World Class Mastering Service

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

A: I like so much my work on Brazilian Singer Ed Motta's last album "Criterion of the Senses". Ed is purist and rigorous about their work and pushed me hard until we get exactly the result he wanted. It was hard , but we did it!

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Beto Neves Brazilian Mix engineer! He is so great to work and provide strong mixes in all genres! Strongly recommended!

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I start my mastering process listening to the album, preferably with the songs in the final sequence . Then, I talk to the producer via skype about his expectations for mastering, references and other needs, taking notes for details for each song on a worksheet. After the talk , I separate the songs by style to be mastered in blocks. I test different set ups among my analog equipment until find the most suitable and move on the process, always comparing the songs to each other, to get a good balance between them. At the end, I do final editions, balance and final adjustments and then, I listen the final master before sending the project to the client for approval.

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

A: The mistake are mix and master simultaneously, something increasingly common nowadays, making the production process miss an important component, which is performed by an expert in mastering .

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Emotion, always! My goal is always understand and enhance the emotion contained in each song during the mastering process , detecting elements of music that can help the artist to express and enhance the emotion of its art, in a way , that their fans can capture that feeling to listen to their music .

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

A: Brazilian, Latin Music and World Music.

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

A: I promise to do my best during mastering process working on his music in order to help them to express and enhance the emotion of his art for their fans.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Focus !! During the mastering process , I keep my focus on process strongly always.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: I think that the process of equalizing or compressing are personal skills and equipment are tools, so it does not matter if your tools are analog or digital, it cares if you are skilled to use them.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Believe in what you are listening!

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What message does he want to tell his listener through his music and what I can do in my mastering work to help him to achieve this goal ?

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

A: What do you think about my mix? I usually say that when a mix comes to my studio to be mastered , it is ready and approved by artist and producer and I focus my work on the emotional aspects and technical for distribution and as a matter of ethics, I do not make judgments.

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

A: Tell me all possible information about your work. This will help me to understand your expectations and reach the best result of mastering your project.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I like to work always together with the mixing engineer and the producer of the album. Teamwork is essential to achieve the best result always.

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

A: I would like to work with Paul McCartney, mastering one of his album, for all that he represents to the world music .

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

A: B&W Monitors, Maselec MEA-1 EQ, Maselec MLA-1 Comp, Maselec MTC-1 and Manley Varimu Compressor.

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

A: I start working with audio in 1983 as second engineer and in 1986, recording and mixing engineer. In 1992, I began my mastering journey until nowadays.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Our mastering set up consists of a mix of tubed and Solid State equalizers and compressors from Maselec, Manley and Dangerous. They are all connected to the Maselec MTC-1 mastering transfer console, which in addition to controlling the monitor, allows me to quickly change and choose the type of equipment to be used during mastering process considering the song's style. The digital converters are the Lavry Golds , which in my opinion are the most transparent converter available and in the digital domain, I use the Fab Filter Pro L2, Universal Audio, Sonnox and PSP digital limiters, Isotope RX7 for sound repair, Pro Tools for Playback and soundBlade for final edit.

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

A: Mastering projects for online distribution such as Spotify, Tidal, YouTube Music and iTunes MFiT. Mastering for Vinil is growing faster.

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

A: Bernie Grundman and Doug Sax always inspired me as Mastering Engineers.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: We are working hard to increase final quality on stream services. We do different masters for each stream service considering each Loudness Normalization protocols.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The emotional aspect care during mastering process.