For many scenarios, the answer is no. A good master is a good master. However, there are some general things we like to see on a vinyl master (most of these are good practice for CD mastering as well):
- summing frequencies under 150hz to mono. This will take a lot of pressure off the stylus compared to having very wide stereo sub-bass content
- roll off some high-end (on cymbals especially), and de-ess vocals. Sibilance is one of the main complaints we hear from people listening to their mixes on vinyl for the first time. It's also a large contributor to inner-groove distortion.
- Go easy on the compression. Vinyl tends to sound best when tracks breathe a little, dynamically. Don't be too aggressive with brick-wall limiting. The same applies to stereo widening plugins.
- Keep the physical limitations of records in mind. Records have some inherent physical flaws, the big one being inner groove distortion. Since the outer portion of the record spins faster than the inner portion (physics!), the songs on the inner portion of each side have less groove-per-second, which reduces fidelity. Trying to put a big, loud rock number with splashy cymbals as the last song on Side A or B is asking for audible distortion. Conversely, putting a delicate piano ballad as the last song on Side A or B will also have the inner groove distortion be much more noticeable.
- One other thing to note is that volume is subjective, and in most cases, we will not put your project on hold for low volume levels. It would need to be extremely low, to the point where we would be concerned about the surface noise on the record being an issue. While we generally recommend masters not be super loud/ heavily limited (as those can be harsh, or even slightly distorted, which doesn't translate well to vinyl), the average level of the master does have an effect on how loud the records can be cut.
Our mastering engineers in the Sound Lab will screen your vinyl project while we prep the content for our cutting engineers to make sure it is appropriate for lacquers. At that point, or when the project is cut, there may be some minor Eq. That's just part of the cutting process. Usually it's just filtering some very low freq. info, and summing below 200hz.
If our engineer believes your project requires anything beyond that, we will put it on hold and recommend either Post Production Tune Up or additional mastering.