Identity-Preserving Mastering

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

A: I am especially proud of Ghost Orgy’s Salt. I served as artist, writer, performer, producer, and mastering engineer, carrying the record from concept through release. It demanded dense arrangements, damaged textures, extreme emotional dynamics, and a coherent album arc without becoming polished into safety. It is the clearest example of the work I care about: difficult music made deliberate, physical, and release-ready without losing its teeth.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I am currently mastering new material, developing the next Ghost Orgy record, and continuing work on the AMXOS brand, including a custom DSP and evaluation environment built around translation, impact, controlled loudness, and preservation of authored

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital, by choice. It gives me precision, repeatability, instant recall, controlled level-matched comparison, and the freedom to build processing around the record instead of forcing the record through a fixed chain. I value analog behavior, but I want every color to be intentional and every result reproducible.

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

A: I will not polish the identity out of your music. I will listen first, make deliberate record-specific decisions, communicate clearly, and tell you honestly when mastering is not the right fix. The result will be release-ready, but it will still sound like your record.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I like the moment a record becomes more fully itself. The best master does not announce the mastering engineer. It lets the artist’s intention survive every technical demand of release and return with more authority, focus, and emotional force.

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

A: The question I hear most is, “Can you make it louder without ruining it?” Usually, yes, but the useful question is how far the song can go before level starts taking away the things that make it feel powerful. I push loudness only as far as the transients, movement, low-end, and emotional contrast can support.

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

A: That mastering is a final coat of polish or a loudness button. It is the last set of structural decisions made on the finished mix, and very small changes can alter weight, movement, depth, aggression, intimacy, and the apparent performance. The goal is not to make every song shinier. It is to make this song hold together everywhere.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What is the song supposed to make the listener feel? What do you already love about the mix? What is not translating yet? Are your references about tone, impact, space, or loudness rather than imitation? Where will the music be released, what files are required, and is anything in the mix non-negotiable?

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

A: Listen for whether the engineer makes different artists sound like stronger versions of themselves, or makes every artist sound like the engineer. Be clear about what you love, what worries you, and what must not be lost. The right provider should explain tradeoffs plainly and tell you when the mix needs attention before mastering.

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

A: EBMM guitar and bass, drum kit, Osmose and the MPC Live 3.

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

A: I have spent 25 years across musicianship, recording, production, mixing, sound design, and mastering. Over time, mastering became the point where all of those disciplines converged. I now work through AMX, the custom DSP workflow and mastering methodology I built to make record-specific decisions with greater precision, repeatability, and accountability.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Detailed, physical, and source-faithful. I like masters with real low-end authority, clear internal space with punch, preserved transients that crack, controlled density so the highs stay airy, and enough level to feel finished, without imposing the same tonal stamp on every artist.

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

A: I would have loved to work with American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost. Their records let aggression, vulnerability, atmosphere, ugliness, and immediacy coexist without resolving the tension between them. That is exactly the kind of material mastering has to strengthen without making safer.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Level-match every comparison. Louder almost always feels better for a moment, so compare processing, mix revisions, and masters at equal perceived level before deciding that anything actually improved.

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

A: Heavy rock, punk, hardcore, metal, dark alternative, experimental, electronic, and music that lives between categories. I am especially comfortable with dense, aggressive, textural, or emotionally difficult material that needs to feel powerful without becoming flattened, sanitized, or generic.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Knowing what not to change. My strongest skill is identifying the smallest set of decisions that unlocks the whole record. That often means hearing the relationship between low-end, transients, density, vocal focus, width, and loudness rather than treating each as an isolated problem.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring perspective, restraint, and a strong sense of musical hierarchy. I can add weight, clarity, density, movement, and competitive level, but the real work is knowing which changes support the song and which would erase something important.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I begin by listening at matched level without processing and identifying what the song is already doing well. I then evaluate tone, dynamics, low-end, width, impact, loudness, and translation as connected decisions, build controlled master candidates, and compare them before committing. The client receives the finished master, required delivery formats, and a concise explanation of what changed and why.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio is built around a dedicated high-performance Windows workstation running Studio One and REAPER, a Universal Audio Volt 876, Yamaha HS5 nearfields, Beyerdynamic DT 770 headphones, and the custom AMX analysis and mastering environment. The production side includes an Osmose, MPC Live 3, Plasma Rack, Kaoss Pad, several guitar and bass rigs, and a Mapex Armory 6pc kit. That keeps my mastering perspective connected to performance, arrangement, sound design, and the physical process of making records.

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

A: I’m drawn to artists whose work has an unmistakable identity: Elliott Smith, Refused, Give Up the Ghost, early mewithoutYou, and The Blood Brothers. What connects them for me isn’t a genre or production technique. It’s that the choices feel authored all the way down. You can hear who made the record, what mattered to them, and what they refused to smooth away.

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

A: I master singles, EPs, and albums for artists who want more impact, clarity, and translation without losing the character of the mix. Most projects involve balancing tone, dynamics, low-end, width, transient shape, and loudness, then delivering release-ready masters with clear notes on the decisions.