Mastering for Indie Artists

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

A: Remember, the most important element in a mastering process is... listening. The real mastering studio is a room of a certain size with carefully tuned acoustics and a full range reference monitoring system. It is not possible to make the right judgments in a smaller rooms with near field monitors, in home studios, on headphones etc. My studio, although may looks plain and ordinary, has some serious acoustic treatment hidden behind the red canvas, including tuned bass traps with bass reflex, tuned suspended ceiling, large sides and back wall diffusers, and optimal room proportions. You may not know the Polish studio monitor manufacturer Sveda Audio, but those speakers are in the same league as Lipinsky / PMC / ATC stuff.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: One of the most important thing is the vocal level. Relation between main vocal and the rest of the music. Main vocal is the element that the listener follows, so, if you're about to send more than one song to the mastering engineer, make sure the vocal level vs rest of the mix is consistent. It's very difficult to make a bunch of songs work together as an album if the vocal jumps up & down on each subsequent song. If you're not sure about that, you can always send me 2 stems - main vocal & rest of the mix. However, if you have lots of master buss processing, it's better to work on a stereo mix.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Transparent & detailed :)

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

A: Brian Eno, David Bowie, Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Bjork, Nils Frahm, Jon Hopkins, Depeche Mode, Martin Gore, Damon Albarn, Massive Attack, Low, Portishead, Aphex Twin, Tame Impala, Nick Cave, etc.

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

A: Bjork would be the biggest challenge. Why ? I love music which sounds like no other and reflects artist's origin in some unexpected ways.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: My smile & good feeling while working on your music. Making other people happy when they hear their music sounds better than before is definitely the best job in the world.

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

A: Eugeniusz Rudnik's "Miniatury"(Requiem Records), a large remastering project of 120 !!! small pieces by Polish Radio Experimantal Studio's most famous composer and engineer. This album was awarded Recording of The Year 2015 by polish audio magazine highfidelity.pl.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Alameda 5 - they are amazing progressive/hypnotic/rock band from Poland. I also recently finished two projects for UK's FatCat Records label.

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

A: My room and my monitoring system :)))

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

A: I was classical music recording / editing engineer for 15 years. Those years and the outstanding musicians I was lucky to hang around with, helped me look inside myself and decide to devote my professional life to audio mastering.

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

A: Most is independent / alternative stuff, I like the sound of electronic music but acoustic recordings is what I love the most. As acoustic sound is deeper, more 3 dimensional and unpredictable :)

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: First I listen to raw mixes, make some notes, make volume adjustments if needed, sometimes I can contact the artist asking few questions about the music, the mixes etc. then I select a song which reflects the artist idea of the album, I start with that song, each song is a separate render and settings, then I listen to complete album, If I need to make any changes/revisions I recall all the settings, step by step, make adjusments, then catch a new render in realtime, then listen to all the files once again, you will not receive and files from me until I'm 100% happy with what I've done.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I have hybrid digital / analog setup. I don't have tons of equipment, my philosophy is the less, the better. I have a few, carefully selected, high quality outboard processors, which I know very well and which allow me to dial the right tone. SPL 120V analog gear followed by analog/digital limiting stage, that's my preferred setup.

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

A: Most common work I do is audio mastering for cd & digital releases (including itunes, spotify etc), often with additional vinyl-ready files for cutting.