Mastering newbie needs help preparing CDR master

[BobK]

My musical partners and I have signed a manufacturing and distribution deal with a record company, and need to deliver a master soon.

We've been through hell with what should have been a simple mastering job. I'll spare the details, but in the end we had to start over and have the CD mastered a second time by a different engineer.

The new master is OK from a volume and tonal balance perspective, but the engineer neglected to a few things: 1) an edit to one of the tracks (to shorten it 6 sec); 2) fade-ins and fade-outs on two tracks, and 3) insertion of the the ISRC codes for all tracks.

Since we probably won't be able to get the engineer to fix these things and are already way over budget, I'm thinking of doing it myself. I've done tracking, editing, and mixing, but never mastering, so I don't know what potential problems I might encounter.

Here's what I want to do:

1. Import the two problem tracks into Digital Performer to do the edits and fades.

2. Bring all the tracks into Jam 5, add the ISRC codes and burn the final master as a CD-R using Toast

(I have Jam 5, which has been sitting unused on my computer since I bought Toast with Jam years ago. I did a test run, and it seems to work fine.)

To keep things simple, I'd keep the DP project at 44.1/16, though I suspect there are some out there who might argue that you'd get better resolution of the fades at 24-bits.

Since I have no experience preparing a master, I'm worried that for some unforseen reason it'll be rejected by the manufacturer - though the tasks listed above are simple and straightforward (and I know how to do them). Does anything I've described here raise any red flags for you experienced mastering engineers? Am I missing something? I'd really appreciate any comments, suggestions, or tips from those of you with mastering experience, including suggestions of where else I might get help (I'm also trying the mastering forum at Gearslutz).

Thanks!

[resolectric]

Better use a Mastering Studio.
Doing it with Jam and Toast in a homecomputer CD drive won't guarantee an error free CD Master.
You should go back to the mastering engineer who did the final master, the one with the volume and tonal character you wanted, and ask him to correct whatever he forgot to do the first time. If that was his mistake, it should be free of charge, if it was you who forgot to ask for those details the extra amount to pay shouldn't be too steep.

Besides, he's the only person who owns the mastered files prior to dithering and no editing whatsoever should be done to already dithered files. Those edits (fades and cuts) should be done before dithering so, he must go back one step in the mastering process.

You'd better contact him again and have it done properly.

[BobK]

Thanks for the reply.

It's almost a certainty that we won't be able to use the same mastering engineer. It's a long, complex story, and I don't want to go into the details, but the engineer was flaky and, in many ways, unprofessional. He has ignored my emails asking for these fixes - and is the second mastering engineer to flake out like this. While the results of his work are sonically acceptable (not great), the session was a nightmare from a customer-service perspective.

What's the problem with doing fades on the dithered files?

[HCMarkus]

Low-level additional noise will be added by re-dithering. While I won't dispute Resoelectric's points, practically speaking, you will not be executed by the Dither Police if you disobey. If your music is rock, you'll probably not be able to tell the difference. Your customers will almost certainly never know. You can turn off dithering in DP if you want to avoid a second dither. If you do your edits at zero crossings, or cross-fade appropriately, edits will be OK, too.

I've had several CDs succesfully manufactured from Jam-created discs. I always send three copies to the replicator, just in case. The manufacturer willrun an error test before proceding, so problems should be identified for you.

[David Polich]

Some duplicating houses (like DiscMakers) will do the extra stuff for you
at a nominal charge. Missing ISRC codes are no big deal - the duplicating
house will check for them, if they are missing they'll add them in.
Duplicating houses make CD runs from Jam and Toast masters all the
time. Error correction has come a long way since the early
days of CD duplication.

Word - Jam has been discontinued, and Toast 8 incorporates just about all of the
old Jam features. Might as well use Toast (8 or above).

Shortening one of your tracks is a piece of cake in just about any digital
audio mastering app, like Peak, Wavelab, Sound Forge, etc.

Fade-ins and fade-outs are always best done on the 24-bit files before
dithering, however, in your case I think it will be okay to do them on the
16-bit files.

One thing I learned from a well-respected mastering
engineer was to insert silence at the beginning of the 16-bit dithered
files anyway - about 0.42 seconds worth. The reason she gave was that
even if you insert silence at the beginning of a 24-bit mastered file,
when it's dithered down and saved as a 16-bit file, there is quantized
noise again where the "silence" originally was. You can see it - it's
a straight solid line at the zero crossing point. Some cheaper CD
drives can misinterpret the beginning of an audio track if there is
no "digital black" at the beginning.

Anyway, CD replicators are hurting for business these days and most
of them offer some sort of simple "mastering" service as well.

[resolectric]

It's what HCMarkus said. Redithering adds noise. Wether or not it'll be heard depends on your music, the listeners ears and the system where it'll be heard.
Since you'll do it yourself anyway i suggest you use Izotope's Ozone for redithering.
It's got very useful "digital black" filters and allows for a very good noise, i mean... dither, algorithm; MBit+.

I also suggest you test your Master CD with Nero's Disc Speed utility.
It'll check your Master for C1 and C2 errors before sending to replication.
Do more than one CDR Master, and send the one with "0" C2 erros and the lowest C1 count.
Don't worry about ISRC codes.
It's what David Polich said.

[BobK]

Thanks everybody for the very helpful advice.

It's a huge relief to hear that usable masters can be created from Toast and Jam.

Yesterday I decided to try doing the fades in DP and see if I could hear any additional noise. I couldn't - the files sounded fine. I'll keep checking, but if I have to look hard to find problems, that means it's very unlikely anyone else would notice.

I imported the files in question into DP and for comparison I also loaded the versions from the first mastering job, which had the desired fades. Instead of fader moves, I just used the soundbite fades, then 'Merge soundbite' to burn the fades into the files, and then exported the resulting soundbites. I left dithering on. I later realized that the DP project was set to 24 bit; while the imported sound files stayed at 16 bit, the merged soundbites were 24 bit. So there was an extra round of bit-rate conversion when I exported the files as 16-bit that probably wasn't necessary. In any case, so far I haven't heard any problems whatsoever with the resulting tracks.

These tracks are brief interludes between songs on the CD. They're funky Latin-jazz jams, and the engineer mixed them with some 'attitude' via compression, a bit of envelope filter and distortion on the acoustic piano (reminiscent of Rhodes effects on early Weather-Report recordings), and other effects. So they're not quiet, pristine mixes, and a little bit of noise wouldn't destroy them.

An engineer at another forum suggested just applying dither to the parts of the sound files where the fades were added. Is there any way to do this in DP? As far as I know, there's just the global 'Dither' setting in the Audio menu.

Re: Nero: Unless I'm missing something, it's only for Windows. I'm on a Mac. Anyone know of Mac software that can do error-checking? And is the 'verification' function in Toast worth anything?

I made a test burn via Jam and Toast yesterday, and it worked fine. Entering ISRC codes was easy.

One other thing: is the choice of media still important? What brands of CDs do you guys use? Word used to be that Taiyo Yuden (sp?) was the brand of choice.

Thanks again, everybody. I really appreciate the help.

[resolectric]

...

One other thing: is the choice of media still important? What brands of CDs do you guys use? Word used to be that Taiyo Uden (sp?) was the brand of choice.

I've read that too, but since there are some 90 countries in the world where you can't find a single TY CDR, and since everyone makes nice sounding masters everywhere, i suggest you go with the best you can get.
I use Sony and EMTEC. I've never had a Master returned from replication.

The suggestion i gave you to check your CDR master in Nero DiscSpeed won't probably apply since you're on a Mac. Don't know if there's a Mac version available or what the options are, but i strongly suggest you check your final Master for C1 and C2 errors.
It's also a great way to decide on wich media brand to use.

[Phil O]

...The suggestion i gave you to check your CDR master in Nero DiscSpeed won't probably apply since you're on a Mac. Don't know if there's a Mac version available or what the options are, but i strongly suggest you check your final Master for C1 and C2 errors.

Which brings up the next logical question. What software are Mac users using to accomplish this?

Phil

[BobK]

Which brings up the next logical question. What software are Mac users using to accomplish this?

Phil

Or does the 'verification' function in Toast accomplish the same thing?

[resolectric]

...The suggestion i gave you to check your CDR master in Nero DiscSpeed won't probably apply since you're on a Mac. Don't know if there's a Mac version available or what the options are, but i strongly suggest you check your final Master for C1 and C2 errors.

Which brings up the next logical question. What software are Mac users using to accomplish this?

Phil

Plextools seems to be the one i see mentioned more often, and also seems to be sort of a standard.
Not sure though.

[BobK]

I checked the web site - Plextools is PC only.

[resolectric]

I checked the web site - Plextools is PC only.

Too bad. As i said before, the suggestion i gave doesn't apply since you're on a Mac and i am not aware of what is available for Mac.
Checking the Pro Sound Web Recording Forums i see there are some credited mastering engineers there who use a PC just for QC of their CD Masters.
I use Nero's DiscSpeed and recommend it.