Archive Mastering

Tel: (902) 461-9992
info@archivemastering.com

The Process

Mastering is as much a communication process as it is a technical process - it is the last chance to make any final adjustments to your recordings that help your ideas translate to the listener. Experience shows that the best results are achieved when we know the goals and context of your project. Typically an attended mastering session will begin by listening to some or all of your mixes, and discussing what you would like to achieve during the mastering process. If there are other recordings that help demonstrate what you would like to accomplish, by all means share them with us. The next few hours are spent running through your album in order, performing any necessary analog and digital processing as we load your mixes into our editing workstation. Sequencing, spacing, and editing is performed in the workstation, and a reference disc is made of the completed album.

At this point the attended portion of the mastering session is essentially complete. We recommend that you take your reference copy of the master home and listen to it in a familiar setting. Whether your favorite listening environment is your car, headphones, home stereo, or studio monitors, we understand the importance of hearing your project in that setting.

Special Info for Unattended and FTP Sessions:

For unattended sessions we now offer the option of uploading your mixes directly to the mastering studio via a secure file transfer service. Additionally, we can provide you with reference copies in a downloadable form, either as a Broadcast WAV file with embedded markers, or as a CD Image and CUE file, allowing you to burn a reference CD that is bit for bit identical to a reference made here. Click here for more information on handling your reference file.

The Production Master:

Upon approval of the reference, a production master is mailed to you, or directly to your record label or pressing plant. Masters for CD manufacturing are provided on a sealed CD, with C1/C2/CU verification report and complete timing logs. The production master should remain sealed until it reaches the manufacturing facility.

Web Audio:

If you require web audio versions (mp3, aac, flac, etc) of your master, please let us know. We can encode in the proper downloadable or streaming formats for all major music sites.

Mix Delivery Formats (what you bring to us):

1. Analog 2-track (1/4"), at 30, 15, 7.5 ips. Please provide alignment tones (1kHz, 10kHz, 100Hz minimum, 15kHz and 50Hz are very helpful too), and label with eq type, tape speed and reference fluxivity.

2. 16/20/24 bit digital audio files at 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, or 96 kHz, utilizing the following formats: WAV, AIFF, or SDII audio files on CD-ROM or via FTP; Audio CD; Masterlink CD-24. DVD-ROM, USB memory sticks, and portable USB or Firewire hard drives are also acceptable ways of delivering your digital audio data.

3. We can accept DAT and MiniDisc as well with advance notice, but these are considered obsolete formats and are not recommended unless absolutely necessary.

4. For restoration work from cassette, vinyl, and analog reels please call. We can restore and transfer most formats.

Documentation:

At the studio we will need your album title, artist name, and contact information as a minimum. If you would like your CD masters to include CD-Text information, please have complete final song titles ready. If your CD masters require ISRC and/or UPC codes, please have those ready as well (ISRC codes are free, and are required for iTunes and other digital distribution services, but it is not an absolute requirement to encode them on the CD. Click here for more ISRC info).

If you are creating an enhanced CD with audio plus data, please call to discuss your project.

Clients often ask us how to get their cd recognized by iTunes, Window Media Player, etc, so we created this short guide.

ARCHIVE MASTERING makes a hard drive backup of your finished master(s). Generally we keep these backups on file for 6 months to a year as a convenience to our clients, many of whom rely on us to provide additional masters, edits for singles, compilations or other uses. However, we encourage all clients to maintain an archive of their master tapes and cds. We cannot guarantee the long-term integrity of clients' copies stored here.