Pre-Vinyl Mastering

Fat As Funk is very experienced in optimising masters for pressing on to vinyl; ensuring a hassle-free cut and great sounding product.

Releasing a record on vinyl is an expensive process. If you are spending all that money it makes sense to have masters specially optimized for vinyl cutting.

Mastering for vinyl is a different finish than mastering for CD/digital media. There are several essential processes that need to be addressed at the mastering stage or you risk problems at the cutting stage, & consequently risk a batch of vinyl that could have a range of problems – sounding excessively harsh in tone, flat dynamics, even making some needles skip on playback!

These days DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) is a much more popular alternative for pressing to vinyl than the old days of the lacquer. It’s also quicker & a lot cheaper, saving you on around £200 on a vinyl run. We master our pre-vinyl masters to translate brilliantly to the DMM process.

Loz at Fat As Funk has mastered almost 1000 tracks for vinyl & knows all the tricks inside-out. Pre-vinyl masters from us are a worthy investment – you can get your records cut with confidence, knowing that the sound you approve will be easy for the cutting engineer to translate onto the vinyl medium accurately.

To get pre-vinyl optimized versions of your masters it is only £10 per track when done in the same session as the ones for digital.

If you ONLY want pre-vinyl mastering, without any other masters finished differently for digital use, then it is the same price as CD/digital mastering. If you only want vinyl masters please order from the Stereo Mastering page and add a note to the order that they are only for vinyl.

How long should you have on a side of vinyl?

The length per side of a vinyl record depends a lot on the volume you want your cut. Here are some suggestions:

7″ @ 33 rpm: Moderate volume: 6.5 minutes… Loud: 4 minutes… Extra loud: 2.5 minutes.
7″ @ 45 rpm: Moderate volume: 5 minutes… Loud: 3 min… Extra loud: 1.9 minutes.
10″ @ 33 rpm: Moderate volume: 13.5 minutes… Loud: 8 minutes… Extra loud: 5 minutes.
10″ @ 45 rpm: Moderate volume: 10 minutes… Loud: 6 minutes… Extra loud: 3.5 minutes.
12″ @ 33 rpm: Moderate volume: 19 minutes… Loud: 11.5 minutes… Extra loud: 7 minutes.
12″ @ 45 rpm: Moderate volume: 14 minutes… Loud: 8.5 minutes… Extra loud: 5 minutes.

These times are flexible to an extent, but give a good guideline to aim for.