Audio mastering specialist

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

A: I'll always listen to you and your music and give my best. Nothing gets rushed – it's more important to get it right. 100% attention to detail (my phone is even on Do Not Disturb while mastering).

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

A: Recent releases also for vinyl LP for Lloyd Spiegel, Angie McMahon, The Weeping Willows, and Jae Laffer all sound great: minimal processing, nothing done for the sake of "loudness", retained at high-resolution – the definitive versions! (Most issues with vinyl are on the playback end: keep your records clean, use the best cartridge you can afford, ensure it and the tonearm are adjusted properly. Combined with *active* listening it can sound amazing).

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I respect the client's/artist's right to announce news of their upcoming releases. It's just not the mastering engineer's right or role to spill the beans. Trust is earned.

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

A: That mastering involves radically changing the recording in order to make the client happy with their music, or that it's a "fixed" process.

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

A: A great (lossless) collection of music, a decent solar powered DAC/amp, and my Audeze headphones (as speakers would require on a great room. How much bamboo or timber is on this desert island?!

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

A: I "fell" into it, as many do, originally believing I'd be a studio mix engineer. As a musician (trombone and drums – not at the same time) and volunteering in public radio as a teenager, I had many temporary jobs (farm hand, a book shop, helping install TV antennas) leading to casual jobs running cables, boom mic work, live sound. It all helped give an excellent grounding in attention to detail, serving people, meeting timelines. In '95 I landed a job mastering for cassette tapes alongside a cassette/CD factory. About a year later, promoted to CD Mastering and audio restoration. (we were the first studio around offering burning to CD-R, when they cost $30 each! Our first dedicated audio drive was 4GB and cost around $1,000). 11.5 years later (2006) I took the leap to go freelance with the opportunity to work at a dedicated mastering facility at Deluxe Mastering, very fortunate to be able to specialise in this craft and always learning.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: That final 3-10%. Less is more in terms of processing, but also whatever it takes. Honestly it's as much about what's *not* done in the mastering stage – it really is all about the song, the arrangement and the recording/mix. If the artist/client isn't happy with that yet, then it's not ready for mastering! We're also a final "gatekeeper" – ensuring we're working from the correct and best possible sources from the outset.

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

A: Ensure you're really happy with your mixes so far! Listen to the *exported* mix files to check for errors, and in mono (part of mixing, really), and on both small and large systems. The better your mix (ie: the closer to your sonic aims), the better your master will be. Let your mastering engineer know of any specific aims or concerns. Oh, and having your mix files labelled properly (eg: title_version_format) always helps. If you send the wrong version for mastering, possibly on a deadline, how will your mastering engineer know? All of this WILL save you time and extra costs.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Really great analog (i.e.: high headroom, low noise, well maintained) can beat poor digital, just as great digital (high resolution, avoid aliasing distortion) can beat poor quality analog(ue). The same goes for vinyl vs digital audio playback – there doesn't need to be a "vs"! If you have vinyl records, chances are they've had expertise and quality control applied at every stage.

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

A: What format should I send you? A: Well, if you have a professional mixing engineer, guess what? It's their role to take care of that! Failing that, or if you're self-produced: 24 bit, or 32 bit floating point stereo wav files, kept at the native sample rate, no peak clipping, normalizing, maximizing, 16 bit dither, or fades (include an MP3 as a reference to match fades if needed).

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Listening and communicating with the client as much as necessary. Listen more. Set up the sound, take a quick break, and hone it from there. Create the necessary formats and quality control check those. Dot the i's, cross the t's – and don't forget the j's! Make no assumptions.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Every project is a clean slate with unique needs. The job is always to bring out its best – hearing first where it needs to go and then finding the right "code" to unlock it!

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

A: Everything from independent pop, rock, and folk music, to hip-hop, contemporary jazz, chill wave and electronic pop sub-genres. Like many artists, however, I tend to not consciously analyze what genre a project is – the music simply tells you what it needs, and what its sonic boundaries are.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Are you happy with your mix(es) so far? Do you have any comments/concerns about them? Are you unsure, or need a recommendation to a mixing engineer ideal for your project? (the better your mixes the better your masters!). What formats to do you need and when do you need them?

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Time. Give yourself time for breaks – keep it fresh. No rushing. Keep it enjoyable.

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

A: I'm inspired by anyone who writes and creates amazing and original, engaging music. Manufacturing goosebumps is a large part of what we're all in it for. Arrangements that are engaging, and mix engineers who can take it to the next level – typically mixes that move and are not static, drawing you in and capitalizing on those arrangements. I respect the work of many pioneering mastering peers including Doug Sax (RIP), Greg Calbi, Bob Ludwig, Dave Collins, Bernie Grundman.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Full range, time aligned, non-flattering monitoring is what it's all about. A dedicated room, custom processing. Although I can think of only one time in the past decade when an engineer was intent on using a specific piece of equipment. The results and serving clients is why people entrust you with their project.