Major label remasters - What gear are they using to print final masters?

[heavenorlasvegas]

So...what is the standard? or is there one?

we're talking about remasters here, so typically music that was mastered before the napster era (late 90's early 2000's)

I'm not so much interested in the remastering process as far as eq and compression etc..

but more interested in what gear is being used in the final print, what file types and that sort of thing.

thanks!

Roger

[James Perrett]

Whatever the client asks for. It will usually be a DDP file set for CD.

Vinyl will be .wav or .aiff files - probably 24 bits at the native sample rate of the project.

Apple will now accept high sample rate files at 24 bits for their online distribution -

https://www.apple.com/apple-music/apple ... asters.pdf

but not all platforms and distributors offer this so the format will depend on the distributor used.

[heavenorlasvegas]

Anyone here know what software in particular is the standard for converting the tape masters to a digital format?

As far as I can tell, each daw has a unique sound, so an analog recording recorded by logic will have different tonal characterist than the same recording recorded by ableton live etc.

This is why i ask. Thanks again sos.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Anyone here know what software in particular is the standard for converting the tape masters to a digital format?

Software doesn't convert tape masters to digital. That's a job for hardware converters — typically Prism, DAD, Cranesong, Lavry, etc etc.

As far as I can tell, each daw has a unique sound...

That's news to me! Converters can have very subtly different characters.

[Wonks]

Very early DAWs may have imparted a slight character to the sound, but those days have long passed.

[MarkOne]

...As far as I can tell, each daw has a unique sound...

Indeed, I thought that particular myth was dealt with a number of years ago.

Yes it was true back in the early DAW days where mix bus algorithms were imperfectly implemented, but the world has moved on

[heavenorlasvegas]

Placebo is very powerful.

My last post about each daw having a unique sound, was recently debunked as I failed to tell each daw apart in a blind test

[James Perrett]

I've had a few digital transfers from major labels to reformat that were done with the UAD 2192 convertors.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/un ... 192-master

Given where those masters came from, I'd guess that quite a few transfers were done with those in the 2000s.