Everything technical, in one place.
Mastering here runs through an analog signal path, so the quality of what you send matters more than it would in an all-digital chain. Nothing below is fussy for its own sake.
What to send
| Format | WAV or AIFF. No MP3, AAC, or any other lossy format. |
| Bit depth | 24-bit minimum. 32-bit float is fine and welcome. |
| Sample rate | The native sample rate of your session. Do not convert it. If you tracked at 48 kHz, send 48 kHz. |
| Headroom | Around −6 dB of peak headroom. This is the one that matters most. |
| Mix bus | No limiter. No heavy processing you didn’t put there on purpose. |
| Fades | Leave the heads and tails long. Don’t trim to the first transient — I need the room to work. |
| Length | Full track, top to tail, with any intro or outro exactly as you want it released. |
About that headroom
If your mix bus has a limiter on it, take it off and bounce again. A mix that’s already been squashed to −0.1 dBTP has had the dynamic range removed, and that range is the raw material mastering works with. It cannot be put back. This is the single most common reason a record comes out worse than it could have.
Bus compression, saturation, and tape you added as part of the sound of the mix are a different thing entirely — that’s your record, leave it. The distinction is intent: processing you chose is part of the mix, processing you added to make the bounce feel loud enough to send is not.
If you’re unsure whether something on your mix bus should stay, send it with and without and say so. That’s not an inconvenience, it’s a useful comparison.
File naming
Name files so that the running order is unambiguous without a separate email:
01_Artist_Track Title_MIX_v2.wav
02_Artist_Track Title_MIX_v1.wav- Two-digit track number first, so files sort correctly.
- Include a mix version if there’s any chance of more than one.
v2beatsfinal, andfinal_FINAL_use_thisbeats nothing at all but only barely. - Avoid slashes, colons, quotes, and question marks — they break on some systems.
- If you’re sending a revised mix mid-project, change the version number. Never overwrite a filename I already have.
What you get back
Unless we agree otherwise, every mastered track is delivered as:
- 24-bit WAV at the session’s native sample rate — the production master. This is the one you archive and the one you hand to any future licensor or reissue.
- 16-bit / 44.1 kHz WAV, dithered — for digital distribution and CD.
- 320 kbps MP3 — reference copy, for sending around.
Dither on the 16-bit reduction is TPDF unless the material specifically calls for something else. Noise-shaped dither is not used by default, because it does not survive lossy encoding cleanly and most releases end up encoded.
One master per track
There are no platform-specific or loudness-matched alternate versions, and that’s deliberate rather than a limitation. Every major streaming service normalizes playback on the way out. A master made to hold together across normalized systems performs correctly on all of them. Making four versions to chase four sets of published numbers produces four compromised records instead of one good one.
Sequenced releases: what I need from you
For an EP or album — and required before a DDP image can be built for CD replication:
- Final track titles, spelled and capitalized exactly as you want them to appear.
- Running order.
- Artist and release credits as they should be embedded.
- UPC / EAN for the release.
- ISRC codes for each track.
- Intended spacing between tracks — or tell me to make the call, and I will.
Get these right the first time. Approving the PQ sheet approves all the embedded metadata with it, and a rebuild caused by a title change after approval is billable work.
Vinyl
The standard master is built to perform across every playback medium, vinyl included, and is supplied to a cutting engineer as-is.
Some releases and some plants want a dedicated vinyl pre-master instead. That’s separate work, and it covers:
- Sequencing split side by side, as separate continuous files.
- Level and dynamics revisited against side length — a long side has to run at a lower level, and pretending otherwise is how you get a thin record.
- Additional sibilance control, because a lathe is far less forgiving of a hot ess than a converter is.
- Low-frequency mono summing below the crossover point, so the cutter head isn’t asked to do something physically difficult.
- High-frequency limiting appropriate to the lathe.
What’s on you: confirming side splits, side running times, and the plant’s technical requirements with the pressing plant or cutting engineer before the pre-master is built. Every plant has its own preferences and they are not negotiable from this end.
Once a master leaves here for a lacquer cut, what the cutting engineer does with it and how the lacquer turns out are outside my control and outside my responsibility. That isn’t a dodge — it’s the actual division of labor, and any mastering engineer who tells you otherwise is overselling.
Files, delivery, and keeping your own copies
Masters are delivered by download link to your designated email address. That link stays live for 30 days. Download everything and put it somewhere safe inside that window.
Smithingrecords is not a backup service and not an archive. Project files may be deleted from these systems 90 days after a project completes. Keep your own copies of everything you send and everything you receive — your mixes, your masters, all of it. Re-delivery after the link expires is a separately quoted service, and after the retention period it may not be possible at all.
The rest of it
Scope, rights, payment, revisions, and everything else that governs a project is in the Terms of Service. It’s written to be read, not to be scrolled past.
Still not sure? Just send it.
If your file doesn’t match the spec, send it anyway and I’ll tell you what to change. Nobody’s project has ever been turned away over a sample rate.
