Dance/Club Music Producers.. We Need to Talk About Your Bottoms!

Published on July 17, 2015

Everyone likes fat bottoms right? Queen seemed to think it had something to do with gravitational forces they deemed it so important..For a long time now club oriented electronic music made in bedrooms and destined for the dance floor has paid for me to live. I see many tracks come in and out in a …
Continue reading “Dance/Club Music Producers.. We Need to Talk About Your Bottoms!”

Multiband Compression : let’s talk about it calmly…

Published on June 18, 2015

“Argh! get off my master! you’ve split the bands… you ruined my beautiful mix, multiband heathen!”“The mix was finished but we couldn’t get that damn low C note to work, after hours of processing individual channels we stuck a compressor over that frequency range and tucked it right back in, it sounds so TIGHT now!”Hang …
Continue reading “Multiband Compression : let’s talk about it calmly…”

What does “Mastering for Vinyl” actually mean?

Published on May 12, 2015

We mastering guys will often offer and be asked to perform the task of “mastering for vinyl”, almost always alongside digital audio masters of the same release (whether that is CD, digi download or both).But what does it actually mean?Well first of all it’s not the same as “Vinyl Mastering”! This is the process of …
Continue reading “What does “Mastering for Vinyl” actually mean?”

Mastering Grime Music

Published on February 26, 2015

Grime is a unique beast.It appears to be almost completely misunderstood by anyone outside of this island we call Great Britain, both sonically and artistically. On one hand it’s an incredibly complex sound of crashing noises which don’t fit in any other context, and on the other it’s angry teenagers on a Playstation banging out tunes …
Continue reading “Mastering Grime Music”

In Defence of “In The Box Mastering”

Published on August 9, 2014

It’s a strange time to be an audio engineer in 2014. Look at the racks of most pro guys in any field and it’s a mostly a mix of incredibly well designed digital plug-ins and the odd analogue processor for that more complex / non-linear audio effects. Of course, many engineers nailed their set up …
Continue reading “In Defence of “In The Box Mastering””

Vintage Digital Series #1 : Weiss BW102 – interview with Daniel Weiss

Published on June 23, 2014

I have had an itch I’ve wanted to scratch for a long time. As a mastering engineer who entered the game just as native plug-in processing actually became good, I never got a chance to wrestle with the digital gear of the past, it’s all plug-ins and great converters feeding analogue units for me. So …
Continue reading “Vintage Digital Series #1 : Weiss BW102 – interview with Daniel Weiss”

Free VST Review #1 : Two Mastering/Bus Friendly EQs from Variety of Sound and Lkjb

Published on May 30, 2014

In this post I will taking a look and a listen at two free VST equalizers which I deem suitable for mastering/mix bus duties. This will be part of a series of reviews for small plug-in designers making neat free VST plugins. There is a lot out there in the free VST world and I …
Continue reading “Free VST Review #1 : Two Mastering/Bus Friendly EQs from Variety of Sound and Lkjb”

Blown The F@#K Out! : Mastering Intentionally Distorted Music

Published on March 26, 2014

People often talk about mastering, and mastering engineers, enhancing, improving, adding warmth or depth. But what about when audio art is created with the intention to make the listener hear rawness, distortion, hazyness, fuzzyness? These are all words we use to describe when an audio process or unit is either working incorrectly or is of …
Continue reading “Blown The F@#K Out! : Mastering Intentionally Distorted Music”

Independent and DIY musicians/labels.. why bother mastering your releases?

Published on July 17, 2013

So, first post, and it’s probably only going to make sense if I tell you a little about who I am and what I do. I live a double life, but these lives overlap as much as I can make this possible. My job, or career if you like, is working as an audio mastering …
Continue reading “Independent and DIY musicians/labels.. why bother mastering your releases?”