What is a glass master?
The glass master is created by the replication plant from the DDP file set (or CD-R if necessary) created in the mastering room. Though the DDP (or CD-R) is often referred to as the “CD Master”, technically it is the “PreMaster”. You can think of the glass master as the first “mold” in a series the replication plant will create in order to arrive at a “stamper”, which is what is used for the creation of the final “pressed” disks. Just as burn speed is important in the creation of a CD-R, the best “pressed” disks result when the glass master is cut at real-time speed (1x). It is a good idea to ensure your manufacturer of choice will burn the glass master at 1x.
A glass master is pretty much what it sounds like. This is a master mold that is made from your master Cd. This mold is then used to inject the melted polycarbonate granules into it. This glass master already has all of your electronic media stored into it. How is this? Picture a record and remember how the needle on the record player would be placed into the groove of the record and it would then send that signal to be amplified so that you could hear it. The grooves that the needle was in had very small changes that would determine the frequency to be amplified. To better explain to the non tech individual, imagine that you are driving down the road in your car, (you and your car represent the record player needle), and the road you are driving on, (the road is a representation of the grooves in a record), and imaging that you have a bell hanging from the rear view. Now that we have our imaginations going lets get to the point here, you hit a speed bump and the bell rings hard becaus
The glass master refers to the replication process, not duplication. The glass master is created by NationWide as an exact copy of your disc. It is then used to create a stamper. Glass mastering includes a review and verification of copywrite ownership. Glass mastering is included with all of our replication projects. No extra charge.
A ‘glass master’ is the type of master that is made from your supplied audio pre-master and it is used to replicate your CD’s during the manufacturing process. Technically speaking, a glass master is a data image of the final CD or DVD disc generated by a Laser Beam Recorder (LBR), normally consisting of a thin photosensitive organic layer supported by a polished, optically flat glass substrate. From the glass master a stamper is made which is the electroformed part made from a mother and containing a reversed data image of the final disc which becomes part of a mold for the injection molding replication process.
