Glass Master

Dead Earth Politics - Mark the Resistance

an example of a glass master used in disc manufacturing

A glass master is made at the replication plant in a specialized clean room, not at the mastering studio. A glass disc, 240mm in diameter and 6mm thick, is used as a substrate to 'etch' the image of the digital data as pits and lands that will ultimately be the ones and zeroes that the CD player will read as audio information. Some audiophiles insist on real-time (1x) creation of a glass master for highest audio quality.

Archival and Restoration

As formats change and the media they're recorded on ages, it becomes increasingly difficult to transfer the information off of those formats into new, more modern formats. That's basically what archival and restoration is: transferring recordings from one format to another. Usually, the transfer is from an older format on more fragile media to something newer and easier to work with.

Archival and Restoration

Cassette

.cda file format

Often a source of confusion is the .cda file. On a windows computer, when you insert a RedBook Audio CD, the tracks show up as .cda files. One might assume that these are the audio files on the disc because they are the only items that show up in the explorer window. . . that would be wrong. The .cda files are merely placeholders pointing to a place on the CD that the song starts. Think of them as what windows calls a 'shortcut'.

Jitter

Jitter is a time-based signal error. Often misunderstood, this problem can range from subtle and nearly inaudible to loud and distracting. Jitter can reduce low-level resolution (add noise) and add distortion.

DDP Masters

In the past few months, we've had several requests for masters to be sent over the internet to the manufacturing plant. DDP is the perfect format for this. Many plants will give you FTP information to send the DDP master to their facility or a login to a webpage that you can upload the file. I like this trend and recommend this for clients that have chosen replicators that accept DDP masters.

QR Code

We just pressed our first CDs that feature a QR code on the packaging. When the artist, songwriter Tonya Tyner, handed in her artwork, I didn't even know what the black and white square on the back of the digipak was. Now it seems like I am seeing them everywhere. When she told me that it was readable by smart phones and that you could have it link to a variety of functions, I thought it sounded like a great idea.