How did you start mastering?
Well, back in 1992 it was very expensive to master a record with the big mastering studios in New York City. The only alternative seemed to be sending it right to the pressing plant and have someone there do the transfer, which was almost always unsuccessful, not only from my perspective, but from the artist and label's perspective as well. So I just started doing it myself, literally from 1/2" to DAT and then just sending that DAT to the plant with specific instructions about IDs. I then began working only with CD pressing plants that would assure me that the tapes weren't going to be messed with. So, initially, it was mainly a budget consideration.
How did it shift toward projects besides those you were personally involved with?
Well, it was Caroline Records. I was engineering some projects for them at the time and wound up mastering those projects as well. Once I mastered a few things for Caroline Records, the head of production at the time asked me if I wanted to do this for other projects that were on the label. Initially, I said no! [laughter] I still had aspirations about producing bigger and more successful artists, and I felt that turning towards mastering would have interrupted that part of my career.
Did it?
Sure it did. But Ialso found a lot of satisfaction helping indie labels and bands compete against the majors.
So what goes into good mastering?
It's knowing how to listen. Knowing if something sounds really good and not to touch it. Knowing how to add something, subtle or drastic, that will help, and not take away from other aspects. High quality gear and interconnects sure help. A huge factor is how a mastering engineer relates to his speakers in his room, how well he knows his room. Also, making sure that every piece of equipment or every process you add is carefully chosen, so that you know that that piece of equipment, even just plugging it in, isn't going to hurt the overall sound. It's often more that I am trying to get a greater result by accumulating subtleties. Every time you add a process, you risk degrading the signal. And, all through the process, you have to keep a subjective perspective.
So what do you think makes you personally qualified to be a mastering engineer?
Well, for me, it's been helpful that I've handled many of the other portions of the recording chain — tracking, mixing, producing, playing, writing — so that when I hear a track, I first and foremost listen to the classic parts of mastering — EQ and compression — but at the same time I'm also keeping in mind mixing and production aspects. It's usually not the best time to be changing an arrangement of a song, but sometimes bands want a song to have a different feel or sound, but technically, they couldn't achieve it, so we'll try a thing or two. Sometimes the band may take multiple versions home and call us after they've sat with it for a few days.
What's the best format someone can do a record on?
Pick a form at and get to work. Don't get hung up in the technology, and certainly don't get hung up on which format is going to be best to bring to a mastering session. Certainly, it's best to consult your mastering engineer, and plan out what formats they would prefer. I would suppose that some people who aren't prepared to do analog processing may rather have a digital master, and maybe that's a better route to go because perhaps they don't have multiple A/D conversion options, or whatever. So handing them a high quality 1/2" analog master could be anticlimactic, and you're just going to get your tape back and wonder where all your resolution went. I still feel that analog is better though. It seems more "malleable". You can do more to it without changing the original intent. Also part of the "pick a format and get to work" idea is not abusing the format.
Meaning?
Meaning that I'm always amazed at how much more potential there is in a master that comes in on digital with a few dB of headroom left, sometimes as much as 5 to 7 dB. Because they're not killing their transients. I still have some air to work with. Plus, if we choose to alter something in the digital domain, we don't have to bring it down in volume before any additional DSP.
How do you respond to those who say you're losing tons of resolution when you leave 5 to 7 dB of headroom?
Well, it's not tons. It all depends on how they're using those last bits of resolution. Coming out of a great set of A/D converters and getting the best resolution possible, that can be a wonderful thing. But too many people are utilizing O dBFS as a limiter, so they don't have any air left on top, and it really kills some mastering options. Never mind what it does to the mix. And the same thing can be true with analog.
So you're saying don't hit the tape hard?
I mean listen to it and make sure that it's what you're going for — not just something you read about. People think that hitting the tape hard is automatically going to achieve a certain result, which is not necessarily true at all. Tape speed, biasing, alignment, and even the brand of tape can all alter the sound of a mix. Some studios with digital multitracks go out and buy a used analog mix-down deck, which is great, but [they] never learn how to align it! It was shipped by truck across the country, align the damn thing! They have a tremendous amount of control that they don't use. Do they demag their heads? One producer I work with prints all his effects to tape, then slows down his multi-track and mixdown deck equally. When the mix down deck is brought back to normal speed, he swears the bottom is tighter and the transients are cleaner! Whether he's crazy or not is another issue. What's important is that he loves it and commits to it.
What are some of the common mistakes you see every day?
Over compression.
You mean on individual instruments or in the 2 mix?
Sometimes both, but mainly over compressing the mix bus. They're just not letting their mixes breathe. Compression is an amazing tool. We love it, but it can ruin the dynamics of the song! We can recreate some dynamics in mastering. Bringing the chorus up, or the intro down. Adding some space or air that was squeezed out by the 2 mix compression. But we can only go so far. Engineers are trying to make their mix reference CD-Rs as loud as commercially available CDs, so the bands won't complain about the mix. When I was first engineering, we would mix to make it sound as great as possible in the control room, knowing that we're going to be losing resolution down the line. That by the time it came back on an average turntable, we weren't going to have the same signal to noise ratio, we weren't going to have the same left and right separation. We needed to keep some dynamics.
Do you feel that records continue to get diminished as they go down the line like they did 10 or 15 years ago?
I don't think it's as common to lose as much quality through the production stages as we used to. Although it is getting harder to press really good vinyl. But you still have to be careful, and always listen. I've seen too many surprised faces on engineers when they hear the difference between their DAT masters and a safety or edited copy. Digital copies can sound good, but you can't take them for granted. Quality has to kept as high as possible throughout all processes.
So when do you suppose that things started to change?
Probably when DATs first came out, ironically. Those first DATs, the converters sounded poor at best, but we also weren't pushing the limit as to what we were trying to achieve in level. Because it still wasn't defined, we let that be defined by the mastering engineer. Rather than just mixing to a DAT to make the DAT as hot as possible, or to 1/2" or 1/4", where the level was just truly a reference for what we were doing. If we wanted hotter level to tape we knew how much saturation we would get on to tape. And we mixed to that and we would listen back and say, "Yeah that sounds right." People aren't necessarily aware of what a mix should sound like and what a master should sound like, and people are too often trying to mix and create a master in the same step.
So are you saying people just don't understand how it should sound before mastering, and that they're trying to create a mix comparable to a CD, rather than leaving something for mastering?
