BEFORE A song or a piece of music is released to the wider listening public, it goes through several distinct but important stages. Firstly, it has to be written or composed. It’s then rehearsed, arranged and probably demo-ed in rough form. Next, the piece is recorded onto multi-track tape, usually in a professional studio, with overdubs, compression, equalisation and all the other refinements required to bring out the best in the performance. Finally, it goes through the painstaking mixing stage.

When the band members, producer and record company are satisfied with the final mix, a master tape in either analogue or digital form is prepared. This master will ultimately be used to produce the CD’s or cassettes for release.

It’s probably fair to say, that at this point, many bands and musicians feel that the creative process, as far as they are concerned, has come to an end. All that remains is for the CD to hit the record stores or the airwaves – and then to wait for the (hopefully) positive reaction.

The reality is that the post-production process is of crucial significance in determining how the music will sound when duplicated onto CD or cassette and any band that ignores the importance of this final stage, does so at their peril. The care and attention paid to the master will ensure that what was heard on the monitors in the recording studio during that final mix, is what the public will hear on the radio or on the CD player.

In order to demonstrate what actually takes place during the post-production stage, Hot Press tagged along with two members of highly-rated Derry band Scheer as they delivered the completed master tape of their last EP to Trend Studios in Dublin for transformation into the finished product.

COMPLETE PACKAGE

Scheer — signed to the Dave Pennefather managed Son label – have released two well-received EP’s to date and have just completed a successful Irish tour which included an appearance at Sunstroke ‘94. The band travel to New York on December 7th for some showcase dates and will be recording a new EP for release early in the new year.

Audrey Gallagher (vocalist) and Peter Fleming (bass player) arrive at Trend and their first point of contact is with Roisín Jenkins, customer services manager. She explains each stage in the process and co-ordinates the various elements which combine to produce the finished product, running through the range of options on packaging and advising on colours, artwork, costs etc. Young bands, in particular, are very often unfamiliar with the whole procedure and Roisín is aware of the need to fully explain what is actually involved.

“Usually they ring us up when we’ve they’ve finished recording and enquire what they need to do next,” she says. “They’re normally very excited about it — it’s their project, after all, and I have to try and be as enthusiastic as they are and share their excitement. We’ll talk about track listing, artwork, photographs, inlay cards. A lot of the time they’ll have a specific image they want to portray.

“The client will continue to liaise with me and I’ll co-ordinate the different elements including mastering, printing, design. I’ll keep them up to date on what’s happening and put them in touch with the engineer or the artwork and design people if needed.”

She stresses the fact that Trend provide a full post production service, including artwork and packaging. “Some bands might prefer to go somewhere else for printing and many will already have artwork done by a friend and that’s fine with us,” she says. “But we find that a lot of them would rather have us do the complete package rather than having to go through two or three different companies and we can usually offer a very competitive deal.”

ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM

For their second EP ‘Psychobabble’, Scheer wanted to do something more elaborate in terms of packaging as Peter Fleming explains. “We’d seen a CD done for Scthum which had a gatefold CD cover and it was a lot more impressive than the normal CD single case. Trend were able to do all that for us and it enabled us to use more artwork and photographs. We were even able to include a postcard with our mailing address, which wouldn’t have been possible with a standard CD case.”

Mastering at Trend is carried out using the Sonic Solutions Digital Editing and CD Mastering System. Paul Waldron, technical and studio manager with Trend, underlines some of the problems that can arise with masters that are not technically up to specifications.

“Because of the proliferation of home-recording studios, our role has become much more critical in making sure that the finished product is as good as it can possibly be,” he says. “There was a time when we would get master tapes which were fully professional and finished to a high quality with the correct levels etc. Now we find that some bands bring tapes or DAT’s into us with levels that are too high. That can cause real problems as there is an absolute maximum level that you cannot go beyond. If you go above that level, the CD pressing plant will reject it. We go to within one tenth of a decibel of the maximum to get it up to the highest level possible.”

Scheer had such a problem with their first EP ‘Wish You Were Dead’, as Peter Fleming explains. “We recorded it in a home recording set-up and I’d got a lend of a DAT machine to do the master. But I treated it like an ordinary cassette machine and pushed the levels well into the red. Then when I took it to a studio, it distorted badly. So I had to go back and re-mix it, making sure it was between -3db and zero. After correcting it we took it down to Trend and it was fine for mastering.”

Paul Waldron stresses the importance of getting the mix right on a master tape before post production begins, as there is a strict limit to the amount of adjustments that can be made once it’s been completed. “For example, if you need more bass on a two-track DAT master, it may increase bass on other instruments or vocals as well. Engineers at Trend will try to eliminate potential problems before processing and we’ll ring the bands and let them know what’s happening at all stages. If you go through the UK or Europe that may not always happen and they’ll probably run it through the system anyway.”

Mary Kettle, a mastering engineer with Trend and formerly with Windmill Lane Studios, explains the complex mastering process and how it works in practice.

“The Sonic Solutions system is used by all the top studios and mastering houses in the world,” she says. “It’s very expensive but very good. There are other mastering packages and editing facilities but Sonic Solutions is the Rolls Royce of CD pre-mastering systems. It’s really a computer programme running on the Apple with a massive storage and processing capacity.

“We take the DAT or tape and we put it into the Sonic Solutions system. The data is transferred to a hard disc which enables us to manipulate the audio signal. We can adjust the levels up or down on individual tracks or on the overall CD so that the loudest parts of the DAT are as loud as possible. We adjust the gaps between tracks, clean up any noises, tidy up fade outs. We can experiment with various different edits, try them out and pick the one that’s the best. If we don’t like it, we can restore the original in an instant (it’s called non-destructive editing).

“There’s also data like time-code interleaved with the audio signal on a CD. When you put a CD into your machine, it searches very quickly for the TOC (table of contents). If there’s nine tracks on the CD, totalling 53 mins it’ll show that on the display. You decide to play track five so it searches it out, and punches into that time code reference. Those codes are put on by us using the Sonic Solutions system and we can see exactly where they are physically located on the tape by looking at the screen.

“When we’re happy with the results we transfer the audio signal from the hard disc onto a 1630 — an industry standard tape, which means it can be taken to any CD plant in the world for pressing.”

Advances in technology mean that the whole mastering and post-production process can be done very quickly if needed — a vital factor in an industry as fast moving as the music industry. “We can turn the whole thing around in about ten working days,” says Paul Waldron. “With CDs there is a minimum run of about 250, but 500 is usually more economical. With printing and packaging it obviously depends on the budget available.

“What’s really speeded things up, for us, is the new Sonopress plant in Balbriggan,” he adds. “We have an exclusive relationship with them and it’s made things a lot simpler. Previously, we were going cross-channel and there can be all kinds of problems with freight and exchange rates as well as communications difficulties.”