Low end moves the groove
Wide stereo content below roughly 150 Hz swings the cutter head far enough to break into the neighbouring groove. Keeping the bass centred is not a stylistic choice on a record — it is what keeps the needle in the track.
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Send the same mix you would send for a digital release. We prepare a cut-ready master that survives the lathe: low end managed, sibilance controlled, sides balanced, level set for the running time you actually have.
A streaming master is made for a system with no moving parts. A record is a physical groove that a stylus has to stay inside, and the cutting lathe has limits a converter does not.
Hand a plant your −8 LUFS streaming master and one of two things happens: the cutting engineer quietly undoes your mastering to make it cuttable, or the record ships with distortion pressed permanently into every copy.
Wide stereo content below roughly 150 Hz swings the cutter head far enough to break into the neighbouring groove. Keeping the bass centred is not a stylistic choice on a record — it is what keeps the needle in the track.
Sharp energy around 5–8 kHz makes the cutting head work hard enough to distort, and that distortion is pressed into every copy for good.
The longer a side runs, the tighter the groove spacing and the quieter the cut. Fourteen minutes a side and twenty-two minutes a side are two different masters of the same songs.
Linear velocity falls towards the centre, so high frequencies get harder to track. Which song sits last on a side is a mastering decision, not just a running order.
On streaming, loudness is a negotiation with a normalisation algorithm. On vinyl it is a negotiation with physics: past a certain level the groove simply cannot hold the waveform, and the lathe will not cut it.
So the brickwalled master has to come down — and what comes back down has to still sound like the record. That is the whole craft of this service: giving up level without giving up the weight, the front-to-back depth or the impact of the drums.
If you want the longer technical background, we wrote it up in what is mastering for vinyl.
Upload your mix and tell us about the release. If you are ordering mixing as well, Vinyl Mastering is also a $20 add-on inside those forms — you do not need two orders.
Not sure whether your mix is ready to cut? Send it in the chat and an engineer will tell you what would need to change before it reaches a plant. That costs nothing and needs no order.
*Price depends on the project size — calculate your exact price on the order page. Not happy with the result? See our refund policy.
A named engineer listens properly and writes back with exactly what is holding the track back and what to do about it. Free, always — no card, no order first, and no obligation to use us afterwards.