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Question for recording artist/engineers

Let's say you have a jazz band who wants to sell cds of their music with the best quality of sound they can achieve at the lowest out-sourced cost or do-it-yourself. If one wants to do a just-in-time type of manufacturing of their cd, how can they improve things?

Currently they are recording at 48k in Pro-tools, mastered in Sonic Solutions by Air Show Mastering, and then they use top of the line cds (Taiyo Yuden) with a Microboards Orbit II Duplicator. This has produced average cds but we want to do better.

What would you engineers do to improve this so it gets closer to audiophile quality? Would you recommend using a different mastering house, different cds, or a different Duplicator? Or would you just bite the money bullet and go directly to a full-scale manufacturer? We are trying not to have that much money tied up in inventory.

If this is the wrong place to post this question, please suggest another message board to post.

Thank you for your feedback and assistance.
lngbruno
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Thanks for the tutorial (I wasn't necessarily being literal about the 'throwing away' part). What I'm still curious about is this: How did we end up with two standards so close together as 44.1KHz and 48KHz? I understand the reason for picking a frequency in this area, just not how we got to both of these...
flex
292 posts
 
In the not-so-distant past, 44.1khz was the consumer standard and 48khz the professional standard. High sampling rates were something a few engineers experimented with, but were nothing like an accepted standard as recently as ~10 years ago.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Thanks for taking a stab Flex, but the reply only reiterates the question...anybody else have an insight?
flex
292 posts
 
Zaikesman, this may be closer to what you are looking for.

44.1khz came about because of its relationship to NTSC and PAL tv line rates. Early digital audio was recorded using versions of video recorders, and the audio frequency had to be related to the horizontal video frequency in order that both video and audio frequencies could be derived from the same master clock. 44.1khz was the original PCM-F1 format, which I believe was adopted first in Japan and ultimately became the compact disc standard.

The use of 48khz is based on its compatibility with tv and movie frame rates (50Hz,60 Hz), and with the 32khz pcm rate used for broadcast. 48khz has integer relationships with all of the above and therefore makes it easier to set up time code for studio sync. Looking at an article on 48khz, the author mentions your original idea of sample rate conversion as a primary reason for the concern with integer frequency relationships in the early days of audio.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Flex you da man baby :-)
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