World Class Mastering Service

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Always making sure my monitoring environment is up to speed.

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

A: I see Dave Way on here and everybody loves Dave. He has a tremendous body of work as a producer, engineer and mixer. Reuben Cohen as well, my partner at Lurssen Mastering, Inc.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: We have a custom built analog console that came from years of experience and knowledge. The bulk of the processing is done in this way in the analog domain If we use any digital processing at all it is mostly done to the mix file before it sees the console and usually just to help the mix in some way be ready for the analog console. 100% of what I do goes through the analog console.

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

A: That they receive consistent service. Consistency is key. We can’t be on for one day and off for the next. It has to be the same level of service to anyone no matter their circumstances and no matter which day or time of day we provide our service.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Being of service to the larger community. Being of influence as to audio standards and integrity. Being a member of the community of music makers. Working on music.

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

A: There are three pillars by which we exist. If we hit the mark on them all, we generally leave everybody we deal with, with no questions. How fast can we get the music back? What’s the best deal you can give us? Can we make the song as great as it can be under those circumstances? Those are the three common scenarios and questions. This is where we live, on these three pillars of concept.

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

A: That we can remix a song. There is a very large grey area between mixing and mastering. This space has increased each year since I have been doing this. It's something just to be aware of. Mastering is the coloring of the sound, the impact that gets created. Mixing is the integration of the elements and less so about impact. Put it all together and it’s one entity, but breaking it down, particularly if the mastering engineer is different than the mixing engineer, it’s nice to have knowledge of where the lines exist between the different processes.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Are you 100% comfortable with your mix? This is a necessity before we begin work on the mastering.

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

A: One--I would make sure I had the best monitors I could find, so far I have never used anything but ATC (one piece of gear). Two--One laptop with a suite of plugins. Three--An electrical generator. Four--Some kind of satellite link. Five--A machete.

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

A: I started in 1991. I graduated from Berklee college of music that same year and loaded up my mothers car with my clothes, a Martin D-28 acoustic guitar, my cassette tapes and a futon mattress. I drove to LA and almost immediately got a job at The Mastering Lab as an entry level employee. All I knew at that time is that I wanted to work in the music business in any capacity that I could. I stuck to it and really enjoyed the process of mastering but also the process of being a service oriented business. I worked under the tutelage of the legendary Doug Sax for 14 years before we started Lurssen Mastering, Inc. I’ve enjoyed many things about being in this business but one of the highlights is acting as mentor to star mastering engineer Reuben Cohen. Working with him as he has earned his stripes I consider my greatest honor. We are now working together as partners and enjoying a steady stream of really great music coming through our studio and working on other projects as well, things like software solutions for audio processing among other ideas.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Efficient, service oriented, full sonic integrity, warm and lush with smooth top end and a nice supportive swirling and moving low end to completely support the music and melodic content.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Less is more, almost always.

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

A: There isn’t a genre that can be specialized in because every audio professional should be versed in the needs of the genre they are working in. The gear knows no bounds so I also follow suit in that. We work on some hit records and then the word gets out, but rarely do we get pigeonholed in our specific role as mastering engineers. I’ve enjoyed being of service to the hardest punk bands to the loud rock and roll to the most delicate and classically oriented film scores and everything else in between. Staying current in the knowledge of the sounds that people like to consume is key to earning my seat at the table in this role.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: What we bring as mastering engineers is an objective point of view that is crucial in determining the artistic and also the commercial aspect of the sonic shape of the music. In my case there is three decades of experience exclusively doing this. It has always been the benefit of sending music to a mastering engineer that has not been part of the creation of the music, this objectivity that comes from coming in at the tail end.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: We have two custom built from scratch analog consoles that use vintage analog technology. We combine this with carefully curated digital hardware and software. We generally have mix files that get decoded through UA equipment that is externally clocked with Antelope clocks which gets run into Benchmark D/A converters which have also been modified. These mods help us with our gain structure going into the console for audio processing through tube and solid state eq’s, compressors and d’sr. Once we get the processing where we like it we then convert back to digital through Benchmark A/D conversion and encode using either UA or Metric Halo interfaces and again Antelope external clocking making the necessary high resolution files which then lead us to the master files that go out to the clients and then ultimately the fans.

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

A: I am inspired by moving parts that all come together to make a whole greater than the sum of the parts. I particularly like it when it's a team of people who gather to create this scenario. When the personalities all mesh to create a powerful team, I am inspired.

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

A: It is important to delineate that we are a service to the audio community of artists, producers, engineers and record labels. Their job is to service the fans and our job is to expedite the audio processing required to bring the music over the finish line in terms of overall sonic integrity. It’s all about the overall sonic shape and size. Therefore, conceptually, what we do for everyone no matter who, is consistent by concept.