Making Great Vinyl Records–United Record Pressing on Mastering For Vinyl
United Record Pressing has an interesting section on mastering for vinyl. There is plenty of advice there about the physical limitations of vinyl as a medium and what bands can do to make sure they get good fidelity from the finished product.
My only question about this section–having been written in 1997, is what has changed and updated since that time? Surely not the laws of physics with regard to how hot your master tracks can be before they overload and distort, or when too much treble becomes, er, troublesome. (Treblesome is not a word. But I almost used it here. Heh.)
Fortunately there are more recent discussions on the mastering to vinyl issue. Gearslutz.com has a thread from 2008 and another one here. CustomRecords.com throws its two cents worth in here, so you’ll have plenty to chew on.
For quick reference, the consensus seems to be:
- Your mix should sound good to you, but don’t rely on too much compression, EQ or other tricks.
- Don’t pan bass frequencies left or right. Make them mono or center.
- Warn your record pressing plant ahead of time to look out for unusually high or low sustained frequencies, sudden explosive bursts of sound or long silences.
- Put your best and loudest tracks first.
If you don’t know what it means to pan left or right, or if you don’t know how to apply compression, chances are you’re going to need some help long before the mastering process anyway. New musicians and studio heads, do some serious research before cutting that album. If you’re interested in pressing vinyl, record it properly first. Garbage in, garbage out.
