"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Iain Churches
wrote:
I have recently been involved in a string quartet recording. It has been
a challenging project. Everyone was delighted with the performance and
the sound on the production master which was sent to a CD plant in the
UK for 1:1 duplication.
[snip]

Take a look: It's not pretty!

http://www.kolumbus.fi/iain.churches...Comparison.png

There are no scales on the plots, but the implication is fairly clear!

Indeed. The master peaks at the standard -10dB FS used for classical
music, and,although the dynamic is not huge, (it's a string quartet) it is
probably close to an order of magnitude greater than the CD.

I presume you won't be paying the CD plant since they failed to supply
what
you specified?

Most manufacturers require payment with order.
AFAIK this invoice was paid by CC so
reclaim should not be too difficult.

I don't want to get too involved in this aspect, but
it is sad to see ones effort destroyed at the final stage:-(
The choice of manufactrer was nothing to do with me.
I imagine that the shipment will be returned.

I guess under UK law you'd have to return all the discs and
instruct them that they must be destroyed as their release would be a
breach of copyright, and potentially harmful to the authors/artists.

Yes.

Or will they now do as specified by the paying client? If not, perhaps you
can 'name and shame' the plant so others will be warned off!

If a refund can be obtained, probably the best thing to do would be
put this down to experience, learn a lesson, and find another plant.
Thee are plenty of them.

Most plants provide a small number of test pressings (usually ten)
I wonder why this was not done in this case.

I have been told by one of my colleagues in the UK that classical labels
there usually have their mastering done in Germany.

Iain