Supplying Your CD
Master
For
CD orders please supply TWO copies of your Master on CDR. As
stated in our
Terms of Business
all
client-supplied Master copies are considered to be received in
‘final form’ which means you have reviewed them thoroughly and
confirm they are formatted correctly and ready to manufacture as supplied. Remember, the
discs we produce will be exact clones of the Master copies you
supply to us so make sure you review your Master and copies in
their entirety.
Important: Never send us your originals... just send us copies.
Ensure you keep your original production materials for safety and
back-up purposes.
Standard
Format For Music/Audio CD Manufacturing
-
File Format: WAV or AIF
-
Bits per sample, per channel: 16
-
Sample rate: 44.1Khz
-
Channels: 2 (stereo)
-
Maximum
audio duration is 74 minutes.
-
When you make your master, ensure it is formatted as an
audio/music disc, and not as a CDROM (which is data).
Very
Important Points
-
There
are many different CD 'burning' programs on the market that
are capable of creating both CD-ROM (data) discs as well as Audio discs,
so make sure you format your disc correctly. If you want to
create an audio/music master do not format it as a CD-ROM
(data) master.
-
Make
sure that your disc is finalized (ie: single session -
disc at once) because supplying an 'open session' disc will lead to problems when we try to
make the glass master and replication stamper from it.
-
Only use high-quality name-brand blank CDR media. Going
with a cheap 'no name' brand isn't worth it.
-
Burn your Master(s) at the slowest possible speed to ensure
the best possible image on the CDR.
-
Package your Master(s) appropriately to protect them during
shipping. You'd be surprised how many Masters we get that are scratched and banged up and won't
play... which naturally leads
to the order being delayed while we wait for the new Master to arrive.
Test Your Master
& Copies
-
We do not listen to your Masters (I’m not aware of any replicator/manufacturer that does) because the only person qualified to know what your Master is supposed to sound like or how it
is supposed to perform is you.
-
It is very important that you review to your Master and
copies from beginning to end - all the way through - to ensure they perform EXACTLY as intended with no errors, skips, pops,
fade-outs, etc.
-
Remember: The discs you are getting manufactured will be
exact clones of the Master copies you provide to us, so whatever is on your Master copies will be on the finished
product.
-
Be sure to test your Master and copies on different play-back
units (car stereo, home stereo, portable CD player, computer, etc.), both old and new, just to make sure your files are formatted properly for the widest possible compatibility.
|
Learn
From Someone Else's Experience
True
Story... A client snail-mailed their production
materials to us in an unpadded 9" x 12"
envelope. The package contained his order forms,
payment info, and IPR form along with a single copy of
his audio master disc and an artwork CDR.
Unfortunately
the audio master disc was just dumped inside the
envelope with no case or sleeve for protection - so it
traveled through the mail system sliding around inside
the envelope getting scratched on the staples the
client used to keep his order forms together and
scuffing against the artwork CDR.
You can
guess what the result was. The audio master was too
damaged to work (the artwork CDR was salvaged) so we
contacted the client to request another copy of the
master be sent to us. The client was horrified, as the
damaged master we received was his ONLY COPY.
The
moral of this story? Always keep back-up copies for
your own safe-keeping, and protect your production
materials to keep them from being damaged. |
CD Text,
ISRC Codes and other Meta-Data
CD Text isn't designed to show up on computer-based
applications such as iTunes, Windows Media, WinAmp, etc.
That's actually a completely different thing.
Because your Master
content is deemed to have been received in final form we don’t alter
it in any way. We don’t add anything and we don’t delete anything. If you
require ‘CD Text’ or ‘ISRC Codes’ or any other
types of meta-data or functionality on your CDs this information must already be on your Master when you supply it to us.
Adding
Song Info Onto iTunes, WinAmp, etc.
Submit
your CD meta-data information to the
Gracenote music recognition
service (originally known as CDDB). Be aware
that different software applications may use different
databases, so you may have to enter your CD's information into
more than one database if you want to get the broadest
possible coverage.
Once a CD's
track listing is in their database, anyone playing that CD in
their licensed player will have it recognized by the service.
Keep in mind that it often takes up to 48 hours for a new
submission to show up in the software application. |
