| If you are an independent artist releasing a CD, we highly recommend that you contact a full-time project mastering company to get the most out of your material (see some links in the sidebar).
But don't spend so much that you have no money left for CDs, cassettes, or vinyl pressing! The bottom line is that you need physical things to sell to your fans and to give to club owners and promoters.
An MP3 may just get forgotten amongst the millions of other MP3 files.
If you are pressed for time or just need some transfers or repair work done, we do have the experience and ears to do a good job. Common last-minute repair work we do:
- Editing CD-Text and ISRC codes
- Fixing the spacing between songs or moving the CD track markers
- Rearranging the order of songs
- Making multisession masters
Amtech has the experience to offer a wide range of editing, enhancement, transfer, and repair work on audio sources. We can work from the following sources:
- CD
- Vinyl (playback on Linn LP12 turntable)
- Audio cassette
- Minidisc
- 1/4" half-track reel-to-reel tape
- DAT
- WAV, AIFF, MP3 and any almost other computer file (24-bit file preferred if processing required)
- and from any other equipment you can supply or we can find
We can do global EQ, noise reduction, tonal enhancement, crossfades, etc... Often customers want to raise the level of their CD master to be comparable in volume to commercial releases, and that is something we can do with some high-end software. Keep in mind, however, that loudness starts in the recording studio and your 24-track mix. It is not really possible to turn a low-budget 2-track mix into something that sounds like a Bon Jovi record. It will just be too squashed if we try to reach extreme loudness levels. We have volume knobs anyways, so why try to force it too much and remove all the dynamics? But yes, we can usually make a substantial increase in loudness with almost no audible artifacts by applying our skill, ears, and the proper tools.
Part of the difference we offer is an attention to quality of the sound. We strive to produce something that everyone can be pleased to listen to for years. Our ears are tuned to avoid digital clipping and distortion. We won't push it 3 dB more if we can hear clipping. If we are doing flute or piano you can be sure we're listening to every peak to make sure we can't hear clipping.
Declipping!
Yes it may be possible to repair masters that have been recorded too loud and have harsh digital clipping. Send your master or a WAV file for evaluation and a quote.
Enhanced CDs / CD-Extra
We have made many combined audio/data CD masters so we can be sure our masters will not fail in glass mastering.
QC
All our work is carefully checked and QC'd.
DDP
We will also convert your CD audio master into DDP files ready to send to glass mastering.
Project Mastering
We do not do Project Mastering. By that we mean we do not specialize in the painstaking tweaking of your tracks for commercial release. We can refer you to people who do that full-time, or we can take care of the liason for you. See some links in the sidebar.
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