Case Study: Mastering the Pijama Piyama 10’’ vinyl
A ways back, I went over the back-end production financials associated with my collab with Pijama Piyama for their debut vinyl record: a limited-edition run of 300 45 RPM black vinyl with hand-stamped artwork. They just sold out this pressing recently-congrats guys!
Today, we're diving deeper into the mastering studio to examine some challenges associated with the vinyl production on this project.
My complete set of creative case studies can be found here.
Mastering challenges
This was a particularly challenging project to master, because the source recordings were from many different sessions spread across several years, with no ability to do any remixing, and the band wanted to give them a cohesive sound for the vinyl release.
The noise reduction and the tape machine that was used was different across the various recordings, so some tracks were much noisier than others, or the character of the noise was different, depending on the track. This needed to be evened out a bit, to give the impression these tracks were part of a cohesive set, even though they were recorded many years apart.
These sessions were all recorded directly to analog tape, and the band wanted to keep it as analog as possible inside the mastering studio as well. Mostly that meant using my existing analog mastering gear inside the studio, but we particularly avoided using digital limiting technology in favor of analog limiting. That’s something I’d advise for anyone doing a vinyl project; digital limiters can really mess up a vinyl lathe, and result in a bad-sounding pressing.
One of the recording studios used was still building out their acoustics properly during the recording and mixing sessions. That led to some inconsistencies from mix to mix, especially in the bass area, with the earliest recorded tracks appearing much muddier than the later tracks. It took some additional work to even out the bass across all of the songs, to make these recordings appear as if they had all been made on the same day.
The band had a limited budget, and they wanted to be sure they weren’t getting ahead of themselves financially on the project, but without sacrificing sound quality. The solution we came up with, and I think it worked out great, was to do all artwork with local providers and finish the packaging themselves to save money. There aren't many vinyl pressing companies that will still sell you blank, white-labeled discs that you can hand-stamp yourself, but my recommended budget vinyl provider Pirates Press is a great option if you’re going this route. Fair warning: hand stamping custom artwork on hundreds of records by yourself is a lot of work!
Mastering and vinyl production
For more information on how mastering works, and how to best prepare your mixes for the mastering process, check out the Greg Lloyd Mastering Studio FAQ.
For vinyl productions in particular, it’s always wise to review test pressings before approving a full production vinyl run. For more info on how to do that, reference the Greg Lloyd Mastering Studio Vinyl Test Pressing Guide.
