| Furnace MFG houses one of the largest and most sophisticated in-house, vinyl specific mastering labs in the industry. With a combination of analog and digital equipment, we can take a variety of sources from original analog tape, PMCD or high resolution digital files and prepare them specifically for the vinyl format. For a small fee, our engineers will EQ your audio specifically for vinyl, producing a completely different listening experience than its digital counterpart. Most masters are created for CD or Digital Download in mind. Mastering specifically for vinyl will allow you to hear sounds, frequencies and feel not found on any other format. Furnace offers master cutting on traditional lacquer as well as DMM (direct metal mastering) Neumann VMS lathe systems. This gives us the advantage of choosing the best mastering method for the style of music and volume requirements required for your specific project. Additionally, we make our own, in-house DMM copper blanks which were formulated and rigorously tested to produce a much deeper groove that rivals lacquers while maintaining the crisp, clean and first generation aspect of DMM. After the master disc has been created, it is handed off to our in-house galvanics lab which will produce the father (3 step process), additional mothers (if archiving is required) and the stampers that will be used on press. Our galvanics have been set up to work seamlessly with all of the systems in the factory so we can count on precise consistency when going from cutting to plating to press. If you plan on providing your own master source, we will gladly take lacquers, DMM or Mother plates. Be sure that your mastering studio packs them very carefully and feel free to contact us for more information on ensuring your masters arrive safe and sound. Note: When preparing digital files, consider supplying us uncompressed audio files. When preparing a recording for master, most recording studio or mastering labs compress the files to 16bit/44.1khz WAV files which is the specification needed for making a PMCD. This compression results in the loss of the sonic qualities that shine on vinyl. Ask your mastering engineer to produce a set of vinyl-specific audio files without standard CD compression. We can take up to 24bit/192khz WAV files that can be burned to DVD-R or host on a FTP server for us to download. If you are repressing a record that has already been pressed or has previously been plated at another facility, we can accept your Mother Plates - however make sure not to send stamper plates as we will not be able to use these. Make sure your Mother plates are packed well and are enclosed in a protective sleeve to prevent scratches or abrasions. Often times metal work is stored in cardboard jackets. These can do harm when used to ship via air carrier. When supplying lacquers or mother plates, have the cutting facility / plant send them directly to our plant's shipping address on your estimate and not to our US address. |
