Red Book Compliance and other Mastering Specs

[kyleknapp]

I read Brandon's blog about how he masters using Cubase, and it makes great sense. However, I haven't seen any discussion (though I confess I haven't read every post in the forum) of some of the things I got when my last project was mastered, and how important they were. Specifically:

*Red Book Compliance - the cover of the package I was given by the mastering studio said "Fully Red Book compliant Disc-at-once Master CD suitable for Direct Glass Mastering. Detailed PQ and Error Logs accompany this Master"

*printed report enclosed in the package - I assume this is the "PQ" mentioned on the cover, but it's mostly Greek to me. It has a list of the tracks with track lengths and offset times, etc.

My questions are: what the heck is "Red Book"? and if I don't use software that generates this type of disc and report, how do I get info to the replication lab about such things as the order of the tracks, the length of pauses between them, IRSC encoding etc? (On my last album, pauses were set at 0 between certain tracks, as the songs were intended to flow into each other without stopping)

I'd guess if you submit a CD-R mastered the way you want, it would contain the correct info, but all this info would need to be submitted separately if you send them WAV files instead of a CD-R, as Brandon has recommended. Do you just send a letter saying "no pause between tracks 1 and 2, all other gaps at 2sec, encode with IRSC numbers US-XYZ-09-00010 thru S-XYZ-09-00022"? If so, do you get a proof copy, to make sure they did it right, before they press 1000 copies?

Sorry if these questions sound dumb, but all this was handled by the mastering lab before. I'm working on a low-budget EP, that I know the artist wants to have replicated, but probably won't want to spring for professional mastering.

Thanks!
~kyle

[Bigduggieface]

Hey, Kyle. "Red book" refers to the specifications of a standard modern audio CD. All commercial CDs and players must adhere to the red book specs in order for the digital information on the CD to be read and processed by the CD player.

Simply put, the information on a red book compliant CD must be 16-bit, 44.1kHz PCM files (not compressed .mp3 files) and the audio files must be able to be read in a continuous manner (ie Disc-at-once).

You can burn a red book compatible CD at home using your computer and some basic CD burning software. Just make sure you choose the disc-at-once option and burn at as slow a speed as possible to avoid the introduction of any errors.

When using Cubase (or any audio manipulation software) to do the 'mastering', all that is meant is that you are getting each of the tracks to sound as good as possible before committing each individual song to a final .wav file. One can use Cubase or other software to do the final eq, compression, fadeouts, etc to each song. You would then render each song to a 16-bit, 44.1kHz PCM audio file.

If you wish to have 2 seconds of silence between songs, simply add an additional 2 seconds after the end of each song.

Once you have the songs sounding the way you like, you can burn a disc and try it in your CD player. If it works, you have a red book compatible CD. Once you have the disc sounding as good as possible, the mastering is done.

You can send this final 'production master' CD-R to the CD reproduction company where they often transfer the digital information from your CD-R to a 'glass master'. This glass master is the master from which all of the subsequent copies are made.

*****

If you wish to send .wav files to the reproduction company, and you did not include any space after your songs, yes you would need to indicate how much space you would like to hear between the songs (as well as any other information). That company would certainly provide you with a sample CD before they made thousands of duplicates.

In general, to master an album means to take the album's final mixes, do any final audio tweaking, assemble the playing order, add desired space between songs, and ultimately produce a 'production master' from which all of the subsequent copies are made. The production master can be of many different digital media. CD-R is probably the most common and convenient.

Hope this long post helps.

[garageband]

Don't forget to send away for your IRSC number for the project. Download the form, fill it out, send it in.

[kyleknapp]

Thanks, Bigduggieface, yes that helps a lot!
~kyle