Whitfield offers a vinyl cutting and digital mastering service (the latter at rates up to 192kHz) from a purpose-designed facility that allows tonally neutral monitoring down to 20Hz, and the output of everything from stereo vinyl records to high-resolution digital surround masters and DSD Audio for SACD manufacture.
In addition to mastering, Whitfield also offers stereo or multitrack editing facilities via its various digital audio workstations.
Everything in the Whitfield Mastering studio, from the construction of the room itself to the wiring and equipment, is the result of painstaking consideration and evaluation, down to the last nut and bolt. The acoustics were carefully designed to our specifications with respected studio consultant Nick Whitaker, the signal path throughout has been kept as short as possible, and the audiophile active monitoring at Whitfield is provided by PMC’s forensically detailed BB5 XBD-A active loudspeakers, powered by Bryston amplification.
The studio’s other equipment is the finest money can buy. The studio offers a carefully refined selection of analogue hardware (EQs, compressors, and custom-modified Neumann vinyl cutting lathe), high-value custom metering and A-D and D-A (courtesy of DK Audio and Prism Sound, dCS and Crookwood respectively), and digital software (SADiE, Sequoia and Pro Tools DAWs). The centrepiece is a 5.1 Crookwood mastering console custom-designed by our chief mastering engineer and Crookwood’s Chief Designer Crispin Herrod-Taylor, which is one of the largest in the world in terms of its sheer number of available channels.
Our studio is unique, It has the only 5.1 Crookwood console in the UK with 11 analogue inserts, which was specially designed for Whitfield. It allows us to put any of our analogue processors into the signal path, in any order, at any time, and change the assignments whenever we like. We can also instantly switch the connections to any of the devices for Mid-Side processing if required. The assignments are all remote-controllable, which makes it easy to be creative and experiment with different kinds of processing quickly. We have a similar assignable routing matrix for my A-Ds and D-As, so we can try different converters for different styles of music at the touch of a button.
Thanks to our collaboration with Crookwood, we use a state of the art console, a refurbished Neumann Relative Disc Level and Elliptical Equaliser unit for vinyl cutting, as featured on classic Neumann mastering consoles, but ours offers low-noise Crookwood electronics.
As a matter of fact, The Mix magazine quoted Crispin Herrod-Taylor, the CEO of Crookwood, as saying that it was the largest console in use that they have ever installed.
Whitfield Mastering has remastered some all-time classic records, taking advantage of new technology and mastering techniques to improve the sound of older recordings, for example by filtering out unwanted noise or increasing the dynamic range.
Our studio also has the technology required to restore damaged audio recordings, or to recover audio from valuable old tapes or vinyl and convert them to modern digital formats. Whitfield has even assisted with the recovery of audible information from poor-quality recordings for forensic purposes.
Whitfield Mastering is an accredited partner in the ‘Mastered for iTunes’ program. It adheres to Apple’s quality guidelines and can produce iTunes-ready files that meet Apple’s criteria. If you plan to sell and play your music through iTunes, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music for full sound optimisation on all streaming platforms, Whitfield can help.
Immersive audio content wIth Dolby Atmos® mastering along with our partners delivering full rendered compliant formats to all streaming platforms. Please contact info@whitfieldmastering.com.
PMC BB5 XBD monitoring with Bryston Amplification
KRK 7000B speakers with Chord SP1200 Amplifier
Crookwood Custom Monitoring Console
DKT7 Multi-Touch Star/Jellyfish, LUFS Metering PT0T7
Neumann VMS80 Lathe with SAL-74B Custom Mod Cutting Amps & Half Speed capabilities.
Custom Modified Neumann RDL Unit
Ortofon Regulating Filter STL 732
Bell Digital Audio Delay
Technics SL-1210MK2 Direct Drive Turntable
Numark DM3000EX Dj Mixer
Crookwood Vinyl Cutting Controller, Elliptical EQ’s etc
Selection of Styli’s Goldring, Stanton 500, Ortofon Nighclub, Shure etc..
SADiE PCM8 Mastering System
SADiE Native 6 Mastering System
Apple Mac Pro & iMac Computers
Pro-Tool’s, Sequoia, Logic Software & Interfacing
Prism Sound AD-2 & Prism DA-2 Converters
Prism Sound Titan
Digital Audio Denmark A/D & D/A Converters
DCS DSD 904 A/D & DCS DSD 954 D/A Converters
TC Electronics M5000
TC Electronics M6000
Manley Variable MU Compressor/Limiter
SPL Tube Vitlizer
Maselec Model MEA-2 EQ
Crane Song IBIS Discrete Class A EQ
Klark Teknik DN60
Dolby Multichannel Encoder & Decoder
B&W Multichannel Surround & Sub
Yamaha Multichannel Surround Amplifier
80 Inch Screen & Projector
Sony CDP-500 CD Player
Sony PCM-R500 DAT Machine