Worldwide Analog Mastering

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both, to be honest. I like the accessability and flexibility of the digital world, but when we talk about analogue sound, harmonic distortion and saturation, etc., I haven´t found a great sounding digital piece yet.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: It is the mix between the technical and creative side of the job. Finding a way to realise the imagination of a band or songwriter with the technical possiblities we have these days. Also it is just a lot of fun to create something new and push a band or artist to the next level of their career :)

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: The most important point for me is always gain-staging. If you don´t have the experience, fancy gear or studio to record a song to an almost finished result, it is more important to ensure that nothing is distorted but as clean as possible. All of the rest can be added within the mixing- or mastering-process, if necessary. If the signals are clipping because of a wrong gain management, it is not possible to reach a world-class result. So, in my opinion it is more important to reach a high quality recording, before pushing something over the limits.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: The studio concept is based on a hybrid setup of a digital workstation and additional analogue gear. I´m only using the most modern software and hardware to ensure the best possible quality.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: My focus within the mixing- or mastering-process is, to push a song to the clearest possible result. (Depending on the genre and things you like or may not like.) It doesn´t have to be always that kind of sterile :) In general, everything will be much more audible and have a more specific frequency seperation over the complete frequency range. The other part is the design of the panorama and depth, which gives the song a much more natural feeling of a real live performance. I'm working always towards to this result, doesn't matter if I do a mix or master.

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

A: In my opinion it is the thinking that, if you record a song without "hearing" of what you´re doing, the engineer will repair it. (like.."fix it in the mix") I don´t work this way. The better your recording, the better will be your mix and master because we are able to put more focus on the sound than on fixing problems.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: The typical process starts by sending over a contact-sheet and the business agreements. (offer, terms and conditions, contact-sheet). After the office work, we will start with the creative side of the job. After checking your files for technical issues or anything else, we will talk about references and anything else which I may need for the job. You receive the finished mix or master via download-link as a MP3 for approval. The final WAV, FLAC or AAC files will be send after payment.

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

A: There are a lot of inspiring people out there. Just to name a few: Andrew Scheps: He´s really inspiring in the way of his thinking because he doesn´t care about what you have to do to reach your goal... "It´s only important what comes out of the speaker" Butch Vig: He definitely knows what he´s doing and he has produced a few of my personal song favorites over the last years. (like Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins,...) I also like the way he´s using this old vintage gear in the modern world of music production. Tchad Blake: Outstanding work and his personal usage of distortion as a creative tool is simply awesome.

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

A: I'm a musician since I can remember. Started as a 9 year old kid in an orchestra, I found myself as a drummer of a metal band, when I was 16. We recorded our debut-album in a very large studio at the time. The experience was awesome but the result of the production was just terrible... so I thought..."oh man, I think I can do it better". That was the point when I realised that this is exactly what I want to do. So I started doing it and now we're here...:)

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

A: There are a lot of possibilities to fix problems within the DAW. BUT: If the base-sound of your recording is bad, the mix and especially the master is not able to fix all problems. So, if the recorded tracks are high class, the mix and master will be high class too.