XARC Mastering Service

General Discussion
21

Dear Man,

It is the same as with every mastering house or label your send your demo to. I can only tell you that we never would steal any song from any of our customers. Just think about the fact that this would destroy our company and our name if such a thing would get public. If you want be absolutely sure that noone will steal your song (when sending demos or whatever) you have to go to a notary and let him certify it. Another much cheaper but also working way is sending a package with your song and a proof of arrival to your own address and never open it. Then send out your demos to the labels and if someone steals your song, you have a absolutely proof that it was yours. I hope i could answer your question a bit.

Phonkey, we have done some mastering for Foreignpresence (a user in this board), maybe you ask him about us.

Sincerly,
XARC Mastering

22

Ok thanks Xarc, that answers it just right.
I’ve read on the net somewhere though that the “send yourself a copy of your demo”-thing doesn’t hold up in court, although it actually should.

One thing : you could add a “Satisfied Customers” link to your page, so people don’t get the idea they’ll be the first to try you guys.

23

I think you should register (and pay for) your own domain-name. Not use a free cjb.net. You’ll attract more people this way, since you’ll have a more professional “look”.

24

oooh… and of course you SHOULD pay for your webhost/webspace and don’t use geocities (=popups and stuff).

Anyway, I wish you good luck.

25

Hi Tobias,

thanks for the tips, but all that is already on its way, the current site is only temporary. I hope website and domain will run latest at end of this month.

Sincerly,
XARC Mastering

26

I have tried Xarc. I sent them one song (100% renoise output, no VSTi’s used) and they sent me back a master within a couple days. I tried it in compo against several commercial CD’s (as well as some “standard enhancement presets” found in products like Ozone Isotope) on a $4000 Hi-Fi system and the result was very impressive. On top of that they offered all kinds of suggestions concerning my mix in order to get the final product just perfect. Basically they removed any doubts I had about the value of getting tracks professionally mastered. I am now getting an EP done with them.

27

Dear Renoise Community,

we have a short before / after demo online now in WAV format to demonstrate what we can do for your sound. You can get it from the mainpage of our site under:

http://www.xarcmastering.cjb.net

Sincerly,
XARC Mastering

28

:huh:

You are unable to access this file directly because we do not allow files to be served to other sites.

Please contact the owner of the referring page if this causes you any inconvenience. If you need any further assistance, please visit our support page.

:(

29

This idea seems interesting and would be the kind of stuff I was waiting for…

However, how to trust a site on which “the Gator Corporation” pops up ? :D

30

Hello,

the download links are working now, please Rightclick and choose “Save As” and it will work. Sorry about the page and the popups, a new page with .com domain will follow very shortly, the current site is only temp. Altough i wanna say that you shouldnt judge the sound by our website please :)

Greets,
XARC Mastering

31

Look at this…

http://rvcc2.raritanval.edu/ktek9053/cdpage/

I don’t understand these loudness wars…

If I want loudness, I turn up the volume… What do you gain from overcompressing and overamplifying you’re song? … It will probably sound a bit better on cheap audio systems, but that’s it…

32

Radiostations often/usually(?) compress the music more because of a lower dynamic bandwidth than CD’s. This might change a bit when digital broadcasts become more common.

33

i just took care about the sound and if more limiting would have been applied it would have destroy the kick and the snare, in other words it would sound to muddy. Mastering is not about squishing a song to death, its just for giving it the needed polish. Altough you dont hear a big difference in loudness compared to the unmastered version because the frequency spectrum in the mastered version has changed and now consumes “additional loudness”. Just hear how the midrange was missing in the unmastered version, as i had to get right of that, the overall volume of the song also got higher. Just compare the synth sounds of the unmastered version to the ones of the mastered, you hear they are MUCH louder now, altough you have the feeling that both versions are similiar loud it is not true in aspects of psychoacoustics. Anyway the mastered version has -12db RMS and that is what most songs are today (-10db to -12db RMS is what you get in most actual productions). And always remember if playing in Radio they apply extra compression again and that would make your song dull and muddy if you overcompressed it in the mastering process.
I hope i could answer your questions.

Sincerly,
XARC Mastering Staff
http://www.xarcmastering.cjb.net

34

Dear Renoise Community,

We now offer mastering of one song for free! You will get a part of your song completly mastered and in the output format you like (f.e. 44khz 16bit WAV). Simply drop us a mail under xarc.mastering@gmx.net and tell us the login and password you would like for our FTP Server. We will contact you shortly and give you the complete details on how to upload your song. Please understand that this free demo may take some days to complete, depending on the current workload.

Sincerly,
XARC Mastering
http://www.xarcmastering.cjb.net

35

very good idea XARC.

I will call for a login immediately.

I will send you a 32bit file and receive a 16bit one, as I think that this should be the best choice for both of us.

36

WOW!!

I must say I’m very impressed with XARC’s work over the test WAV I’ve sent.

If you’re curious about it too, check
this OGG file and compare it with the original, unprocessed file (this is the OGG I’ve released officially some months ago).

as you may hear, the original has some major flaws in audio quality somewhere, expecially the flute which clips at 3’08".

the only thing doesn’t satisfy me at a 100% rate is the piano, which has lost a bit of the warmness, but all in all this is a great work, expecially considering the time it took (I’ve received the demo some hours after the uploading of the original) and the quality of the original.

the guy at XARC has also given a prompt support to me: he asked me for a better version because the first one I’ve sent him was too loud, then he has searched for me on IRC #ReNoise to talk about the production itself.

I’m very satisfied with his work and I think I’ll record my next demo-CD with him (nothing commercial: I’m still giving copies for free to friends, but this time they will receive a very good product). The only thing which prevents me from doing it immediately is the fact that I’ve done composing, mastering and recording entirely by myself until now (6 CDs), and this would give an end to my one-man-record-label history :)

thanks again to XARC for this free trial.

edit: ignore the title tag in the XARC OGG file (“il principio di indeterminazione”): it’s due to the fact that I’ve made everything (FTP download, encoding, web uploading) via remote control, so I forgot to change the title tag in the OGG encoder, and I really don’t want to do this again :)

edit2:
I must give a second thought about XARC’s work on this WAV.
I want to clarify that most of the defects you won’t find in their OGG are due to my incompetence: it’s still true that if you are able to master your files on your own, expecially if you can do it in a multitrack fashion, then probably there is no way they can do much better than you, so that you would feel encouraged to spend money on this.

My advice is to take advantage of their free trial offer to evaluate how much they can improve your work.