Mixing & Mastering Studio

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: At the moment I am working on various mastering projects from Island, Universal, Capitol and loads of cool indie labels.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: There is good and bad analog and digital equipment. Its more about the equipment and how you use it rather than one or the other being categorically good or bad.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: I promise to treat their music with great care. I know musicians spend a lot of time working on composing and mixing and its very easy to ruin it at the mastering stage if you are not careful.For this reason I treat each mix with lots of care and attention.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I find immense pleasure in making things sound awesome and hearing back from clients about how happy they are with the masters.

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: "How does the mix sound to you" is a common one. I answer them with any honest feedback I have.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: The biggest is probably that mastering is about fixing a bad mix. This is not that case and a bad mix can be improved but only by so much. Thats why we like to address any issues at the mixing stage.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: The music usually speaks for itself but Its good to know what they are looking for, what they are happy about in their mix, what they are not so happy about and what they would like to achieve from the mastering stage.

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: I would suggest going with someone who specialises in the field of music you are making, find someone who really knows what they are doing and has experience, ask for a test master and listen to the master against references of your favourite songs and see how it stands up next to them.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: A laptop, a power generator, speakers, a keyboard and a boat to get back to civilisation.

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: My career path started when I was very young and got my hands on an Amiga 500 and played with Octamed. Instantly I was hooked on making music. This lead me to study Audio Electronic at Brighton University and then go on to get a degree there in music production, since then I have been working as a mastering engineer for the past 6 years, producing my own music under my 'Ambassadeurs' alias and touring the world.

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: One of my favourites was mastering the album 'Nonfiction' by The Range. The album had lots of success and received Best New Music from pitchfork and I still listen to the album a lot and feel proud to have mastered it every time.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Our style depends on the music we are working. Different music requires different approaches and styles of mastering.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Our work process starts with a consultation and listening session to identify and address any issues that can be solved at the mixing stage, next the client delivers the mixes, we then move on to the mastering stage and send versions for the clients approval, if there are any adjustments the client wants we will then make a revision.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Our studio setup consists of Focal Twin 6 Be, Focal Solo, Genelec 8040A, Yamaha NS-10 monitoring. Industry standard software, SSL G-Series Compressor, API 5500 Dual EQ.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: Musical inspirations include in no particular order - Moderat, Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, ODESZA, Kolsch, John Talabot, DJ Koze, Frank Ocean, Jay Dilla, Pete Rock, Tribe Called Quest, Dr Dre... I could go on forever.

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: CODA Mastering is a mastering studio based in East London. We specialise in mastering electronic music and the most common type of work we do is mastering for digital distribution, CD and Vinyl.

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: We mainly work on electronic music as that is where our true passion lies.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Mastering.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: We like to bring out the best and enhance the sound and energy of every song that we master.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: I would personally like to work with Amon Tobin. I'd like to see his work process and what he does to make those otherworldly sounds that he has in his tracks.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Dont over think things, go with what feels good.