What are the requirements and specifications for a vinyl master?

Mastering Specifications

Audio requirements:

We recommend to have your audio files prepared by a qualified mastering engineer who has sufficient knowledge of the specific requirements for vinyl. Vinyl has certain limitations in terms of frequency range, stereo field, loudness and playtime when compared to a CD. Therefore the sound quality will heavily depend on the playtime of the record.

Guidelines for maximum playtime per side:

• The maximum amount of music which can be fitted on one side depends heavily on the type of music and how loud you want the record to be cut; audio with heavy bass or loud recordings will take more space on the record, and thus limiting the playtime.
• Also keep in mind that the closer you get to the centre of the record the frequency response will be less and the distortion in high frequencies will become bigger, because of the decreasing linear velocity. This is another reason to keep the playtime within reasonable limits.
• For an optimum result we recommend a playtime of maximum 22 minutes for a 12” record at 33RPM.

If you have special cutting preferences please specify:

• Standard cut: Quality is most important to me and I want the best cut possible. If necessary, I am willing to accept corrections of volume and frequency content according to the cutting engineers expert opinion, based on the supplied music. We will still always try to make it sound as close to the master source as possible. Can be DMM or lacquer.
• High fidelity cut: Quality is very important to me. Will be cut at lower level, and only possible with limited playtime to avoid the inner diameter of the record, because at the inner diameter the distortion of the high frequencies is the biggest. Can be DMM or lacquer.
• Loud cut: Loudness is most important to me, and reasonable distortion is acceptable. If the master contains lots of high frequencies, this may need to be reduced in order to cut loud. Will be cut on lacquer. please be aware that a loud cut can lead to distortion and lead to problems with stability of the needle during playback.

Please note that these are only rough guidelines which enables the cutting engineer better to take into account your preferences when cutting the master.

Fileformat:

• We can work with WAVE, AIFF and FLAC files.
• Bit rate preferably 24 bit; 16 bit will work, but is not recommended; 32 bit is overkill
• Sample rate minimal 44,1 kHZ up to 192kHz
• We prefer loose files per track, rather than one file per side.
• We do not add any pause between the tracks, unless you specify us to do so.
• Files can be uploaded on our FTP server or sent via WeTransfer.

Additional information:

• Catalog number; please specify the catalog numer to be engraved in the runout area
• Que sheet; clearly state the track titles, playtime, start time and stop time per track
• Record weight (140 or 180 grams). For the best quality record we recommend 140 grams
• Color you want the record to be pressed in (standard is black)
• Artwork for sleeve(s) and labels