GLENN SCHICK MASTERING SERVICES

Surround Sound Mastering

Surround Sound is almost universally acclaimed to be a more realistic experience than stereo. This applies to just about any type of program, from
music to live concert DVD footage. People that can't tell the difference between mono and stereo can immediately hear and appreciate the difference between surround and stereo.

GSM just installed a full analog and digital surround sound mastering system utilizing the most cutting edge equipment available today. Once your
material is mixed our experienced engineering team will take your music to the next level.

Formats

SACD uses a very different technology from CD and DVD-Audio to encode its audio data, a 1-bit delta-sigma modulation process known as Direct Stream Digital at the very high sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz. This is 64 times the sampling rate used in Compact Disc Digital Audio, which specifies 44.1 kHz at a resolution of 16-bit.

SACD authoring guidelines suggest that an SACD should always contain a 2-channel stereo mix though not all SACD have it (for example, in 2005 Sony Music Entertainment (Germany) GmbH released Charles Rosen's performance of the Goldberg Variations as a hybrid SACD with 16-bit PCM and DSD 5.1 surround but no DSD stereo). They may optionally contain a surround mix — either 5.0 or 5.1 layout. Although the disc always stores all channels, the surround mix does not have to use them all, and some may be mute; for example the 2001 SACD release of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells remains in the quadraphonic 4.0 mix made in 1975, and the RCA reissue of the 1957 Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition marks the first time the original 3.0 (three track) recording is available in a consumer format. The correct designation for the surround part of a SACD is "multi-channel", and usually has either the label "SACD Surround" or its own "Multi-Ch" logo on the back cover.

There are three types of SACDs:

• Hybrid: The most popular of the three types, hybrid discs include a "Red Book" layer compatible with most legacy Compact Disc players, dubbed the "CD layer," and a 4.7 GB SACD layer, dubbed the "HD layer." It is not uncommon for hybrid discs to carry the "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo to show that the disc is CDDA-compliant.
  
  
• Single-layer: Physically a DVD-5 DVD, a single-layer SACD includes a 4.7 GB HD layer with no CD layer.
  
  
• Dual-layer: Physically a DVD-9 DVD, a dual-layer SACD includes two HD layers totalling 8.5 GB, with no CD layer. This type is rarely used. It enables nearly twice as much data to be stored, but eliminates CD player compatibility.