R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: 1 [2]  All   Go Down

Author Topic: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)  (Read 9048 times)

Table Of Tone

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 59
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #15 on: June 24, 2010, 03:52:41 PM »

I've been making 320 MP3's straight from the 32 float, pulled down a half db, in a bit to stop em getting any extra crunch from the codec.

Seems to actually sound OK!

Anyone else doing this?
Logged

Gold

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1453
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #16 on: June 24, 2010, 04:08:48 PM »

dave-G wrote on Mon, 21 June 2010 16:40


I do find it odd sending T-shirts to clients without it being wrapped around a production master CD, but ... <shrug>




The only solution I see is to get a lathe.
Logged
Paul Gold
www.saltmastering.com

On the silk road, looking for uranium.

dave-G

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 375
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #17 on: June 25, 2010, 06:46:48 AM »

Gold wrote on Thu, 24 June 2010 16:08

dave-G wrote on Mon, 21 June 2010 16:40


I do find it odd sending T-shirts to clients without it being wrapped around a production master CD, but ... <shrug>




The only solution I see is to get a lathe.


*sigh*

Logged
DAVE GREENBERG
SONOPOD MASTERING

Patrik T

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 833
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #18 on: June 25, 2010, 09:19:51 AM »

Table Of Tone wrote on Thu, 24 June 2010 21:52

I've been making 320 MP3's straight from the 32 float, pulled down a half db, in a bit to stop em getting any extra crunch from the codec.

Anyone else doing this?


No, mp3's will always be made from the final 16/44.1 wav master here.

Same level, no drops and no tricks. And no questions are ever being asked later on regarding blah-analyze-blah-red-peaks-blah-blah-distortion-blah.


Best Regards
Patrik

Logged

Gregg Janman

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 70
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #19 on: June 25, 2010, 09:36:11 AM »

I always encode from the CD quality .wav. I've never tried encoding from 24 or 32 bit files. Is there an audible difference in quality, or file size?

If you run mp3gain (set to "max level before clipping for each track/album") on the file, it will ensure that if the encoding process introduced any inter-sample peaks, it will decrease the level slightly to get rid of them.

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/
Logged

Table Of Tone

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 59
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #20 on: June 26, 2010, 09:36:31 AM »

Gregg Janman wrote on Fri, 25 June 2010 14:36

I always encode from the CD quality .wav. I've never tried encoding from 24 or 32 bit files. Is there an audible difference in quality, or file size?
http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/


The file size of the MP3 comes out the same but it seems to sound better when made from either 24 fixed or 32 float (containing 24), than it does made from the 16's.
Logged

Greg Youngman

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 609
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #21 on: June 26, 2010, 12:18:48 PM »

Gold wrote on Thu, 24 June 2010 13:08

The only solution I see is to get a lathe.


Really.  Once you take the sequencing out of the equation, you just have a bunch of parts.  I can't imagine listening to Sgt Peppers a cut at a time in random order.  The experience back then was listening to the whole record.  I can't imagine reading a book a chapter at a time in random order. Yet, some movies are successful with type of out of sequence editing (Pulp Fiction).  I think mastering single tracks can be done by my next door neighbor's son (practicing 12 year old ME).  Putting together a cohesive piece of art is where it's at for me.
Logged
Web Site
My Space
Blog

"Everyone's a guitar player... everyone's a mastering engineer." 1995 - GY

Adam Dempsey

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 546
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #22 on: June 26, 2010, 10:30:14 PM »

There's also no reason to sample rate convert, say, a 48k source to 44.1k to mp3, other than for very low bitrate mp3's (<96kbs to my knowledge). So the avoidance of SRC could reasonably be taken to at least sometimes make a difference. Not to mention any HPF ripple depending on the encoder/settings, in which case knocking it back a bit would minimise clipping.
I do wish that 16/44.1k was more often seen as being the required specs for compact disc only.
Logged
Adam Dempsey
Jack the Bear's Deluxe Mastering
Facebook | twitter | MySpace

Add presence, or subtract absence?

Table Of Tone

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 59
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #23 on: June 27, 2010, 06:42:54 AM »

Adam Dempsey wrote on Sun, 27 June 2010 03:30

There's also no reason to sample rate convert, say, a 48k source to 44.1k to mp3, other than for very low bitrate mp3's (<96kbs to my knowledge). So the avoidance of SRC could reasonably be taken to at least sometimes make a difference. Not to mention any HPF ripple depending on the encoder/settings, in which case knocking it back a bit would minimise clipping.
I do wish that 16/44.1k was more often seen as being the required specs for compact disc only.

The resulting MP3 does distort less after pulling the audio down a half db, while still working in the 32 bit floating point domain.

There is also no need to dither for an MP3, when making it form 32 float audio.
As you quite rightly pointed out, 44.1/16 is for CD only!

I've never tried making one from audio of a higher SR though.
Interesting.
Every day's a school day!
Logged

aleatoric

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 58
Re: Mastering for digital downloads? (i.e. no CD is being released)
« Reply #24 on: June 27, 2010, 02:12:52 PM »

If you remove singles from the equation I'd say about 50% of the work I do requires a red-book production master CD and the other 50% is for digital downloads only and either requires a data disc or the files are simply uploaded back.  I charge for parts as well so digital download releases that do not require a PMCD are slightly cheaper.  I suspect that as time goes by I'll be seeing a decrease in the need for a PMCD as more and more artists opt for digital download only releases.  
Pages: 1 [2]  All   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.084 seconds with 22 queries.