Sidebar on formats for masters

• CD-R glass pre-master is currently the format of choice
• Sony 1630 is now antique, Sony no longer supporting 1630 processors, and reliability and precision are beginning to be serious problems.
• Numerous mastering houses and CD factories are partial to Exabyte tapes.
• DAT tapes are often used. They are cheap, fairly reliable and easy to work with.

Sidebar on Archiving

A secondary concern when mastering a CD is how to archive the master. We all hope there will be a Greatest Hits compilation ten years down the road, and so we need to think about how we would like to store our master tapes in anticipation of that happy day.

• So, one strategy is to archive at the best resolution we now have available, which is 24-bit. In addition to the master tape, then, we also create a 24-bit file or tape which we store for future usage.
• Now’s also the time to think about DVD formats. If we think we might want to make things suitable for DVD, we should archive it in a format that will take advantage of DVD when it’s time.
• What about surround? At present, this is more of a mixing issue than a mastering one. Nonetheless, keep your options open, keep elaborate notes and automation data, consider how the mixes matrix into surround, and be ready for that exciting surround reissue project.
• One very nice thing you can do is archive your master mix on a CD-R as a ROM data file, complete with all of the header info.
• TASCAM has just come out with a 24-bit DAT machine. It may prove to be a very convenient and inexpensive way to make hi-rez archive copies. Keep it in mind.