The one preset with different physics
Mastering for vinyl, from the plant’s side.
A record has no loudness normalisation and no true-peak ceiling. It has a groove, a stylus, and a cutting engineer who sets the level at the lathe. What the pressing plants publish about the file they want is quoted below, with links, and then what the vinyl preset here does about each point.
Read 10 September 2026
What the plants publish.
Six sources, each quoted from its own page or PDF. Where a plant states nothing on a point, the cell says so.
Scrolls sideways →
| Source | Peak level | Low end | 12″ at 33⅓ | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furnace | “By peaking your levels between -3 and -6 dBs, you leave space for your mastering engineer to create a clean, dynamic, undistorted cut.” | “center all low-end frequencies below 100 Hz and refrain from hard-panning bass information.” | Optimum 12–14 min, maximum 22–24 | “Stereo 48k/24-bit files”, .aiff or .wav |
| Pirates Press | “a peak level of around 0db ONCE IT HAS BEEN NORMALISED” | “Make sure that any sub-bass sound of all tracks is in MONO.” Below 300 Hz in phase. | Standard 18–20 min; “high volume” 12–13 | WAV, AIFF, FLAC; 16–32 bit, 44.1–192 kHz |
| United Record Pressing | not published | not published | “Do not exceed 25 minutes per side.” | “16-bit and 24-bit WAV files with sampling rates of 44.1k up to 192k” |
| Third Man | not published | “imbalanced low frequencies or too much sibilance can diminish the quality of the record substantially” | “16-18 minutes per side at 33rpm” | “whatever format you mixed your record to”, up to 32-bit float 192 |
| Record Industry | not published | not published | Optimum 18:00, maximum 21:00–30:00 | WAV, BWF, FLAC, AIFF; 16–32 bit, up to 384 kHz |
| Abbey Road | “between -6dB to -3dB is a good guide” (its online mastering intake) | not published | 7″ cuts only: “6-7 mins per side” | “WAV or AIFF … ideally 24bit and a sampling frequency of 44.1kHz up to 96kHz” |
Two plants state a peak level and they disagree: Furnace asks for peaks at −3 to −6 dB, Pirates Press for a normalised peak near 0 dB. Both then say the same thing about level: the cut decides it. No plant publishes a LUFS target, because none applies.
Why a loud master cuts quieter
The record’s loudness is set at the lathe.
Furnace: “While limiting does increase the average level of a digital track, it can ironically cause your vinyl album to be cut at a quieter volume to keep it from being overrun with distortion.”
Pirates Press: “One of the most important things that some people don’t understand is that the loudness of the vinyl is not dictated by the loudness of your master. Having a louder master doesn’t necessarily mean that your record will be louder.” Third Man: “the shorter the record, the louder the volume and the more bass that can be reproduced.” Abbey Road’s Miles Showell, on a vinyl-only release: “I did not apply any digital limiting.”
So the limiting that makes a streaming master dense is the thing a cutting engineer has to cut around. It cannot be undone at the lathe, and it decides how much level the groove can carry before the stylus mistracks.
What the vinyl preset does
No limiter. Lows to mono. One gain.
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The limiter is skipped
Every other preset runs a clipper and a true-peak limiter to reach its target. The vinyl path runs neither, so the file keeps the dynamics the cutting engineer needs. A test reconstructs the recipe independently and asserts the output is that reconstruction times one constant; injecting a real limiter into the path pushed the measurement 150× past the threshold.
Limiting none
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Sub-sonic energy is removed
A high-pass below 20 Hz takes out rumble the stylus would otherwise have to trace. Furnace names 40 Hz as where a groove starts swinging into its neighbour; Pirates Press filters below 20 Hz.
High-pass 20 Hz
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The lows are summed to mono
A zero-phase crossover splits the signal at 120 Hz and only the low band is summed to mono, so the stereo image above it is untouched and the two bands still reconstruct the input exactly. Furnace asks for everything below 100 Hz centred; Pirates Press for sub-bass in mono and everything below 300 Hz in phase. 120 Hz clears both.
Crossover 120 Hz, zero-phase
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One constant gain
The file is turned up or down by a single figure so its true peak lands on −1.0 dBTP, and nothing else touches the level. If your plant asks for peaks at −3 to −6 dB, lower the 24-bit file by the difference; a constant gain change leaves everything except the level as it was.
Peak −1.0 dBTP, by gain only
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Delivered at your sample rate
A 24-bit WAV at the rate you uploaded, which every plant above accepts. Furnace prefers 48 kHz at 24 bits and says bit depth matters more than sample rate; Pirates Press and Record Industry accept up to 192 and 384 kHz.
File 24-bit WAV, source rate
Minutes per side
Longer sides cut quieter.
Every plant that publishes a table says the same thing in its own numbers: past the optimum length the groove pitch tightens and the level and the low end come down. United: “The grooves may become narrower and shallower, leading to an increase in skipping and noisier records.”
Scrolls sideways →
| Format | Furnace | Pirates Press | Third Man | Record Industry | United |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12″ 33⅓ | 12–14 / 22–24 | 18–20 | 16–18 | 18 / 21–30 | ≤ 25 |
| 12″ 45 | 9 / 12–15 | 14–15.5 | 9 | 9 / 12–18 | ≤ 13 |
| 7″ 45 | 3 / 6 | 6–6.5 | 3 | 4 / 5–7 | ≤ 6 |
Minutes per side; “optimum / maximum” where a plant states both. Pirates Press also publishes a shorter “high volume” table (12″ 33⅓: 12–13 min) for records cut loud. Sources: the plants’ own pages, linked in the table above, read 10 September 2026.
Questions
Questions about mastering for vinyl.
How loud should a vinyl master be?
There is no LUFS target for vinyl, because a record is not normalised and the level is set at the lathe. The two plants that state a peak level ask for headroom (Furnace, −3 to −6 dB) or a normalised peak (Pirates Press, near 0 dB), and both say a limited master cuts quieter. The vinyl preset here delivers the file at −1.0 dBTP with no limiting, which any cutting engineer can turn down.
Should I send the plant my streaming master?
The plants quoted above ask you not to. Limiting raises the average level of a digital file and, in Furnace’s words, “can ironically cause your vinyl album to be cut at a quieter volume”. Send an unlimited master with the lows controlled, and let the cut decide the level.
Does the vinyl preset use a limiter?
No. It high-passes below 20 Hz, sums the band below 120 Hz to mono, and applies one constant gain so the true peak lands on −1.0 dBTP. A test asserts the output is that recipe times a constant, and it was checked by mutation: a real limiter inserted into the path fails it by 150×.
Why are the lows summed to mono?
Stereo bass moves the stylus vertically and out-of-phase bass pulls the cutting head in two directions at once. Furnace asks for everything below 100 Hz centred and everything under 300 Hz in phase; Pirates Press asks for sub-bass in mono. The preset’s 120 Hz zero-phase crossover leaves the image above that point untouched.
What file should I send the pressing plant?
A 24-bit WAV or AIFF at the sample rate you worked at, one file per side with the gaps built in, which is what Furnace, United and Record Industry each ask for in their own words. The vinyl preset returns a 24-bit WAV at your source rate; sequence the sides yourself or ask the plant to.
How many minutes fit on a side?
Between 12 and 20 minutes on a 12″ at 33⅓ depending on the plant and the level you want, and around 9 minutes at 45; the table above quotes each plant’s own figures. Every one of them says the same thing about going longer: the cut gets quieter.
Hear the vinyl preset on your own mix.
Pick vinyl as the delivery target and hear the master level-matched against your mix, with both sets of numbers. The preview is free; the 24-bit file is $4.99.