The Mastering Show #107 - Mastering for 1-Off Vinyl (and short runs)

About this episode

This episode discusses the intricacies of mastering music for one-off vinyl and short runs, including technical specifications and quality considerations.

More and more people are choosing to get vinyl copies of their music made one at a time, rather than having hundreds of copies pressed at once. Or in very small batches, or allowing fans to order copies on demand. So how does this work, and what does it mean ? How do you get the best quality results, and minimise the risk of getting something back that you're not happy with ? Mastering for vinyl is a whole different ball-game, as I discussed in detail with Scott Hull in Episode 94 . So in this show, Joe Caithness and I dig into the topic in detail, discussing: What is a "lathe cut" or "dubplate" How are they made, and how are they different to traditionally pressed vinyl ? Do you always need to have your music mastered by a dedicated vinyl cutting engineer ? How do you get the specs for the audio you should supply ? And Why this can be trickier than it sounds Do you really need to mono the bass on vinyl ? And what about phase ? Links and more episodes here: www.themasteringshow.com/episode-107 Mentioned in this episode: Mastering Click HERE to work with Ian Tools For Ian's mastering plugins, click HERE Leapwing Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

People in this episode

Host: The Mastering Show

Guest: Joe Caithness

Topics covered

• vinyl mastering
• lathe cut
• dubplate
• audio specifications
• bass mono
• phase issues

Keywords

• vinyl
• mastering
• lathe cut
• dubplate
• audio quality
• bass mono
• phase

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Leapwing

Books & works: The Mastering Show

More episodes of The Mastering Show

• The Mastering Show #109 - Audio repair & fixing faults · May 29, 2026 · 46 min
• The Mastering Show #108 - Why I was wrong about Loudness Range · April 29, 2026 · 33 min
• The Mastering Show #106 - Are dynamics dead ?! · February 28, 2026 · 35 min
• The Mastering Show #105 - Loudness at the Grammys: is there REALLY a secret sauce ? · January 31, 2026 · 28 min
• The Mastering Show #104 - Mastering for Sync ? What, Why and How · December 23, 2025 · 48 min
• The Mastering Show #103 – Technical versus Creative Mastering (Q&A) · November 28, 2025 · 35 min