someone who can professionally master your new CD/pre-master (see the article An Introduction to CD Mastering). How do you choose a professional CD mastering engineer that you can trust and not spend a fortune on? Well I'll spell it out for you, Discmasters. Discmasters should be the first people you contact. You will get a professional CD mastering engineer with 20+ years of experience, that provides top-notch friendly service that will take your CD to the next level. Their quality is bar none and very affordable.

Continue reading "I am Done Recording, now what? Get it Mastered!" »

Posted by Brian at 11:33 PM | Permalink

The facility used to master the CD is nearly as important as the engineer. CD mastering facilities are distinct from recording studios, and while a facility can include both recording and mastering equipment, most high-end CD mastering facilities are separate. The type of equipment used in different CD mastering facilities varies greatly. Some facilities use all analog equipment; others only use digital gear, while others have both kinds of devices.

Many CD mastering engineers think it is a good idea to use a different facility for recording and mastering. Furthermore, many believe that it is advisable for completely different people to record the CD and to master it so that the artist has different people provide feedback. It is always smart to get some fresh ears to give input that the producer and mixer of the recording may not think of. Of course, the recording artist should have a hand in all aspects of the production, from recording through mastering.

Continue reading "An Introduction to CD Mastering" »

Posted by Brian at 11:52 PM | Permalink