Recording for vinyl.... (1 Viewer)

[D0njo]

hmmm, seems simple enough- mastering thing done differently and check the phase... -ok, I'm all set!

 

[Grenouille]

hmmm, seems simple enough- mastering thing done differently and check the phase... -ok, I'm all set!

..now just Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.|..|

 

[D0njo]

..now just Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.|..|

Get your filthy hands off my desert

 

[nooleen]

get your filthy hands off my dessert

 

[Con]

get your filthy hands off my dysart

 

[D0njo]

GET YOUR HANDS OF MY DESERT

 

[lemonbravo]

just to expand a little on those faq's and what not....

levels- if mixing on a hard disk system, protools, cubase etc. no need to go near 0dbfs on your meters. For 24bit recordings -6dbfs or even lower is fine, for 16bit -3dbfs.
Any unwanted distortions i.e. distortion due to clipping on channels or effects etc will be exaggerated at the cutting stage. Plus you want some room if the mastering engineer needs to make any eq adjustments or other processing.

bass/phase- as mentioned, keeping bass frequencies centered is a good idea, but pretty much anything can be cut, but your record might be really quiet.
Vinyl as a format has a certain amount of noise during playback, (hiss, crackles etc) so ideally you want your record to be cut loud enough so that during any quiet parts the surface noise isn't louder or too distracting from the music.
Centering any bass frequencies is the best idea, just in case the cutting engineer is a little over zealous with their elliptical equalizer (for summing the bass freqs).
Depending on your mix, the mastering/cutting engineer might mono from 200hz or even higher, this will change the sound of your mix and you might not like the results.
If you want to hear how your mix would sound being mono'd and have the required tools, here's a handy PC pluggin:
http://www.otiumfx.com/basslane.php

sibilance/high frequencies- as mentioned, these areas can be a problem and best tackled at the mix stage, the reason being, say you have a sibilant vocal that will create a problem at the cutting stage, the mastering engineer only has the stereo mix, so they'll have to use a de-esser or multiband compressor over the whole mix to treat the problem.
You can hone in on the offending frequencies, but a certain amount of high frequency content that isn't a problem may also be effected and you could end up with a slightly duller sounding record than necessary. But a good mastering engineer shouldn't have a problem treating those kind of issues.
But basically when cutting, sibilance and harsh high frequency content translates into- not so nice sounding distortion, so excessive boosts around 8khz & 16khz should be avoided.

-compression/limiting- like the faq says, go light, if at all. the cutting engineer will likely use compression/limiting anyway to get the best level. Over-compressed/limited material usually translates into distortions and limiting for loudness/volume purposes is pointless as the cutting engineer will dictate the final volume.

for 7" a 45rpm record will sound better than 33rpm, so try and keep track length's under 4.30mins for a good volume level.
For loud levels- 3.00-3.30mins.

hope that's of some use.
s.

 

[lemonbravo]

i meant, centering any bass frequencies is a 'good' idea....for the aforementioned reasons.

 

[Grenouille]

Cool stuff. Thanks man, much obliged.