Re: What kind of CD-R should I put the master of a album on?
Nothing in this thread is correct...
Masters such as those sent to Discmakers are usually on DAT, as I understand it.
And thanks to the RIAA, the only CD-R available to you and I are the colored-bottoms - green, blueish, black, etc - not silver like retail pro store-bought CDs.
Nobody has sent a DAT as a replication master for about 10 years, at least.
They were never exact or reliable enough to be used for that purpose. And even if you DID send the "master" on a DAT, the plant would make a disc before cutting all the copies. Maybe your thinking of the old 1630 masters which were tape...
Color of CDR discs has nothing to do with the RIAA.
CDR's are made with an organic dye... that's what the color is.
The 'silver' discs that are duplicated CD's are actually a wholly different blank, and are actually stamped like records used to be. Well, not exactly, but close enough.
Generally speaking, the darker the dye the better.
Now the "best" CDR you can get for your master is the one the mastering engineer/studio recommends and supplies. Most anyone whose decent will have tested a bunch of different CDR blanks to see what generates the lowest errors at different speeds with their burning setup.
And while some places will let you supply recording media, a lot of places won't. For instance I don't let my clients supply hard drives & the like to insure compatibility with my rig and the integrity of the data.
If there's an error with my blank, I'll eat it. If its YOUR blank, then you pay again. This also came to be after the bajillionth time that someone brought in a DAT/CDR/DVD/drive etc. that wasn't compatible with my rig or up to the standard of "pro" audio.
After all that money spent producing your record, why try to save a couple bucks on a blank? The cost isn't even in the blank, its in the labor to make & verify it.
Masters going to duplication are typically sent on CDR or as time stamped broadcast wav/AIFF files.
The plant also gets printed sheets with the PQ list & error rates. The PQ list contains exact track ID's with start & stop times, down to a hundredth of a second.
If those sheets aren't supplied most plants will require you to sign a waiver. That way if you get 1000 discs back that don't play correctly they're absolved of all responsibility and you pay again.
Otherwise if the sheets are sent in with the master and they screw 'em up, then the plant eats it and does another run on their dime.
