CD / Mastering Production
During the ASP project I have aimed to produce CDs for promotional material. These have been planned with consideration of presenting an aesthetic branding which reflects our style and flavour as artists. For the production of the CDs, I first had to source the discs themselves [CD-R 52x 700MB] and cases.
During the run up to when these arrived, I collated the CD sleeve booklet which brought together a number of the produced artwork materials into one whole promo package. As well as containing the CD tracks, the sleeve was utilised to reformat our longform EPK into a short form physical version which gives some information about the record and our creative collective. Once the cases had arrived, I took the high-res PDFs containing the sleeve designs to print, cut and fold the A3 pages up into the insert booklets.
Below are the double sided sleeves (front and back), which contain the cover art, rear side tracklist, short form EPK including photography, and a poster on the back.
For the process of burning to disc, I have prepared the CD masters in 44.1kHz 16-bit FLAC (wav) audio and have sourced a disc drive to burn with. One issue I encountered when I ran a test burn once the discs arrived was that the disc drive I’d intended to use was malfunctioning, I had not anticipated this as it was recently used however hardware malfunction could’ve been something to consider in the onset risk mitigation. However the issue was quickly resolved, as external USB read-write disc drives are relatively inexpensive, and the software based burn to disc function allows for drive specification so I could work around this quickly.
Running up to the production of the CDs I had anticipated that there may need to be a backup option, due to time constraints, for the deliverable in the form of direct download QR cards. I am very satisfied however with the outcome of the CD production, and although I will likely still go forward with the QR cards for promotional purposes, I am glad that this process has been a success as these will be the main promotional material.
The final steps to complete before burning the files to disc, as well as inserting and formatting all metadata, is to generate ISRC codes from PPL. These are required for the copyright protection of the recorded works, which will separately require PRS registration.
For the mastering process due to a lack of funds I have had to carry out this process myself. Ideally if money hadn’t been a hurdle I would have had the tracks mastered by a professional mastering engineer, however circumstances have meant I’ve had to do this myself. Although this is the case, I am comfortable with this as I had planned on it and already mitigated against the lack of funds risk.
For the CD mastering process, the deliverables are differently specific than with streaming platforms, meaning I did not have to comply with LUFS suggestions and could retain the original and intended volume & dynamics. Mastering to the CD Redbook standard is crucial to consistent and industry accepted compatibility so that the discs would run on any standard CD playback hardware, this was specified in my previous entry on post-production, but to reiterate the key relevant aspects :
Linear PCM 16bit - 44.1kHz
ISRC codes included
This was done for the final export master files, after processing had been completed on the tracks themselves. Processing across the tracks consisted of some subtle side EQ lifts in the top end to accentuate width and clarity. Some subtle compression was applied in a low ratio to the dry signal to add some boost in level whilst still maintaining the original dynamics.
A very minimal mix of soft distortion was also applied here to round off any hot peaks so as the waveform reaches the ceiling it would round to mitigate clipping and maximise both the dynamics and loudness to a competitive level. Finally a transparent limiter was applied at the final step, this would catch any peaks and true peaks at -0.1 to avoid clipping.
The approach to the mastering was to keep the loudness levels between tracks consistent. This however is not regarding the specific LUFS reading, but instead to maintain the progression of dynamics, through the tracklist. The final output was a full and competitively loud master, which I am satisfied with after listening across multiple headphone / speaker playback systems.
For the mastering for Spotify, I had to meet the file deliverables : - FLAC at 44.1kHz / 24-Bit
There has also been the question of whether to match to the suggested -14 LUFS for streaming. With this part of the mastering I strayed from what is typically recommended, as it is the apparent norms of widespread industry to match to the LUFS suggested by streaming platforms. As someone with previous mastering experience, breaking this rule left me initially uncomfortable however the reasoning in doing so is evidential.
As the mastering process is concerned with finalisation of audio tracks, and the relative loudness volumes between tracks is a main element of that, it had already been set so that across the tracklist everything was balanced as intended. The masters for the CD are the intended final product with the intended dynamics / loudness for the music. However, the LUFS sit above the -14 LUFS specification by spotify, and therefore I was left with a decision to either turn down the entire tracklist together (as spotify does with its normalisation of albums) or not. It seems counter intuitive not to, however this is the choice I went with and it’s due to :
1) Spotify is going to adjust the tracks volume themselves either way with their normalisation, and it is better to have it turned down as this has less risk of distortion over it being turned up and pushed into their limiter (if I did preliminarily lower it too much). It will result in only one gain staging edit between the master and the streaming file if I leave it as is, whereas if I turned it down and then spotify adjusts it anyway there are two gain edits which I aim to avoid to also maximise the loudness competitively.
2) As the intended masters are on the CD (except in 16-bit) and these playback with no distortion at the high LUFS level, I want listeners to be able to listen to these intended dynamics / levels through streaming platforms. Therefore with normalisation being something which can be disabled, anyone who is inclined to and understands how to, can do. Again, the LUFS level is reduced across an entire release on Spotify so when these are normalised the original dynamics between tracks will persist.
3) According to iZotope’s analysis of the 2021 Grammy nominees, delivering to the -14 LUFS suggestion is not the way to do it. As these professional producers and engineers are at the top tier of industry, they’re going to be what I base my work off over articles and youtube videos on this topic. iZotope also is a reputable and high-end provider of audio processing equipment, and therefore I trust the source of this information. The averages of LUFS and peaks within the resource clearly show that despite the LUFS suggestion, this is not what top performing artists and engineers are putting tracks out to with regard to their loudness. To be competitive and to maintain the original intended loudness and dynamics I will break this rule of LUFS fully aware that this is against what is typically done, whilst reiterating again this appears to be what Grammy nominee engineers do.
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Resources :
Andrew Mitchell (2023), “What is a Redbook CD?”, AudioBay, Online : Available at :http://www.audiobaymastering.com/redbook-cd/
[Accessed : 16/07/23]
PPL (2023), “ISRC Information”, Online : Available at : https://ppluk.com/membership/more-information/isrc/ [Accessed 20/07/23]
Spotify (2023), Loudness Normalisation, Online : Available at : https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/loudness-normalization/ [Accessed 25/07/23]
Bill Podolak (2021),”Records of the Year: An Analysis of the 2021 GRAMMY® Nominees”, iZotope, Online : Available at : https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/records-of-the-year-analysis-of-2021-grammy-nominees.html [Accessed 25/07/23]
