mastering question: outputting various files/formats

[joninc]

i am doing more and more mastering for projects these days (often stuff that i
recorded and mixed as well) and I do processing in cubase and OTB and then
have been using CD ARCHITECT for burning the final masters sequcenced
with cd text, isrc codes and upc etc...

here's the thing - people often want the wav files now too for bandcamp/itunes but the wav files of the mixes that i print in Cubase don't have the right spacing/sequencing/fades like the CD ARCHITECT master does.

so - do i burn a cd master and rip wav files off that for them? it seems like you'd lose a generation of quality and it would be better to get them the original wav files but i can't export the sequenced wav's from CD ARCHITECT so what do i do?

AND now more and more artists are doing vinyl so i need to output a higher res 24bit version of each SIDE of the album which I can do in Cubase but it seems like there must be a better way to consolidate this process so I don't have to make 3 different versions of the master in different programs etc..

what do you do?

[JGriffin]

so - do i burn a cd master and rip wav files off that for them? it seems like you'd lose a generation of quality and it would be better to get them the original wav files...

Unless a) your original wav files are 24 bit or 2) your computer is mighty screwed up, there should be no generation loss ripping a wav file from a CD.

[joninc]

thanks for the response - no offence but do do you do mastering? is this how you work? just honestly curious if people do this.

you don't think it seems slightly wrong to burn the original files onto a cd, and then rip them back (with itunes?? or??) and then use those files as master rather than the original files? i realize we are talking about digital not cassettes or something where the difference is really noticeable but still there are error rates and stuff with cd burning so it would seem like a compromise to me.

also, the vinyl lacquer guys will take the hi res (24 bit) files so i have to have that for them and i can't do that in CD ARCHITECT. so right off the bat i have to lay out the sequence twice in diff software and make sure they are identical (in terms of spacing and sequencing/fades/crossfades)

[Nick Sevilla]

i am doing more and more mastering for projects these days (often stuff that i recorded and mixed as well) and I do processing in cubase and OTB and then have been using CD ARCHITECT for burning the final masters sequcenced with cd text, isrc codes and upc etc...

here's the thing - people often want the wav files now too for bandcamp/itunes but the wav files of the mixes that i print in Cubase don't have the right spacing/sequencing/fades like the CD ARCHITECT master does.

so - do i burn a cd master and rip wav files off that for them? it seems like you'd lose a generation of quality and it would be better to get them the original wav files but i can't export the sequenced wav's from CD ARCHITECT so what do i do?

AND now more and more artists are doing vinyl so i need to output a higher res 24bit version of each SIDE of the album which I can do in Cubase but it seems like there must be a better way to consolidate this process so I don't have to make 3 different versions of the master in different programs etc..

what do you do?

Hi,
For online sales of the product (iTunes, bandcamp), you need only give them a DATA disc. Do not concern yourself with the "running order", as they will have to do that themselves when they upload the songs to each service.

-As to using MetaData on WAV files, well, you'd have to see about offering your clients songs already encoded into the proper format. The MetaData should include song name, copyright info, etc. etc.etc. all according to what you can write on there. I remember Jam, which came with Toast for Mac, did this stuff. Also, WaveBurner allows CD Text as well as the individual ISRC for each track AND the album UPC / EAN code as well as other fields (6 total) to be burned into the CD. But when it is copied, I don't know if the MetaData moves along with the WAV file, as you can rip into mp3 or AIFF directly... I guess that would disappear then.

Enter "Mastered For iTunes", which is an encoding software process and set of guides for doing so. There was talk of this at the last PotLuckCon. I was told iTunes now wants 24bit 96kHz stereo WAV files, but did not get the further details as to what MetaData to include within the file itself. Apple loves black magic and silence.

-As to BandCamp, you can contact them directly and find out what they support, what the most popular format is for that service, and offer that to your clients.

-As to vinyl, that is a separate mastering process, in which the "glass master" is made from either your already mastered audio files, OR an unmastered set for the songs,for the guy who is going to create the vinyl "Master". I have usually preferred to give that mastering guy his own set of UNMASTERED mixes, which are not mastered for CD beforehand, as the medium will be vinyl, and it has a different set of rules as to limits on freq., compression, etc. And aslo the running order may be different, because you can only put x minutes per side (22 max or so) so that might change.


So, in the end I usually deliver according to what is going to happen:

One Mastered CD, from a mastering engineer (not me usually someone else)
One UNMASTERED set of mixes as a DATA disc (not playable on cd players).

This gives the artist the option later to remaster the mixes for vinyl, and also allows them a mastered CD to rip into an online format. They get to encode the MetaData, as I simply do not have an easy way to do this, and I prefer someone else do this better than me.

I try to focus on the mixing side of things.

Cheers

[joninc]

Hi,
For online sales of the product (iTunes, bandcamp), you need only give them a DATA disc. Do not concern yourself with the "running order", as they will have to do that themselves when they upload the songs to each service.

Cheers

yes, BUT the files still have to have the proper amount of spacing and in some cases, crossfades etc...

that is the stuff that i do in my mastering/cd authoring software.

so, i guess i am answering my own question here in that i need to do all that stuff in cubase so that the files translate across all mediums better.

-As to using MetaData on WAV files, well, you'd have to see about offering your clients songs already encoded into the proper format. The MetaData should include song name, copyright info, etc. etc.etc. all according to what you can write on there.

i will have to look into the metadata - thanks for that. right now i only know how to imbed that stuff via CD ARCHITECT.

Enter "Mastered For iTunes", which is an encoding software process and set of guides for doing so. There was talk of this at the last PotLuckCon. I was told iTunes now wants 24bit 96kHz stereo WAV files, but did not get the further details as to what MetaData to include within the file itself. Apple loves black magic and silence.

also something to look into.

-As to BandCamp, you can contact them directly and find out what they support, what the most popular format is for that service, and offer that to your clients.

bandcamp require wav/aiff/flac files and will output the compressed versions from that. they will take a wide variety of bit and sample rates.

http://bandcamp.com/faq#aiffwavuploadrequirement

-As to vinyl, that is a separate masteing process, in which the "glass master" is made from either your already mastered audio files, OR an unmastered set fo the songs,for the guy who is going to create the vinly "Master". I have usually preferred to give that mastering guy his own set of UNMASTERED mixes, which are not mastered for CD beforehand, as the medium will be vinyl, and it has a different set of rules as to limits on freq., compression, etc.

i am aware that people often master differently for vinyl, however, they will accept the sides as 24 bit wav files and we have been quite conservative with levels and bottom end so as to translate well to vinyl.

I try to focus on the mixing side of things

thanks for the condescension.

[Nick Sevilla]

I try to focus on the mixing side of things

thanks for the condescension.

Sorry, but I was not trying to be condescending.

It is complicated enough as you can see, to deal with all that technical stuff.
I have helped people in the past with this type of stuff, but generally I do not offer any of these services. My mind usually gets completely off track for a couple of days after dealing with encoders / secret handshakes / file formats, etc. so it takes me more time to get back into a creative mindset for the recording / mixing. I guess my mind works strangely in that regard.

Cheers

[punkrockdude]

I think that if you use a Windows program like Exact Audio Copy that has advanced error correction and Accurate Rip (well, this won't work since your work is not yet commercially available) checking combined with correct offset settings then your outcome wav/mp3 files should have correct lengths and no audioble degradation. Regards.

[chris harris]

There's no "glass master" used in the creation of vinyl records. "Glass masters" are used to manufacture CDs & DVDs. Vinyl manufacturing uses cut lacquers to create metal stampers.

[Nick Sevilla]

There's no "glass master" used in the creation of vinyl records. "Glass masters" are used to manufacture CDs & DVDs. Vinyl manufacturing uses cut lacquers to create metal stampers.

Thanks. Another reason I let other people do these things.

Cheers

[Dakota]

Hi,
For online sales of the product (iTunes, bandcamp), you need only give them a DATA disc. Do not concern yourself with the "running order", as they will have to do that themselves when they upload the songs to each service.

Cheers

yes, BUT the files still have to have the proper amount of spacing and in some cases, crossfades etc...

that is the stuff that i do in my mastering/cd authoring software.

so, i guess i am answering my own question here in that i need to do all that stuff in cubase so that the files translate across all mediums better.

Yep to you doing all the central work in Cubase, joninc, it'll be less hassle. (Fyi, I'm a mastering engineer, so my 2 cents are hopefully worth at least 2 cents).

I assemble in PT, but it's no different than Cubase for these purposes. I do the mastering session in 88.2k 24bit even if the submitted mix files are 44.1, so that the plugin resolution runs higher. I get the sequencing and crossfades and spacing done in PT, and then output the whole album as one single block wav file at full res, 88.2/24.

That block is then the universal master, and can be tailored to each delivery medium. Toward a CD, the block file next goes to Voxengo R8brain for conversion to 44.1/16, and that then goes to CD architect and the markers and metadata are laid in, but no re-sequencing or re-timing is done in CD architect. The band is given a physical CD and several identical backups and several prints of the PQ sheet, and they get the package to the factory.

Toward bandcamp, the same hi res block is cut up in PT and exported as separate song files, but careful not to add or subtract any time at all from the total, so the result is identical to the CD master. The separate files are then batch converted in R8brain, the band sends those to bandcamp and the band submits the metadata.

Toward vinyl, the same full res block would be chopped into two sides and submitted at whatever the highest res they want.

And the hi res master block is there if there is ever a future request for a hi res master.

- & a thought: yes, one can rip back from a CD to try to get wav files that are exactly as per the burned CDA data on the CD... but I don't ever entirely trust that a rip is without a few errors speckled in, and avoid that unless there is no other way.

[joninc]

thanks dakota!! exactly the type of help i need!

[farview]

First off, there is no generation loss ripping a cd. its just 1's and 0's, if it didn't work that way, every time you opened a spreadsheet off of a cd, it would be all screwed up. (or a program install file like the one from cubase)

The easiest way to get around this is to assemble the cd in cubase, render it as one long file, then place the markers, text, etc... in cd architect.

[jhharvest]

First off, there is no generation loss ripping a cd. its just 1's and 0's, if it didn't work that way, every time you opened a spreadsheet off of a cd, it would be all screwed up. (or a program install file like the one from cubase)

This is partly right. The difference however is that CDROM disks (mode 1) generally have ~10% error correction data, where as audio CDs don't have this.

Although this said, I'd encourage people to do their own test: burn 10 copies of an audio CD. Then rip it in and check for bit differences.

[farview]

But when you are ripping a CD, it's the same thing. The reader can keep going over the info until it's able to read it. It can't do that while it's playing because it has to be in real time. (even though most players have look ahead buffers)

Another solution that I just thought of: burn the CD architect session to an image file or a wav file (I forgot which one it will let you do), then cut that up to make the individual wavs.

This is one of the reasons I have wavelab, I do all the processing, two track editing and sequencing in this program.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

it's trivially easy to burn a cd, reimport the wavs, line them up with the originals, flip the phase, and verify that what's on the disc is exactly 100.00% the same.

taking the masters from a burned cd is fine, i do it all the time. burn the master, walk the cd over to my office computer, rip the wavs into wavelab, zip the folder, upload to clients for approval.