Music File Preparation for Lathe Cuts by Tyler Bisson of Audio Geography
HIFI lathe cuts are stereo, send mastered files in 24bit/48kHz for HIFI cuts. If you have a higher res file, please notify me before sending. If you haven’t had your files professionally mastered, let me know.
Try to limit sibilant sounds and high frequency sustained tones. The cutterhead is most sensitive to these frequencies, and tracks with lots of sibliants or HF tones will be cut quieter overall because of this.
Digital and CD masters are fine most of the time.
If you send a ‘vinyl master’ that’s perfectly fine too.
My preference for dynamic range is peaks at -.5 dB and RMS around -10dB.
More dynamic masters than that tend to get people having to turn up their stereos.
LOFI cuts are MONO – any L R stereo information will be summed into one mono track. I highly suggest you sum your file to mono to hear how it sounds, but please send me the stereo mix. Send me a stereo, mastered file. No need to pay the mastering engineer to do an extra “vinyl master” for you, just send your “CD mastered” file. If you know ahead of time that your particular song’s cymbals get cancelled out when summed to mono, you can let me know that. It’s better I do some fixing here, than you spending more money and time on a mastering engineer who’s not quite sure what a lathe cut is. You may think that sending a more dynamic master for vinyl is a good idea. It is if you’re making a professional pressed record, but for LOFI cuts, the surface noise will overcome any very quiet areas. Send me your regular CD master files for lathe cuts.
You can make my job easier by combining multiple tracks per side into one file, “tyler_7in_Side A.WAV” for example. If you want visual space between tracks on the record, make note of the time stamps.
File sharing sites:
I only accept downloads that are attached to the email google drive, dropbox, or wetransfer. Please don’t send me to your bandcamp/soundcloud/facebook and ask me to download your track from there. Send a direct link to dropbox/wetransfer or attach it to the email.
Side Length:
For 5in records, there is a hard limit of 1:30. No exceptions!
7in records can fit up to 7:00 per side, wiggle room is 5 sec over or less. No more than that! 10in records can hold up to about 15:30 per side, but I wouldn’t go over 14:00 if you can help it.
12in records can hold a max of 20:00 per side, 18:00 suggested.
When I get your files, if I hear anything really alarming, I’ll tell you about it. After all, I do have to listen every time a copy is cut!
Please email with questions, tragwag@gmail.com
Thanks!
-Tyler
Audio Geography www.audiogeography.com