Does Vinyl Mastering differ to CD Mastering or mp3 Mastering

February 23rd, 2010

When producing a master for vinyl there are many considerations due to the limitations of the cutting lathe and the space on the vinyl.

Firstly, A lathes cutter head doesn’t respond well to very high or very low frequencies.

If an engineer has left these frequencies untamed there is a high possibility that the finished vinyl grooves will jump or produce high frequency distortion.
In the hands of an experience vinyl-mastering engineer there is no need to re-master the track for vinyl, as they will be able to use high pass and low pass filters, elliptical equalizers and many other tricks to get the vinyl sound identical if not warmer than the Digital Master.

This is true for the actual sound but there will always be a difference in overall level, as you cannot produce the same level to a vinyl lacquer as a CD master can handle.
All these different factors add together change the amount of space you can fit on a disc.
For example: Bass takes up more room as it makes wider movements across the face of the disk therefore adding this with loudness you will run out of space very quickly and not be able to cut a long side – Time + Level + Speed + Bass = Space On Disk.

So there are many things to keep in mind when mastering for vinyl, but the less you need to fit on the better it will sound.