Preparing Your Tracks For Cutting

Vinyl is a totally different beast to CD's and other digital audio formats. So if this is your 1st track to vinyl please also read our short FAQ.

You can upload all of your music & label art work file on the product pages. If you prefer you can send your music via Dropbox, WeTransfer.com or some other file share site, just email us the download link, or send us a CD or USB stick.

For the highest quality vinyl please note the following :~

• MP3s, WMA and other lossy compressed audio formats are generally poor quality and, if it can be helped, best not used for cutting Dubplates. The best formats are WAV and AIFF.
• Never convert a MP3/WMA to WAV/AIFF as this does not improve the audio quality, it may in fact degrade it.
  
• If ripping tracks from a CD then rip as a 16bit 44.1kHz WAV/AIFF. If ripping from vinyl rip as a 16bit/24bit 44.1kHz (or higher) WAV/AIFF and not too loud, never normalise/maximise the files. If downloading from an online music store please download the highest quality format they offer and do not do anything to them before sending to us, just send as they come.
• Make sure you have checked all audio files for any problems before sending.
  

• 24bit WAV/AIFF with a sample rate of 44.1kHz or above is best.
• Record your tracks at -6dB to -3dB to give us some headroom.
  
• Please do not normalise your tracks or use any compressors, limiters, maximisers or stereo imagers on your mixes/Master Bus. Very important for Dubplate cuts.
  
• De-ess any vocals, sibilance on vocals can cause bad distortion . Very important for Dubplate cuts.
• Try not to have frequencies 5KHz and above too loud, if too loud these frequencies cause distortion.

 (This short VIDEO CLIP shows the importance of leaving head room and not normalising, using compression etc)^.

If you require templates for your label you can download them HERE. If you do not use these templates we cannot guarantee how the label(s) will look. 

Please supply as much information as you can with your tracks, such as the track time’s (when sending CD), track order, sample/bit rate etc. If you do not supply the track running order for your records they will either be cut in the order they were uploaded, arranged for best playback or so each side runs to the running time you selected.

When sending a CD for cutting please leave a 2 second gap in between tracks. Please do not send CDs in jewel cases (the big square plastic/normal cases) as they do not fit in the record mailers we use, please use either a plastic/cardboard/paper wallet type case.

Unfortunately unlike CD's or digital playlists you cannot have tunes in any order you like on vinyl, you have to think about and plan your track running order. Therefore, if you would like an EP or LP cut please arrange the tracks so the loudest, brightest and most dynamic ones are at the start of the record, i.e. any track that has loud hi hats, cymbals, brass or the vocal has a lot of sibilance, and the quieter ones at the end. This is very important and the reason for this is explained HERE.

Never send us your original CD.

And finally, make sure you select the correct timing and Dubplate size for the length of your tunes (if your tune is longer than the timing you have selected it will be cut down and faded out to the timing you selected).