If you do that and don't like the results that gets you, look for a different cutting guy. Edit and assemble each side, send one file for Side A and one for Side B. Skip the loudness processing (clipping, limiting, whatever) and print 24 bit files. Here's what the mastering engineer should do: EQ and compress for aesthetic reasons (not for loudness) exactly as you would for any other release format. A lot of what I read on these forums is not quite right. īut if you dont know it and will they tell us after words.lets start again if we know it from the start we can arrange the Vinyl print like this before than push it more for CD. There are times when I know who is doing the lacquer or DMM cut, and times where it's a mystery but the above workflow has been a good starting point for a majority of projects going to vinyl. I typically make sure my final limiter is not doing any gain reduction, just applying a ceiling at -0.2 for safety's sake.įinally, I'll render a 24-bit WAV for each side of the album for the vinyl pre-master and include a PQ/PDF with the track times for each side. Once the client approves the digital master, I can get started on the vinyl pre-master.įor the vinyl pre-master I have been inserting the UAD BAX EQ as the first insert on the master section in Wavelab, dropping the output of BAX EQ by 3 to 5 dB, filtering at 24HZ and 18kHz, followed by BX_Control to mono the low end somewhere between 40 and 100Hz, and then apply some M/S multi-band compression to tame some of the sibilance in the center channel where the vocals usually live (and sometimes the sides too if there is a lot of panned vocals). I then do my final subtle tweaks for each song or piece in Wavelab along with sequencing, track IDs, and CD-Text/metadata.įor the digital master I use a digital limiter like Ozone 5 or Voxengo Elephant to make it just a touch louder for clients to approve in the digital world, sometimes with Sonnox Inflator in front of the digital limiter for an extra boost. I still clip the converter but not nearly as hard as I would for all digital release.

If I know ahead of time that a project is going to be a vinyl and digital release, I don't print back in from the analog gear as hot as I might for a modern all digital release.

However, I have developed a workflow for vinyl pre-masters that works very well with the lacquer cutter I normally use, as well as the random places projects end up when I don't have a say in who cuts the lacquer. Maybe mastering from scratch for vinyl in a perfect world with unlimited time and budget, but I've found that the world isn't perfect and there is limited time and budget for most projects.

Do curved text in vinyl master pro