QAC - What is it?

Part of my history involved cutting reference acetates (dub plates) for DJ's here in New York. My client list looked like a who's who of DJ luminaries. From Frankie Knuckles to Frankie Bones, Junior Vasquez to Junior Sanchez, Soulslinger to DJ Clue (huh?). Well, I cut a lot of stuff for a lot of different people. I worked for QuickRef; formally run by Prime Cuts Studios in the late 80's to early 90's and acquired by Fusion Studios in the mid 90's. Basically, in order to cut to vinyl, the program material (music) had to fit inside the groove of a record both dynamically and spectrally (loudness and frequency). I could write paragraphs on this but, in a nutshell, because of the laws of physics, a record could only have so much dynamic range or "loudness" for any given groove width. Ultra high frequencies would overload the cutting amps and blow fuses. It wasn't uncommon to see really bright mixes coming from studios as people transitioned from analog to digital. In order to get the music onto wax, there was a certain amount of compression, equalization and sometimes limiting that needed to be done so the plate was loud enough to play out without the grooves cutting into each other, basically a bang-up mastering job. I was paid by the piece so the faster and better I worked the more I would make, so suffice it to say I became proficient enough to motor through 20-30 sides on any given Friday and maybe 1 or 2 bad cuts a month. Never really had many complaints though. This is where I got the idea for the QAC service. QAC stands for "Quick And Cheap". This level of service is specific to dj/producers that need inexpensive mastering services. This includes "bumping up" the average level of mix cd's and setting track ID's, adjusting the level and eq of a "homebrew" single or mashup so it's comparable to commercial releases to play in a club, the digital equivalent to cutting a dub plate. The service is also applicable to mastering and converting tracks slated for delivery via the internet (beatport artists, hello?). There are a lot of Mastering Engineers (ME's) out there that would say, "That's not really mastering!! This guy is a quack!" Well, it's not mastering in the same sense that most ME's are talking about. I'm not going to claim to do what they are able to do in the rooms they have. That's a whole other level of service that I'm not prepared or equipped to handle yet. But, I can get a track sounding good enough so you can play it out without doubling the channel on the a UREI or cranking the gain on any other mixer. I wouldn't master an entire album or anything slated for vinyl. This is exactly what is says, quick and cheap. The results are excellent but you can't compare my methods, experience and software to a good mastering house. If that's what you're looking for I can give you recommendations. There are extremely talented Mastering Engineers out there that excel at commercial, album and vinyl mastering.