First of all, nice one for finishing your project. The hard part is done. 

Second of all, you’re not on your own if you’re unsure about all of this. Our most common questions are about how to prepare audio for cutting. 

If all of the information below seems daunting, don’t worry. Send us what you have and we can go from there. 

So, now all the recording is over and you’re prepping your final mixes for mastering, here are some things to bear in mind.

Vinyl is a physical format, and it reacts differently to certain frequencies and dynamics compared to digital audio. Keeping these points in mind will help avoid distortion and ensure a full, true and clear sound.

We can help with a lot of things, but some issues are "baked" into the mix. For instance, if your masters are clipping (hitting the red), even if we turn them down, that clipping will still be there. The same goes if your tracks are too compressed or limited.

It’s totally normal to have separate masters for digital and physical releases.

These parameters will help us create the best sounding record we can together. 

Ultimately it’s all up to you and how you want your music to sound but we will have to slightly re-master any audio submitted that doesn’t meet these specifications in order to cut it.

We’ll always endeavor to do the best job for your music and keep it true to the original sound.

 All bass instruments and bass drums need to be mixed dead center. 

Avoid any significant boosting in the high end.

Sibilance on the vocals can also cause distortion, this can be tamed using a de-esser.

 A dynamic compressor can help tame any overbearing frequencies.

We cut stereo but please refrain from using any stereo enhancers on your vinyl master. It will result in distortion.

Go easy on limiting and compression on the master mix if you use it.

Aim for peaks of a maximum -3dBfs at -14LUFS

 

 Dynamics and a little headroom go a long way.

Ideally we'd like Uncompressed audio at 96khz/24bit. If not, be sure to use the highest quality you have without any sample rate converting.

Any questions, send us an email!

loosehairlathecuts@gmail.com