eMastering FAQ

What is Mastering?

Mastering is the last stage of the creative process and is the last point of artistic input to make your music sound as good as possible.

It is the point where the music is given final adjustments to finess it, and produce the best result. It is also where repairs can be carried out in order to rectify minor problems or defects that occurred during the recording. Sometimes, changes can be as simple as adding a fade to the end of the track. On other occaisions editing, varispeed, or othertreatments may be required

Another element of the Mastering process is when compiling an album. Here not only does the music in each of the tracks have to sound the best it can, each track also has to sit well with the preceeding and subsequent tracks. Consistency is the aim, so that the listener does not have to keep making changes during the Album.

Who are the Alchemy Soho?

The Alchemy Soho was founded in 1987 and moved to the 29th floor of Centre Point in the West End of London in 2003. At the time of the move the Mastering team was augmented with the addition of the top three engineers from Sony Studios London. Alchemy Soho offers the following services:

• Three Voice recording studios
• Two Mastering studios
• Two audio Editing suites
• DVD, CD and DAT duplication facility
• Video transfer facility
• Final Cut Pro facility

www.alchemysoho.com

How does eMastering work?

eMastering is a Alchemy Soho's online facility for Mastering music whether it be for Vinyl, or CD. We will arrange for you to electonically upload your tracks to our FTP server and pay via credit card. Once we have Mastered the tracks, we can return them either by post or via download as you wish. The advantages of using this service are; there is no need to travel to London, cost effectiveness and the proven quality and attention to detail that Alchemy Soho provides.

If you are unable to upload your tracks you can still take advantage of this service by posting your tracks to us.

What have Alchemy Soho mastered?

We have an impressive breadth of expertise covering all genres of music including many world music releases.

Please visit our engineers pages on our website to see their discographies.

Who will master my tracks?

A member of our team of highly experienced Mastering Engineers will be used on all eMastering sessions. Our bookings team will allocate your project to the most suitable engineer.

Our Mastering Engineers are highly experienced and have Mastered many hit records. They are sought out by the top artists, engineers and producers and so are well qualified to handle your music sensitively.

Can I attend the eMastering Session?

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer attended eMastering sessions.

Any project that requires to be attended, booked for a certain time, or you wish to use a particular engineer will need to be booked directly with our Mastering co-ordinators at our "Rate Card" prices.

How do I book/pay for eMastering?

Select from the Products menu your order and add it to your basket. Follow the instructions to proceed to the checkout. Here you can create a new account or login using a previously created one. For security a new FTP account will be created and the details emailed to you. Once we have completed the project we will take your payment via credit/debit card.

How long will eMastering take?

Your Mastered tracks will be completed within five working days of the receipt of your tracks. Your Mastered work should be received within one week.

Depending on the option you have chosen the Mastered files will be made available for download from our server or discs will be dispatched.

What if I am unhappy with the Mastering?

We take great pride in delivering a high quality service. However, should you not be satisfied with the result we will undertake to revise the treatment to meet your requirements.

We will undertake the first revision free of charge. Further amendments will be charged at standard eMastering rate.

If you feel unsure in any way please make contact using our website contact page within 14 days of receiving the Mastered tracks.

How much will eMastering cost?

eMastering is charged on a 'cost per track' basis. A CD Master and CD Reference Disc are included in this cost. Please note that does not apply to vinyl cutting projects.

Please refer to the Products menu for a list of our prices.

What mastering equipment do you use?

We will use the same bespoke equipment that is available on any session at Alchemy Soho. This includes equipment made by such manufacturers as:

• Avalon
• Massemberg
• Crainsong
• Maselec
• SPL
• TC

For tape replay we have Ampex ATR and Studer A80 pre-view machine using our own custom built replay amplifiers.

For Mastering vinyl we use our modified Neumann VMS80 and VMS82 lathes.

How long do I have to Upload and Download my tracks?

We do not limit how long you have before uploading your tracks. However, work cannot commence until all files are sucessfully received.

Your FTP account will initially be configured to accept file uploading only. Once we have received the files and the finished tracks are Mastered, we will then alter the account to allow downloading only.

We will notify you via email that your Mastered tracks are available and you will have permission for 14 days to download them.

What format will the Production Master be?

CD pressing plants use DDP images and we believe that a DDP Image File is the best way to deliver projects.

The DDP Image File will either be shipped to you directly on a disc or can be downloaded from our secure server depending on your order.

If you do not intend to use the Mastered files for CD manufacture, or would prefer to create the CD master yourself, we can supply the production masters as .wav files.

What are PQ and ISRC?

PQ is a small data code that marks the track start and end points on the CD table of contents. The CD player uses this information to locate each track.

The International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) uniquely identifies every track ever released.

More information about ISRCs is available at www.ifpi.org/isrc/

What should I remember when mixing?

Do not over compress the music. If you do use excessive compression or repeatedly normalise the music we may be unable achieve satisfactory results.

We have a range of tools to make your track sound loud, if that is what is required, but can achieve this without the distortion that some systems can cause.

What audio formats do you accept?

We can easily accept the following formats:

• AIFF (.aif)
• Wave (.wav)
• Broadcast Wave (.bwf)

We also accept many other files, but please contact us first to discuss the best options.

Data compressed files should be avoided at all costs. Certainly aac/mp4/mp3 files are not really acceptable, but if that is all you have... No matter how great you may percieve these files to be, they make files smaller by throwing bits away, this is not acceptable. It is always better to record at the highest quality you have available. We may be using i-pods and mp3's todat, but in the future higher quality will be the standard. You wouldn't record in mono would you? Uncompressed wav's may take longer to upload, but its worth the wait.

Sould mp3 be your only option, just send that. Many file conversion packages are not optimised for audio content.

It is very important to ensure that the files you send are stereo interleaved mixes that means not seperate left and right files. Multitrack sessions from Logic and ProTools should not be sent. We will accept any of the above files, which as we have said can be either uploaded to our server or shipped to us. We are happy to accept write once discs such as CDr and DVDr also CD Audio discs and DAT Tapes. We cannot accept 1/2" or 1/4" analogue masters for the emastering service as analogue formats require considerable attention inclusing tape baking for older Apex tapes. PC format hard drives may be accepted, but will be scanned for viruses prior to use incurring a surcharge and may be rejected.

Important: please save your files with a file extension, i.e. .wav

We are happy to accept files with the following file extensions:

• .aif
• .aifc
• .aiff
• .rar
• .sd2
• .sd2f
• .sit
• .wav
• .zip

What is the upload/download time for my tracks?

As with you normal Internet traffic it is dependent on your connection speed:

Uploading to us:

Nowadays there is no set standard for either ADSL or cable broadband connection as extra capacity can be purchased, or connection speed is reduced by contention ratio as more people subscribe. Uploading audio files of whatever size are generally viable unless you are on dial up.

ADSL and Downloading:

ADSL stands for Asychronous Dialup Subscriber Link. This means that if you have a 2meg link, you do not have 2meg for upload and 2meg for download. The connection speed favours the download. This is because the general public use ADSL to surf the Internet. So, a small amount of information is uploaded to request a website, but a much larger amount of data is downloaded to display it. Therefore, you can expect to download your Mastered files faster than they uploaded.

Will uploading tracks affect audio quality?

No the file transfer system does not affect a single byte of data.

Can I use the eMastering service by post?

If you wish to send your tracks by post complete your order as normal and select that you intend to post your tracks.

When posting content to us, please write "eMastering" clearly on your envelope and send to us at the address below.

eMastering
Alchemy Soho
29th Floor
Centre Point
103 New Oxford Street
London WC1A 1DD
United Kingdom.

Please indicate how you wish the completed project to be returned i.e. Special delivery, Courier, normal post.

What standard should I supply the files at?

Essentially, the higher the bit and sample rate the better. Ensure you are working within the parameters of your system and then aim to deliver as high a quality file as possible. If you have any doubt about the capabilities of your system please play safe. A good 16, or 24 bit 44.1 file is preferable to bad 96 master. Given a choice aim for 24 bit Masters.

Our eMastering service supports up to 24bit 96 kHz. Higher rates including DSD can only be accomodated in full rate attended sessions.

The defacto standard for CD Masters is is 16 bit, 44.1 kHz and we will supply your Masters in that format.

Do you supply a reference disc?

All CD Mastering includes an audio reference supplied as a CDR.

If you purchase CD Mastering we will ship a reference CDR to you.

If you want a reference for Vinyl Mastering you should chose an Acetate with your order.

Is there a limit on the size of my files for upload?

Theoretically we do not place and upper limit to how large files can be, or to how much can be uploaded. It is however worth considering that for files greater than 2 Gigabytes computers may well become unreliable. Event taking this limit into consideration a 24 bit 96 khz resolution file should accomodate an hour long album.

Do I have to supply a Barcode or an ISRC before I can Master?

No, none of these will prevent us from Mastering your project, but if you do provide them it is easier to incorporate them at this stage.

How do I send you a track that I only have on audio CD?

If you want to upload only your tracks as a file, but only have it on an audio CD you will have to extract them to a file format.

There are many free CD audio extraction utilities available for download from the Internet.

Where possible, please extract your tracks to a .wav file.