Mastering Flashcards
What types of grooves were mono records cut with?
Lateral grooves
What types of grooves were stereo records cut with?
lateral and vertical grooves
What were mastering engineers originally know as?
Transfer engineers. Before this there was no mastering stage - audio was cut straight to vinyl or cylinder.
What are the record production stages
Lacquer - positive
then
Master - Negative
then
Mold - Positive
then
Stamper - negative
then
What are the most difficult areas of the frequency spectrum to cut?
High frequency content (sibilant vocals, cymbals etc) and out of phase low frequency content.
When did the term mastering come into effect?
With the invention of the CD
What is the red book standards
CD standards by sony and phillips, which meant cds could be played across all players
What are the basic rules of the red book standards?
A maximum of 74 mins
Minimum length of a track is 2 seconds
Maximum number of tracks is 99
There must be a 2 second gap before the first track
What is a PQ sheet
an information sheet with all the CDS metadata
What is ISRC code
international standard recording code.
Serial/ barcode for the song
Each song is assigned this code for its lifetime
What is EAN-UPC Code
universal product code
a unique code for an album or single
What is the loudness war?
when volume was no longer a limitation, cds were mastered to be louder and louder through the years, resulting in undersired and overly compressed sounding music.
What us the DDP image
disk description protocol
a digital image of the compact disc that contains the audio, track IDS, CD-text and ISRC codes
What is the playback level for itunes radio
-16 LUFS
What is the playback level for itunes soundcheck
-16 LUFS
