Frequently Asked Questions 1. How much does mastering cost? How long does it take? 2. What can I expect from you? What are you going to do to my album exactly? 3. What do I need to provide to you (file format, etc.) to facilitate mastering? 4. How do we work together if I am not attending my session? How do I deliver files online or use FTP? 5. What are ISRC codes, and how do I get them on my release? 6. How do I make my song titles appear in iTunes or other computer software? 7. Can you help me make vinyl instead of / as well as CD's? 8. What extra services do you offer? What is analog summing and tape layback? 9. Will you make my CD louder than a hydrogen bomb if I ask nicely? 10. What's the deal with the studio? Who works there? 6. How do I make my song titles appear in iTunes or other computer software? There are two means of storing and sharing CD information ("metadata"), and they are often misunderstood and confused with one another. CD TEXT is information encoded at the header (data portion) of an audio CD that can be used to store basic information such as artist, album title, song titles, and ISRC codes. This information is used only by the very small number of players that are cd text enabled -- generally speaking this is for car stereos and home stereo components that have an LCD display built into them. CD TEXT is not used by computers or iTunes. It is definitely not essential to include CD TEXT on your master -- if you are not 100% certain of how you want your song titles to appear, we recommend against encoding CD TEXT. The CDDB (sometimes referred to as the Gracenote database) is an internet-based database that collects and distributes information about CD's. This is the information that iTunes and other software players see. It is a user-updated database, it is your responsibility to see that the correct information is provided. Generally speaking, if you enter the information into iTunes yourself (or another software program that has an "upload to the CDDB" option), everything will appear as you intend it to, and this information will be shared with other users of the database. It can include much more information than artist / album / title data. See the following links for more information. > Info on the Gracenote CDDB > Applications that can submit to the Gracenote CDDB > The freedb CDDB database FAQ and applications