Find a mastering engineer who has mastered a ton of recordings for release on vinyl.
Present your final mixes to that person and say "Here, you do it."
Vinyl is an unforgiving medium, and mastering for
it is extremely difficult. Its dynamic range is a puny 50dB or so, even
with decent vinyl, compared to the 80dB or more we enjoy with even the
most basic digital media. As a result, compression is essentially
mandatory to shoehorn music's wide dynamic range into vinyl's narrow
dynamic range. But vinyl has other problems. There's a trade-off
between loudness and length. This is because a groove in a record is
just a waveform, and a louder waveform will cause the groove to have a
wider physical excursion. So, to get a lot of material on an LP, you
have to cut the vinyl at a pretty low level.
Bass is also troublesome. Bass waveforms have a
very wide excursion and, with stereo, if the left and right channels
are even slightly out of phase, the stylus can 'jump the track' as it
tries in vain to follow different curves for the right and left
channels. We take concepts like stereo bass for granted now, but back
in the days of vinyl bass had to be mono.
And that's not all! As the record gets closer to
the end, the tone arm hits the groove at more of an angle (except with
linear-tracking turntables), causing what's called inner groove
distortion. As a result, song orders often used to be created with the
softest songs coming at the end of an album's side, so that the inner
grooves would be less subject to distortion.
In the old days, recording engineers were well
aware of the limitations of vinyl, and took them into account during
the recording process. Many of today's engineers were brought up in an
essentially vinyl-less world, and don't consider the problems discussed
above. This makes it more important than ever to use a mastering
engineer who is an expert in the art. When it comes to mastering for
vinyl, the advice is simple: don't try this at home!
Although the market for vinyl is now minuscule at
best, it remains important for DJs and some audio purists who regard
CDs as an invention of Satan that is destined to cause the end of
Western civilisation as we know it. So let's address the issue of
mastering for vinyl.
Despite what you may have heard, mastering for vinyl is the easiest type of mastering you can do, as it involves only two steps:
Find a mastering engineer who has mastered a ton of recordings for release on vinyl.
Present your final mixes to that person and say "Here, you do it."
Vinyl is an unforgiving medium, and mastering for
it is extremely difficult. Its dynamic range is a puny 50dB or so, even
with decent vinyl, compared to the 80dB or more we enjoy with even the
most basic digital media. As a result, compression is essentially
mandatory to shoehorn music's wide dynamic range into vinyl's narrow
dynamic range. But vinyl has other problems. There's a trade-off
between loudness and length. This is because a groove in a record is
just a waveform, and a louder waveform will cause the groove to have a
wider physical excursion. So, to get a lot of material on an LP, you
have to cut the vinyl at a pretty low level.
Bass is also troublesome. Bass waveforms have a
very wide excursion and, with stereo, if the left and right channels
are even slightly out of phase, the stylus can 'jump the track' as it
tries in vain to follow different curves for the right and left
channels. We take concepts like stereo bass for granted now, but back
in the days of vinyl bass had to be mono.
And that's not all! As the record gets closer to
the end, the tone arm hits the groove at more of an angle (except with
linear-tracking turntables), causing what's called inner groove
distortion. As a result, song orders often used to be created with the
softest songs coming at the end of an album's side, so that the inner
grooves would be less subject to distortion.
In the old days, recording engineers were well
aware of the limitations of vinyl, and took them into account during
the recording process. Many of today's engineers were brought up in an
essentially vinyl-less world, and don't consider the problems discussed
above. This makes it more important than ever to use a mastering
engineer who is an expert in the art. When it comes to mastering for
vinyl, the advice is simple: don't try this at home!
Although the market for vinyl is now minuscule at
best, it remains important for DJs and some audio purists who regard
CDs as an invention of Satan that is destined to cause the end of
Western civilisation as we know it. So let's address the issue of
mastering for vinyl.
Despite what you may have heard, mastering for vinyl is the easiest type of mastering you can do, as it involves only two steps:
Find a mastering engineer who has mastered a ton of recordings for release on vinyl.
Present your final mixes to that person and say "Here, you do it."
Vinyl is an unforgiving medium, and mastering for
it is extremely difficult. Its dynamic range is a puny 50dB or so, even
with decent vinyl, compared to the 80dB or more we enjoy with even the
most basic digital media. As a result, compression is essentially
mandatory to shoehorn music's wide dynamic range into vinyl's narrow
dynamic range. But vinyl has other problems. There's a trade-off
between loudness and length. This is because a groove in a record is
just a waveform, and a louder waveform will cause the groove to have a
wider physical excursion. So, to get a lot of material on an LP, you
have to cut the vinyl at a pretty low level.
Bass is also troublesome. Bass waveforms have a
very wide excursion and, with stereo, if the left and right channels
are even slightly out of phase, the stylus can 'jump the track' as it
tries in vain to follow different curves for the right and left
channels. We take concepts like stereo bass for granted now, but back
in the days of vinyl bass had to be mono.
And that's not all! As the record gets closer to
the end, the tone arm hits the groove at more of an angle (except with
linear-tracking turntables), causing what's called inner groove
distortion. As a result, song orders often used to be created with the
softest songs coming at the end of an album's side, so that the inner
grooves would be less subject to distortion.
In the old days, recording engineers were well
aware of the limitations of vinyl, and took them into account during
the recording process. Many of today's engineers were brought up in an
essentially vinyl-less world, and don't consider the problems discussed
above. This makes it more important than ever to use a mastering
engineer who is an expert in the art. When it comes to mastering for
vinyl, the advice is simple: don't try this at home!
