I’m getting more and more people asking me about the need to get a dedicated master made for vinyl releases – maybe because I’ve posted videos like the one above – for more details check this link:
Red Hot Chili Peppers – ‘I’m With You” vinyl sounds better than CD
But I’ve got news for you – you don’t need to. It’s a myth.
A great master for CD can be a great master for vinyl, too.
Regardless of what you may have been told, most vinyl these days is cut directly from a CD production master – and it’s been that way for years.
Vinyl masters will probably use a higher-resolution file format, for example 24-bit and perhaps 48 or even 96 kHz sampling rate, but if the CD has already been mastered these will probably be available from the original mastering engineer for little or no extra cost.
And even if hi-res files aren’t available, a great CD master will give decent results, even at 16-bit 44.1 kHz.
So where does the myth come from ?
Why do people think a separate master is needed for vinyl ?
The main answer is (yet again) the Loudness War – but not for the reasons you might think.
I often read people saying that you can’t cut super-hot “loudness war” audio to vinyl, for fear of the needle skipping and jumping off the record.
But that’s wrong. In fact, the exact opposite is true !
There’s no technical reason that you can’t put “loudness war” style music on vinyl – except that it will sound even worse than the digital original – to use a well-known example, the vinyl and CD releases of Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” sound very similar indeed.
But very dynamic bass can cause this problem – and the solution is actually more compression – to reduce the dynamic range.
The original reason George Martin first started experimenting with overdubbing and heavily compressing Paul McCartney’s bass (on “Paperback Writer”, for those that are taking notes) was to stop the needle jumping, so they could match the “louder” sound of American releases of the time.
Yes, you read that right – The Beatles were part of the original loudness war.
Hang on, though…
Now, it IS true that if the digital signal feeding the lathe is heavily clipped or limited, the record will almost certainly sound substantially worse than it would with a more dynamic source, because of extra distortion introduced when the stylus can’t track the excessively jagged groove. In some cases the lathe may even be damaged, and it’s for this reason that the average level (or “loudness”) determines how “hot” the record is cut, rather than the peak level.
But that means that with “hyper-compressed” loudness-war music there’s ironically plenty of unused headroom left above the average signal on the vinyl for peaks and transients, which is why some people choose to make more dynamic masters for vinyl release. And of course it’ll sound better as a result.
But it’s only necessary if the original master was stupid-loud in the first place.
If your CD master has what I consider optimal dynamics – DR10 or more overall with DR8 as a minimum – then it’s quite suitable for a flat transfer to vinyl. And DR14+ may sound even better… At least, assuming you don’t have any wild sibilance, hugely out-of-phase content, or all the bass panned to one channel !
And even if you do, a decent engineer will take account of that as a matter of course during the cut – it doesn’t require a separate mastering session. Some engineers may make a few other subtle tweaks, if you agree, or even make it sound different, if you ask them to – but it’s NOT a technical requirement.
The optimal level for a vinyl cut depends on the RMS or VU level, and on the running time and speed (33 or 45 rpm) – whereas on a CD, the only absolute technical restriction is the peak level.
Summary
The short version is – there’s no requirement to get a separate vinyl master done, but it’s an option if you’d like to. The main advantage will be to get a cleaner, more “dynamic” sound – but a separate master is only mandatory if your CD master is “loudness war” loud.
The most cost-effective way to get a great-sounding release on vinyl is simply to send the hi-res master files – making sure that they aren’t over-cooked – directly to the cutting engineer. They will choose the best settings to get good results from the vinyl format based on the sound of your material, as part of the normal price. For a well-mastered album, it’s simply a case of choosing the correct level and perhaps a few minor tweaks – no extra mastering is required.
And in fact, it works backwards, too ! If you master with a great vinyl release in mind (using a VU meter?) then the chances are your music will sound superb on all the most advanced 21st-century formats, as well.
How’s that for irony ?
Getting well-balanced dynamics in your music is one of the keys to great sound – and you probably need to use compression to achieve it.
In mastering, multi-band compression can be an invaluable tool – to find out more, click here.
Don’t you mean “Why custom PRE-mastering for vinyl isn’t necessary”? 😉
I’m not sure about this at all. I recently sent off a vinyl-restoration project to a client who sent it o be ‘masdtered’ though it was already perfectly good to cut with as it was.
The tune is NOT going to CD, let’s get that straight, it’s going back to VINYL and yet the mastering house has smashed it with about 10dB of compression. I’m furious and have asked that my name be taken off the project.
DR before this vandalism? DR 13
Afterwards? DR 6
Remember this is for a VINYL ONLY cut.
Defend THAT.
Hi Colin,
That’s a shame, but I’m not sure why you’re asking me to defend it ? I wouldn’t try to.
This post is saying custom mastering isn’t a requirement – that doesn’t mean some engineers won’t charge you for an unnecessary process, or indeed that their taste will agree with yours. Or, that the artists won’t request an engineer to do something that’s not in the best interests of the material.
Have you asked for a re-master with more dynamics ?
Ian
Apologies, I’m still so p***ed off about it I’m not really writing clearly. Of course you needn’t defend that, it was just a general statement to the world, not you. Sorry.
It just goes to show though, that people are so pre-conditioned to make things louder, all the time, that they even do this with a perfectly good, well presented, ready-to-cut to vinyl master.
I cannot think of an earthly reason why this track, which is a natural analogue recording from 1979, had to be compressed in any way at all. I understand this is done almost routinely for CD mastering and though I don’t like it, I reluctantly hand over my work to people who butcher it all the time. But for vinyl??? Where’s the need? If it’s going to be pressed onto vinyl, even the most jaded user is still asked to employ the volume control to get the amount of sound they feel comfortable with.
If you want a louder vinyl, turn the flippin gain up on the cut.
However back to the topic properly, I simply don’t buy that there is no sonic damage done to the music when cutting such ‘hot’ files to lacquer. You’re asking a cutting head to make nearly 90 dedree turns every time it encounters the next cliff-face of a clipped peak. How does that work?
I’m not a cutting engineer but I do recall specifically being asked by a cutting engineer to avoid precisely these kinds of clipping. Was he wrong?
And even IF the cutting head succesfully manages to transcribe the squared-off peaks to a lacquer cut (and I don’t see how it could?), wouldn’t the tracking stylus have just the same work to do on replay??
And anyway if you try to play this absurdly and unecessarily loud record alongside 99.9% of all known previous vinyl pressings, and certainly ones that are of the same vintage as the recording, you’re going to be jumping for the volume control to turn it DOWN. At which point you’ll start to notice that the dynamics have ebeen stripped.
Am I wrong about any of this?
Hi !
Just wondering – I hear from people that if you use a lot of STEREO IMAGING en DELAY / SMEAR FUNCTIONS & CHORUS on your BASSES that the needle will skip after mastering. On digital -> no problems.
Do you have an explenation about that ?
Grz
Jack Wax
Flatlife Records
Hi Jack,
Bass wavelengths are the longest and slowest – so they make the needle move most. Heavy bass, especial if it is unbalanced in the stereo image, is more likely to make the needle skip. Any cutting engineer worth his or her salt knows this, and will compensate for it during the cut.
Digital doesn’t use needles, so is immune to this problem 🙂
Ian
http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/114.html
Hi OJ,
Thanks for the link. But that post takes a lot of time to cover what I say in this sentence:
“If your CD master has what I consider optimal dynamics – DR8 or more overall – then it’s perfectly suitable for a flat transfer to vinyl. At least, assuming you don’t have any wild sibilance, hugely out-of-phase content, or all the bass panned to one channel !”
(Notice the emphasis.) Everything else he mentions is stuff that will be dealt with as a matter of course by an experienced vinyl cutting engineer, as part of the price. This is just business-as-usual for a vinyl cut, no special treatment required.
Cheers,
Ian
This post is misleading. In today’s audio mastering climate, clients ask for loud digital tracks (to be comparable to the rest of the smashed audio out there). In this context alone, there is still a fine line between a dynamic master and a thin-sounding master because of the lower average (RMS) output.
When possible, and if clients want to have a vinyl version of their single or album, mastering with more dynamics in mind for vinyl is the right way to go, so yes, you end up having a more dynamic master for vinyl, and a more squashed (but hopefully still somewhat dynamic) digital master.
Saying “Custom Mastering for Vinyl isn’t necessary” is kind of like saying “You don’t need a jacket to go to work in the winter” (then elaborate by saying that you’ll take it off at the office anyway).
I disagree (obviously !).
In my opinion there is a “sweet spot” dynamically where a master will sound great on vinyl, CD, mp3, the radio… wherever. Detailed tweaking to take account of vinyls’s limitations should be left to the cutting engineer.
Ian, nooo… what are you trying to prove?
Only that you can ‘get away with’ a file that could work in all circumstances. Why think like that?
In most instances, you will be able to get a better result, if you work within the parameters of the format you are mastering for and with the specific requirements of the client. In other words, don’t be lazy and go for a ‘one-size-fits-all’ master, use your skills and experience to create a file that works better for the specific format you’re working with.
There are so many reasons for this. eg. Clients may want more compression for a CD master, vinyl requires a centred low frequency content to avoid needle-jump, sibilance can be an issue with vinyl so work to reduce high frequency ‘clumping’ in a vinyl master, etc etc. These things are real, and make a difference.
‘Detailed tweaking’ you say? I call it a ‘different master for vinyl’, which is precisely what we’re discussing here. Why mince words? I would also suggest it’s the only mindframe to have when making a master.
Any other approach is, by definition, a compromise.
Moreover, the mindset that allows you to work only towards a ‘one-size-fits-all’ file, leads to the sort of unthinking damage that occurred with the vinyl master I sent a couple months ago; 10dB of vertical compression was applied for NO GOOD REASON. At all. None.
I didn’t mention the artist or client… it was Fela Kuti and the client was his own manager. The compression as applied without being asked for.
This stuff matters.
CY
Hi Colin,
I’m not trying to prove anything, I’m just saying how it is. We routinely used to supply copy-masters of work we did for places like Abbey Road and Heathmans – and the feedback was that they were suitable to be used flat, with no extra audio processing required.
IF there had been problems with sibilance or off-centre bass, the cutting engineer would have fixed them quickly and simply in realtime during the cut. That’s not a “custom master”, it’s a technical tweak.
As for the idea that CDs need more compression, it makes me ill. Of course that’s the (stupid) trend at the moment, but there’s no way that I’m going to condone or recommend that !
CDs have better signal-to-noise ratio and more dynamic range than vinyl – there’s no justification for using more compression for a CD than for vinyl.
Ian, OK but I do think you’re making a dangerous assumption in trusting the cutting engineer to do the right thing. In my experience that can lead to trouble. As I have described above.
The ‘mastering house’ I sent my Fela Kuti master to comes highly recommended after all yet they f**ed it up entirely.
Of course if you’re sending your material off to Bernie Grundman then you’re going to be OK but not everybody these days is quite so capable. 😛
Agreed entirely about the extra compression on CDs, both artistically AND technically it makes no sense to me but that’s the lay of the land. And more specifically the way it aspplies in THIS argument is that if you’re making a single file to cover all formats you are obviously leaving youreself open to the dangers of compression as a compromise, especially if one copy of your file is going off to the vinyl house. That is where the danger of this ‘one-size-fits-all’ thnking lies.
Each format has its own potential compromises to consider… why conflate them?
As a fan of music why are studios making low dynamic cds in the first place? I’ve heard that they want the music to blast more when people are driving in there cars with it playing but that just seems strange to me.
When i buy an album i want it to sound as good as possible. At this point I’m thinking that vinyl rips are better versions of todays albums then cds I’ve spent money on.
I’ve used sites like http://www.dynamicrange.de and have noticed that everything in the last 10 years plus is more dynamic on vinyl then cd, it just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Just want to chime in here – it is very dangerous to assume that the cutting engineer will compensate for audio that isn’t suited for vinyl cutting (hard panning bass, ultra sharp spikes in volume, ect). In many cases unless you give specific notes to the cutting engineer, they will cut the audio as is. And I would argue that the cutting engineer ‘compensating’ for out of phase bass IS remastering for vinyl, and many engineers will charge extra for this service.
I think the answer is FUD:
http://dynamicrangeday.co.uk/loudness-war-dirty-secret/
Hi John,
The vinyl engineers I talk to say otherwise – at the very least, a pro should warn you if they have concerns about cutting something flat and explain if extra charges are needed.
Ian
Isn’t it fair to say that there is no one-size-fits-all approach?
I don’t imagine all vinyl was always lovingly produced but it’s fair to say that the challenges of vinyl production ensured more attention was paid, for the most part …and yet here we still are wondering whether mastering to vinyl requires any additional attention.
In the first days of CD I put my initial disappoinment with the format down to lack of attention to detail on the remastering.
It seemed to me that albums like ‘Let It Bleed’ should have had more, not less, to offer on CD. My copy for eg. sounded pretty much like a cassette; lifeless and uninspiring. Through many digital remasterings I still think the original Decca vinyl cut has more to offer although it has since emerged that the first CDs of “…Bleed’ were made using 2nd or 3rd gen production tapes. A phenomenon well known to Japanese vinyl fans.
It seemed a no-brainer that the process of digitizing a tape and making a glass master, though technologically astounding at the time, didn’t present much of a challenge to the work-flow of the technicians involved. It seemed perfectly obvious even at that early stage that sonic considerations AKA ‘tweaking’ had been designed out of the system, with often negative consequences.
Perhaps the mistakes crept in by assuming too much of a ‘master tape’. Wasn’t it always the case that no two tapes are the same? Perhaps digitizing for CD doesn’t take this into consideration enough?
Well, I still say vinyl requires a different approach to digital when mastering.
There are two layers to this argument.
1) Technical. You listen to the source material and check for characteristics that are known to cause trouble on vinyl replay, the most obvious being end-of-side trackability on budget systems; try and sequence your loudest tracks at disc-start and if you can’t, ensure that the cut doesn’t suffer by being too ‘hot’. Check for bass phase, check for ultra LF content, etc. Those are some of non-subjective things.
2) Tweaking. It’s well known that some of the best loved cuts on vinyl over the years have been made by engineers who knew exactly where to tweak the sound to get the best out of the medium, not to change the overall ‘tone’ of the recording but to adjust to the medium for best replay.
Compare such things as the 1st TML-M cut of ‘The Wall’ against the 1st EMI CD version and wonder at how much can be lost in the dead-hand conversion to 44/16.
Consider that Doug Sax (I think it was..) at The Mastering Lab will have made full use of his extensive experience and knowledge of his equipment and the vinyl medium to ensure the best translation from master tape. Some lab-rat in EMI’s Hayes facility, making a digital transfer from a two-track cutting tape would not have been under the same pressure. Hence the lifeless CD in comparison.
Recently there has been a new phenomenon… exaggerated tweaking on some of the ‘audiophile’ cuts made by labels such as Classic and Speakers’ Corner. Remastering often so dramatic that you can see tell-tale ‘banding’ of frequencies that have been boosted or cut. The subjective effect is quite dramatic too. Take Bob Dylan ‘Blonde On Blonde’ (Mo-Fi) or ‘Crosby, Still + Nash’ (Classic) and compare them to the originals. Phew. Lots of zing and crash and boom… but IMO not necessary at all. Damaging in fact.
In summation I’d say there are several things you need to check for vinyl mastering, and there is a subtle optional layer of ‘tweaking’ that can ensure memorable results. There’s even room for doing nothing at all.
It’s probably not fair to say that one approach is right, the other wrong, but they will be different and produce different subjective observations.
I’ve always argued that subjective observations are just as valid as technical arguments.
Wow, Colin, it seems you’ve spent a ton of time typing out these incredibly long and heated responses to Ian’s article. If you’re such an experienced and knowledgeable mastering engineer that you know better, why don’t you start your own blog and write an in-depth post there about why special masters for vinyl are absolutely necessary?
The purpose of this website is to provide information and instruction to people who are trying to learn, often musicians or non-professional engineers… All that Ian said in his post is that it’s not *necessary* to pay for a complete re-master to vinyl, as long as your original master (i.e. for CD) isn’t insanely overcompressed or making use of wildly-panned bass, excessive sibilance, or crazy phase relationships. To me that sounds like helpful, reasonable advice targeted toward the wider audience of musicians or developing engineers who aren’t already knowledgeable about the topic.
Your passionate arguments were so tiresome to read, because you’re fighting against claims Ian hasn’t made. He didn’t say that you should *never* master specifically for vinyl; if you look at his verbiage in the article, he only wrote that a healthily dynamic CD master is “perfectly suitable for a flat transfer to vinyl”. That’s such a modest and reasonable claim, yet you act like he’s written a fiery manifesto about why mastering specifically for the quirks of a format is a waste of time… Get over yourself, mate! 🙂
Personally I’m glad to read some simple, straightforward advice about what’s technically safe to put on vinyl from Ian, a mastering engineer with 15+ years of experience. I also like that he puts an emphasis on creating nice dynamic masters for whatever format you choose. Sure, he could have put more emphasis on what particular qualities you’d do well to avoid in making sure your master is compatible with vinyl, and sure maybe he could have mentioned that each format has its own unique qualities that can be accounted for by a highly experienced engineer. But considering that this is an educational and informative blog written for a wide audience, not an AES white paper, I think he did the right thing by keeping it simple and straightforward.
But what is the point of producing vinyl masters anyway when we have the technology of CD recording? True, a vinyl recording probably does sound as good when it is brand new, but record wear gradually reduces the quality of the sound on vinyl, and a worn record will usually sound no better than a 64kbps MP3. A CD retains its quality, because there isn’t any wear on the record from a stylus, and the lazer does not damage the “grooves” of a CD. A CD has higher dynamic range than any vinyl – 96dB instead of about 60dB – vinyl has surface noise which is absent on CD, which only gets worse as the record wears. If one is recording music with a low dynamic range, it doesn’t really matter whether one uses vinyl or CD, but vinyl will never sound better than CD, because CD covers the full range of even the very best human hearing. The so-called “warm sound” of vinyl is actually distortion. There is no distortion with CD, or stylus to wear out.
But use the dynamic range that CD affords you, of course!
Alex, you’re right… and Ian, sorry I don’t know what gets in to me sometimes. Devil on my shoulder…
John (dec. 2) You’ve brought up a couple of, um, well-worn arguments against vinyl. I’d like to set the record (ahem) straight. I’ll try to be brief (and fail)!
1) Vinyl wears out.
Yes. Well except when it doesn’t. Well kept vinyl used carefully on high quality gear doesn’t wear much if at all. It can certainly wear, of course, if used with poor equipment or handled without care but I’ve got pieces of vinyl here made nearly half a century ago that must have been played hundreds of times and there isn’t any degradation of the original signal that I can detect.
At least with a record you’ll get SOMEthing, I’ve had plenty of CDs that have become unplayable.
Vinyl has a less widely understood ability to deform under high impact and then return to its original shape. So, provided the impact from stylus isn’t too great that it deforms permanently (actual wear), it will usually return to its original state.
2) The ‘warmth you hear is distortion’.
Again, yes, except when it isn’t. Yes, most vinyl replay is likely to contain distortions in comparison to most CD, but with a high quality stylus/arm etc the distortion is so minimal that it might as well be absent. In fact the higher quality you obtain from vinyl, the less distortion you are hearing – which totally messes with the claim that vinyl devotees ‘like’ distortion.
It’s wrong to claim digital is distortion free. A cheap CD player can display as much if not more distortion than a decent turntable.
This is as much a factor of the quality of the gear involved as any comparison between digital and analogue.
Please don’t forget that the process of digitization itself produces distortions… not huge ones but they exist. Even the most clinically accurate digital system is at the mercy of analogue tranducers such as microphones, etc.
3) Vinyl has surface noise that CD does not.
True, but I have heard vinyl replay where the noise is not noticeable. It’s something vinyl lovers are perfectly happy putting up with, since the payoff is elsewhere.
4) The dynamic range is higher on CD.
Absolutely true but again, not the whole story. If you’re only concerned with the ability of a system to achieve measurable signals at extreme amplitudes then yes, digital is peerless. If you are also or instead more concerned with a system’s ability to faithfully recreate attacks and sharply accurate changes in volume, then vinyl is perfectly capable provided you have a decent enough system to get the best from the vinyl. While the music is playing, you will never notice the inferior total dynamic range. And for goodness sake could engineers please stop squashing CDs, rendering the argument completely moot??
Back on topic, let’s go through that list in respect of mastering for vinyl: clearly sequencing a vinyl pressing so that it contains higher energy tracks at the disc edge where stylus tracking pressures are lower, will reduce the likelihood of wear. Although that’s not usually possible for artistic reasons so you can explore other options like lowering the total amplitude (increasing relative surface noise) or splitting the material across more vinyl, or at 45 RPM. I’ve heard several examples of where the engineer EQ’d to minimize distortions from mistracking… but that is of course hardly a defence of vinyl! And of course you must take special care to limit strong bass signals to ‘in-phase’ to avoid the stylus leaping out of the groove. Next comes your ‘subjective’ tweaking where, armed with the experience of vinyl replay, you may opt to tweak EQ for a balance you know you’ll like on replay (of course that goes for CD too).
Select your pressing plant based on known quality control if noise is an issue. Etc.
I still say is there is a lot to consider if you’re making a master for vinyl. It’s not essential, nothing is, but you CAN if you want to.
As to the bigger question of ‘why do it at all’… well, some people like vinyl. Surely that ends THAT argument, right?
OK so I wasn’t brief but I hope I didn’t offend anyone :_)