Can anyone suggest a cheap or free downloadable program that will "master" as in put in those "time codes" or whatever, to make the CD play in all players? Steve.... you are an engineer, any suggestions?
Does Audacity have this capability and I am missing it? I don't want to spend much, I am going broke on recording gear, mikes etc.
I don't know much about the time codes, but I would have thought that if you create a sound file with Audacity and then export as WAV or MP3 it is simply a matter of using a program such as Nero to burn this to CD and the program takes care of all the conversion needed to do this. I know nothing about it because it (the program) does the job for me. The CD's that result seem to play in pretty much all CD players that I am aware of.
Same for me--I use an application called "Easy CD Creator" that came pre-installed on my computer. It asks me whether I want to create a data CD or an audio CD. I choose "audio CD" and drag and drop a few files, and Bob's yer uncle....
I am told if we press these properly, I need a "master" with time codes? I use Audacity, can't find any reference. My recording engineer "advisor" still, by choice, lives in analog days, says it's better initial sound...then sends thing to get digitized...so maybe he is missing something, though he is a producer of many Celtic CDs, so maybe there is something to doing it his way. He talked me into sending my solo guitar CD for mastering at a small fortune, and I saw virtually no difference in sound from what I did, though it was a little brighter....that I could have done myself.
We are doing a series of thus far great session recodings at IAANJ, as a fundraiser to perpetuate the music, have classes, concerts etc. They are also great for learning the tunes. We hope to have them ready next session 2/10. Thus far they feature Tom Dunne, John Nolan, Willie Kelly and next will be Linda Hickman, and we have quite a lineup waiting in the wings for future ones, so many wanting to guest host it is overwhelming.
If anyone is interested, I can give ordering infor for IAANJ when they have it all figured out. They sound super and have loads of life and excitement going on! Much background noise, but rather than detract, it adds to the fun, and the music well overtakes it.
For now I just need to know if a PC burned CD can be sent to a pressing plant as is or is there some technical stuff...these time codes...that need to be mysteriously inserted? I see the Nero and other burners do show the times, lengths of tunes etc. is that all there is or is there some mystery here, LOL!? Are they actually inserting these codes? I hear them leaving space between teacks where I had forgotten to add it in too.
I can’t think of a reason why a CD burned with standard PC software wouldn’t play in any player, except that some of the older players have trouble physically reading some CD’s, but that’s a hardware engineering or manufacturing issue and has nothing to do with what’s burned on the CD.
DVD’s are subject to “region codes” that prevent them from being played everywhere, but I’m not aware of any such thing in CD’s.
I have a friend who is a mastering engineer and I’ve heard him refer to certain standards that the industry expects to be met in a master CD. There’s something called the Orange Book and maybe a Yellow Book, too, that specify these standards.
You are confusing "master," as in the finished product from your end, with "master" as in what the pressing house uses for molding.
You do not create the pressing master. The pressing house will do that. You just send them your audio in whatever format is convenient for you. Your PC burned CD will be just fine.
And as noted your PC burned CDs will work in any modern player as is. There's no deep juju performed for a pressed CD to make them playable. They may not last very long though. I'm having trouble recovering data from burned CDs only 5 years old.
Pressed CDs are actually molded. The bits are physical deformations of the plastic. Burned CDs are made by creating variations in a light sensitive dye layer. That dye layer can be easily degraded, even simply by the quantity of air that worms it's way through the plastic layer (plastic is not truely air tight, it's just mostly airtight).
I've lately been contemplating the whole recording process, both as a solo project and one with my band. I have a friend with a pretty decent recording studio in his basement, and he's offered to engineer for a reasonable price, so I figure that's a pretty important detail squared away.
It's what happens after the recording which I'd been grappling with. Some friends and acquaintances of mine who play music more or less full-time for a living gave me advice about having the original mixed and mastered prior to duplication. This would, of course, add considerable cost to the project.
Fact is, I'm _not_ a full-time musician and I don't have regular, high-profile gigs, so I can't see making that kind of investment right now. I look on this recording venture as somewhat of a vanity project, something I'd give to family, friends and acquaintances (especially those who've been supportive and helpful in my musical development); but the CD could also be used to audition for gigs as well as to sell at concerts, should it come to that.
So my thought is, record several tracks for an "EP" CD, have my friend do as much post-production tinkering as he can, and either duplicate 'em myself via my computer (which apparently can also label the CDs) or have it done commercially. And supposedly it's pretty easy and relatively inexpensive to make a decent CD sleeve.
Has anyone gone that route, more or less? Has it worked to your satisfaction?
Well, you have to do a mixdown to get multiple tracks down to stereo. Mastering – by a real mastering engineer – can improve the sound quite a bit, but it’s expensive. There are some mastering tasks you *can* do yourself, like setting a consistent volume level and maybe adding a slight touch of reverb. A mastering engineer will do careful EQ’ing and probably some compression and some subtle things that you wouldn’t detect without careful repeated listening, but that can affect the overall impact.
OK....so I burned a so called master on the PC yesterday. I did it slow speed and it asked if I wanted mastering or something....brain a bit fuzzy now I am not looking at it. So It took at least 2X as long to make.
On my own guitar cd i did get a master made. Cost $800 for two copies. Ouch! I had done all the EQ pretty close to what I ended up with after mastering. If it was just for sound, I think it was a waste of money. I can hear how I want it to sound and make the adjustments myself.
So if we are selling a lot and we press, I will use these, and they will create the proper master to press from? I assume there will be a set up cost for that besides the pressing costs? In any case, I know the sound work part of my guitar CD that the person did cost $600 and I could have done that myself. So...live and learn! It came out real nice in the end so I won't complain!
thanks everyone!
iris
“I can hear how I want it to sound and make the adjustments myself.“
That’s exactly why I got into (concert/radio) audio engineering. Most people I’ve met doing audio work seem to have gotten into it out of fascination with the technology or the music *scene* rather than the music. Fankly, I think it usually takes decades of immersion in trad acoustic music to develop the ear for producing it.
Mastering is still a subject of mystery for many musicians. Without getting too far into the nitty gritty I'll try to explain what several posters have hinted at already.
The 'Codes' you are concerned about are primarily the P and Q 'subcodes' that conform to the 'redbook' standard. There are other subcodes as well that can for example have the song titles appear on cd players equipped to do this. The first 2 minutes of a redbook audio CD is entirely reserved for these codes and contains no actual audio. The PQ codes exist as a table of contents that informs the player how many tracks exist on the disc, when they start and when they end. (I'm simplifying a bit but this is pretty much what's going on)
A 'Redbook' audio CD is one that has been prepared to the ISA standards defining an audio CD. Every single CD player will play a redbook CD properly. Other 'books' like orange or yellowbook simply expand on the fundemental redbook specs allowing additional parameters to be added to the instruction set in the lead-in portion of the disc. These additional instructions will allow players equiped to recognize them to perform different functions.
To answer some of your questions:
- No, toast will not allow you to edit subcodes.
- Jam, however will (ergo it's additional cost)
Besides the sometimes considerable sonic benefits of having a recording properly mastered, a mastering house will insure that the reference copy you approve will be identical to the ones made at the manafacturing plant. This insurance can be more than worthwhile itself.
It should also be noted that what comes out of a mastering house is actually a 'pre-master'. The actual master called the glass master or replication master is created at the pressing plant in order to provide the template for the injection moulding machines to be stamped out.
The bottom line in all of this is you can't avoid having a master made if you are going to have commercial (injection moulded or stamped) CD's produced. Even if you send the pressing plant a burned CD with proper subcodes a glass master will have to be made. You are free to send a regular burned CD to a replication plant, but they will charge you for pre-mastering (the subcodes) in addition to the glass master (around 250 american for a glass master). In addition, the plant will not insure the final stamped CD's will be the same as the disc you sent them unless you pay for a reference copy to be sent to you and approved by you prior to the press run.
The Bottom Bottom line:
If you are planning to BURN your own CD's for sale, the only signifigant benefit of going to a mastering house is going to be in the sonics.
If you are planning to get your CD's pressed by a factory, going to a mastering house is a very wise idea. You will get insurance that the CD's will sound exactly like the reference disc you approve. You will not have to pay the money again to have the CD pre-mastered at the plant. And the benefits of having a professional mastering engineer who hasn't heard your record a thousand times already put his trained ears to it will make your record the best it can be.
I've gone on far to long already, but any questions I'll be happy to answer.
Recording.... Making a "Master"
Recording.... Making a "Master"
Can anyone suggest a cheap or free downloadable program that will "master" as in put in those "time codes" or whatever, to make the CD play in all players? Steve.... you are an engineer, any suggestions?
Does Audacity have this capability and I am missing it? I don't want to spend much, I am going broke on recording gear, mikes etc.
iris nevins
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by irisnevins
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
I don't know much about the time codes, but I would have thought that if you create a sound file with Audacity and then export as WAV or MP3 it is simply a matter of using a program such as Nero to burn this to CD and the program takes care of all the conversion needed to do this. I know nothing about it because it (the program) does the job for me. The CD's that result seem to play in pretty much all CD players that I am aware of.
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by Donough
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
Same for me--I use an application called "Easy CD Creator" that came pre-installed on my computer. It asks me whether I want to create a data CD or an audio CD. I choose "audio CD" and drag and drop a few files, and Bob's yer uncle....
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by John Galt
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
Mac or PC ? Most people here use Toast.
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by Patkiwi
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
OK.... PC.... I burn, then got a titling printer.
I am told if we press these properly, I need a "master" with time codes? I use Audacity, can't find any reference. My recording engineer "advisor" still, by choice, lives in analog days, says it's better initial sound...then sends thing to get digitized...so maybe he is missing something, though he is a producer of many Celtic CDs, so maybe there is something to doing it his way. He talked me into sending my solo guitar CD for mastering at a small fortune, and I saw virtually no difference in sound from what I did, though it was a little brighter....that I could have done myself.
We are doing a series of thus far great session recodings at IAANJ, as a fundraiser to perpetuate the music, have classes, concerts etc. They are also great for learning the tunes. We hope to have them ready next session 2/10. Thus far they feature Tom Dunne, John Nolan, Willie Kelly and next will be Linda Hickman, and we have quite a lineup waiting in the wings for future ones, so many wanting to guest host it is overwhelming.
If anyone is interested, I can give ordering infor for IAANJ when they have it all figured out. They sound super and have loads of life and excitement going on! Much background noise, but rather than detract, it adds to the fun, and the music well overtakes it.
For now I just need to know if a PC burned CD can be sent to a pressing plant as is or is there some technical stuff...these time codes...that need to be mysteriously inserted? I see the Nero and other burners do show the times, lengths of tunes etc. is that all there is or is there some mystery here, LOL!? Are they actually inserting these codes? I hear them leaving space between teacks where I had forgotten to add it in too.
iris
iris
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by irisnevins
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
I can’t think of a reason why a CD burned with standard PC software wouldn’t play in any player, except that some of the older players have trouble physically reading some CD’s, but that’s a hardware engineering or manufacturing issue and has nothing to do with what’s burned on the CD.
DVD’s are subject to “region codes” that prevent them from being played everywhere, but I’m not aware of any such thing in CD’s.
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
I have a friend who is a mastering engineer and I’ve heard him refer to certain standards that the industry expects to be met in a master CD. There’s something called the Orange Book and maybe a Yellow Book, too, that specify these standards.
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
You are confusing "master," as in the finished product from your end, with "master" as in what the pressing house uses for molding.
You do not create the pressing master. The pressing house will do that. You just send them your audio in whatever format is convenient for you. Your PC burned CD will be just fine.
And as noted your PC burned CDs will work in any modern player as is. There's no deep juju performed for a pressed CD to make them playable. They may not last very long though. I'm having trouble recovering data from burned CDs only 5 years old.
Pressed CDs are actually molded. The bits are physical deformations of the plastic. Burned CDs are made by creating variations in a light sensitive dye layer. That dye layer can be easily degraded, even simply by the quantity of air that worms it's way through the plastic layer (plastic is not truely air tight, it's just mostly airtight).
KFG
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by KFG
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
Hi Iris!
Oboy, the session recordings!!!!
I've sent you email about your questions.
I'm happy to help any way I can, and I can't wait to hear the tunes!!
Thanks, and all the best,
stv
--
steve V johnson
The Culchies, Irish traditional music
CD, "Bruscar Bán" now at
HTTP://WWW.OSSIANUSA.COM
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by stv culchie
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
I've lately been contemplating the whole recording process, both as a solo project and one with my band. I have a friend with a pretty decent recording studio in his basement, and he's offered to engineer for a reasonable price, so I figure that's a pretty important detail squared away.
It's what happens after the recording which I'd been grappling with. Some friends and acquaintances of mine who play music more or less full-time for a living gave me advice about having the original mixed and mastered prior to duplication. This would, of course, add considerable cost to the project.
Fact is, I'm _not_ a full-time musician and I don't have regular, high-profile gigs, so I can't see making that kind of investment right now. I look on this recording venture as somewhat of a vanity project, something I'd give to family, friends and acquaintances (especially those who've been supportive and helpful in my musical development); but the CD could also be used to audition for gigs as well as to sell at concerts, should it come to that.
So my thought is, record several tracks for an "EP" CD, have my friend do as much post-production tinkering as he can, and either duplicate 'em myself via my computer (which apparently can also label the CDs) or have it done commercially. And supposedly it's pretty easy and relatively inexpensive to make a decent CD sleeve.
Has anyone gone that route, more or less? Has it worked to your satisfaction?
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by sts
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
Well, you have to do a mixdown to get multiple tracks down to stereo. Mastering – by a real mastering engineer – can improve the sound quite a bit, but it’s expensive. There are some mastering tasks you *can* do yourself, like setting a consistent volume level and maybe adding a slight touch of reverb. A mastering engineer will do careful EQ’ing and probably some compression and some subtle things that you wouldn’t detect without careful repeated listening, but that can affect the overall impact.
# Posted on January 19th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
OK....so I burned a so called master on the PC yesterday. I did it slow speed and it asked if I wanted mastering or something....brain a bit fuzzy now I am not looking at it. So It took at least 2X as long to make.
On my own guitar cd i did get a master made. Cost $800 for two copies. Ouch! I had done all the EQ pretty close to what I ended up with after mastering. If it was just for sound, I think it was a waste of money. I can hear how I want it to sound and make the adjustments myself.
So if we are selling a lot and we press, I will use these, and they will create the proper master to press from? I assume there will be a set up cost for that besides the pressing costs? In any case, I know the sound work part of my guitar CD that the person did cost $600 and I could have done that myself. So...live and learn! It came out real nice in the end so I won't complain!
thanks everyone!
iris
# Posted on January 20th 2006 by irisnevins
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
“I can hear how I want it to sound and make the adjustments myself.“
That’s exactly why I got into (concert/radio) audio engineering. Most people I’ve met doing audio work seem to have gotten into it out of fascination with the technology or the music *scene* rather than the music. Fankly, I think it usually takes decades of immersion in trad acoustic music to develop the ear for producing it.
# Posted on January 20th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
Fankly?
# Posted on January 20th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: Recording.... Making a "Master"
Mastering is still a subject of mystery for many musicians. Without getting too far into the nitty gritty I'll try to explain what several posters have hinted at already.
The 'Codes' you are concerned about are primarily the P and Q 'subcodes' that conform to the 'redbook' standard. There are other subcodes as well that can for example have the song titles appear on cd players equipped to do this. The first 2 minutes of a redbook audio CD is entirely reserved for these codes and contains no actual audio. The PQ codes exist as a table of contents that informs the player how many tracks exist on the disc, when they start and when they end. (I'm simplifying a bit but this is pretty much what's going on)
A 'Redbook' audio CD is one that has been prepared to the ISA standards defining an audio CD. Every single CD player will play a redbook CD properly. Other 'books' like orange or yellowbook simply expand on the fundemental redbook specs allowing additional parameters to be added to the instruction set in the lead-in portion of the disc. These additional instructions will allow players equiped to recognize them to perform different functions.
To answer some of your questions:
- No, toast will not allow you to edit subcodes.
- Jam, however will (ergo it's additional cost)
Besides the sometimes considerable sonic benefits of having a recording properly mastered, a mastering house will insure that the reference copy you approve will be identical to the ones made at the manafacturing plant. This insurance can be more than worthwhile itself.
It should also be noted that what comes out of a mastering house is actually a 'pre-master'. The actual master called the glass master or replication master is created at the pressing plant in order to provide the template for the injection moulding machines to be stamped out.
The bottom line in all of this is you can't avoid having a master made if you are going to have commercial (injection moulded or stamped) CD's produced. Even if you send the pressing plant a burned CD with proper subcodes a glass master will have to be made. You are free to send a regular burned CD to a replication plant, but they will charge you for pre-mastering (the subcodes) in addition to the glass master (around 250 american for a glass master). In addition, the plant will not insure the final stamped CD's will be the same as the disc you sent them unless you pay for a reference copy to be sent to you and approved by you prior to the press run.
The Bottom Bottom line:
If you are planning to BURN your own CD's for sale, the only signifigant benefit of going to a mastering house is going to be in the sonics.
If you are planning to get your CD's pressed by a factory, going to a mastering house is a very wise idea. You will get insurance that the CD's will sound exactly like the reference disc you approve. You will not have to pay the money again to have the CD pre-mastered at the plant. And the benefits of having a professional mastering engineer who hasn't heard your record a thousand times already put his trained ears to it will make your record the best it can be.
I've gone on far to long already, but any questions I'll be happy to answer.
-Cheers,
-holbrook
# Posted on January 25th 2006 by holbrook