Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Useful information

So,you have a band and you're thinking to release an ep or lp (because cd's suck!). There's some stuff you need to know before sending your songs to the pressing plant,the two most important are 1.mastering* your recorded material for vinyl and 2. maximum running times for ep's and lp's.
Let's start with mastering,don't think that just because your recording sessions ended up just like you wanted them to they are ready to be pressed in wax, there's a special mastering for vinyl that make the songs solid,cleans them out of any noise and make them sound loud as fuck! Mastering though can't make poorly recorded songs sound better, unless you go for the Disclose/Warsore type stuff in which case you only want the songs to be solid and loud. Yes,even noise bands have their tracks mastered! From personal experience you might not quite like what you hear after the mastering is done but believe me once you listen to the vinyl you'll be shiting your pants and jerk off at the same time! One last thing,find someone that KNOWS how to master the songs and be by his/her side in the whole process. There are people that THINK they know how to do it, you don't want the result of your hard work to come out half-assed just because a so-called "producer" is fucking around, after the mastering stage there's no turning back so be careful!
Now it's time for fitting your songs on the wax,if you plan to release a 7" you need to know that the maximum running time is 9 minutes on each side on 33 1/3 rpm and 6 minutes on 45 rpm. The advise you'll get from me and from the most pressing plants is to make it 6 minutes on 33 1/3 rpm and 3 minutes on the 45 rpm, that is the optimal time in order to not have any loss on the quality and loudness, it's very important if you don't want your 7" to sound like a shitty mp3!
For the lp the the max running times are: 22 min on 33 1/3 rpm and 15 min on 45 rpm, again you should go for the optimal (since you don't want to fuck up your awesome 12" release) of 12-14 min on 33 1/3 rpm and 9 min on 45 rpm, on each side.

Now go form a punk band, turn the amp volumes up to 11, release records and have fun!



*Don't be confused with the Direct Metal Mastering or DMM you may read in some pressing plants websites,it's a process for manufacturing vinyl.

2 comments:

  1. ne gamaei.ean dn peires to some will never know tha st ferw eine terastio ke exei apeires sinedeykseis.poly kalostimeno!

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  2. Δεν το ξέρω αυτό,όταν το τελειώσεις φέρτο να το τσεκάρω. Έχω πολλά καινούργια απο αμερική,γαμάνε όλα! Θα βγάλω μερικά απο αυτά φωτοτυπίες για να τα έχω στο distro :)

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