Gavin Lurssen: Mastering with a Master ...ering, recording and music

Gavin Lurssen: Mastering with a Master ...ering, recording and music

by Larry Crane | Photographs by Larry Crane
Gavin Lurssen: Mastering with a Master | Tape Op Magazine
Mastering engineer Gavin Lurssen has been behind the console since 1991, won three Grammys and one Latin Grammy, and
runs Lurssen Mastering — one of Southern California's busiest facilities. He's worked on records like Robert Plant and Alison
Krauss' Raising Sand and the Foo Fighters' Sonic Highways, as well as with clients like Ben Harper, Queens Of The Stone
Age, Eric Clapton, Miranda Lambert, Rickie Lee Jones, and Elvis Costello. The fascinating Lurssen Mastering Console
app/plug-in recently came out, via IK Multimedia, and was developed with Gavin and Reuben Cohen of Lurssen. How much of a lead time do people give you as a mastering engineer?
You know, in the early days when I started out this whole thing, it was in '91. There was always a production coordinator.
People would book the mastering session about six weeks ahead. Sometimes three months ahead. Nowadays, they get
finished with the record, book the mastering, and expect you to be available instantly.
I see that all the time. Especially with independent bands or artist-financed projects.
We figured out a way to do it though. You get together, gather the team and say, "This is the game we're playing, this is the
field we're on. How are we going to make this work?" Then we do it.
What kinds of things have you implemented in order to have faster turnaround?
Well, it's how fast, how affordable, and how good. The "how good" thing is covered, because of what we do. The "how
affordable" angle is how do we figure out how to make the rate, just to pay our bills? Really, we're not getting rich. At the end
of the day, when you add up rent, the employee costs, taxes, and all the things that add up to make your overhead, your goal
is to make at least that number. Then it's "how fast," which is what you asked about. Because we're all analog, it's not as
simple as opening a file, doing some tweak, running an export, and you're done — although that is the expectation of (all) the
younger generations coming into the business. They have it in their mind that this is the way to do recording, mixing, and
mastering. It takes communication between the person in the mastering room (where you put up the file, convert it to the
analog, put it through the board, make some tweaks, re-record it to digital) and your production guy. He's working on that while
you're working on the next thing (that somebody wants). It's really like a chain of events. You've got one person working in the
room — or maybe two — and another person working in the production department. Then there's someone who's
communicating with everybody. Sometimes the communication is, "I have no further updates" which tells them that we're still
in a holding pattern while we're working on this. That's very important communication. The communication is as important as
everything else. If they want something super quick, they will feel secure if they get communication about it. You could sit
there and say, "It's not ready yet" and then get into some discussion about why it's not ready; but if you constantly
communicate and update, they can see that you're working on it.
What is the production department, just so our readers understand the process? When we are in the mastering room, it's all analog. The tape, or the digital file, gets converted so that we can do our
processing in the analog domain. One hundred percent of what we do has been done that way. It does slow things down a bit,
although we've developed our system. When we record it back to digital, we have a raw file. That file needs to be scoured for
any little tics and clicks because, in today's world, most of what comes in needs cleaning up. Very rarely, if ever, does it
happen here that we add tics and pops, because we pay such close attention to our clocking and all that. But in the mix
environment, particularly in the new generations of people who are working with plug-ins and all that, all kinds of clocking
issues can happen. You're also in an environment where it's so revealing, and they've come from an environment of working
on headphones in a bedroom somewhere. We start to hear all this stuff that people haven't heard. The music has to be
scoured for that. We have some digital tools that can clean that up. Then we have to make it all faded and nice. We have to
then go through sample-rate conversion. If we can, we like to work in high-res, so we master and record a high-res file and
then everything else gets made from that. We've just recently gotten comfortable with sample-rate conversion. We never were
before, but it's now become a part of our reality. That process has to happen. Any time you do something with a file, it has to
be listened to. If you're doing a whole album and you do certain things to it, you have to calculate all the things you're going to
do. Every time you do something, it needs to be scoured. It's actually an incredibly time-consuming procedure in production to
get that file. Once the mastering is done, once the feel of the sound, the tonal structure has been balanced and vibed out (i.e.,
mastered), there's a lot of work to be done on that file. It takes a lot of time. We do what's called a null test, which is running
an out-of-phase version of the song. When you run them both together with sample-accurate sync, if there's a dropout or
some kind of mute, it'll present itself that way. There's that. When we give something to somebody, part of the reason we're in
business is because of the sense of security we create. That includes the vibe of the tonal structure, the mastering, and the
sound, but it is not limited to that. It also includes the knowing that it will be rock solid. "Oh, it came from there? It's going to be
nailed. You don't have to listen to it or scour it." Nobody's going to call asking about some little crackle they heard. Nobody's
going to call and say, "Hey, this ramps up and fades out too quickly." Over time, one of the things that comes from the
repetition we develop is the solidity and security that once it's gone through our system, you don't have to worry about it. As a
result of that, there are a lot of clients here, the old-school clients, who are on to the next project. They don't even listen to
what we do, because they just know my work, the vibe I create, and the rock solid nature of the product.
That's what you want to deliver. It's a cut above, in some cases.
There are a lot of independent mastering engineers working in mobile environments, I suppose. One thing I've noticed, as I
look at that scene, is, yeah, there's some level of this QC, but when you're in a facility, the people who work at facilities that I
know take that to another level, and it's part of the service. As a result of this other industry that's cropping up, people are
starting to think of mastering as simply making something sound a certain way, exporting it, and shipping it. That's valid. It's a
new thing. Technology has allowed people to create this. Maybe they're doing it now where they otherwise couldn't. You have
to respect it. But the way that we roll, and the way that I was trained to, is to do what I still do.
Speaking of that, how did you end up as a mastering engineer? I know you went to school at Berklee, but what was
the path that led up to mastering, as opposed to other parts of the recording arts?
I graduated from Berklee College of Music in 1991. My parents were living in Washington, DC. My dad was a journalist in
South Africa, and he decided that my brother and I shouldn't be raised in South Africa during apartheid. He was a political
journalist who was against the system down there. His newspaper posted him in Washington, DC, and we all shipped out
there. From there, he made it his goal to figure out how we were going to stay permanently in this country, which he obviously
accomplished. Through that journey, I ended up finding myself at Berklee. I graduated in '91. When you were going to Berklee, what did you study?
I studied film scoring. The Music Production and Engineering program there had five times more applicants than slots. I
remember seeing this guy all the time, Don Puluse. Wonderful man. He was chair of the MP&E department at the time. He
had to reject me because my high school grades weren't good enough, so I studied film scoring, which is essentially
composition with some technical techniques of scoring. It turns out that it was a great way to go for me, because what I would
have learned in MP&E, I learned on the job. I ended up with two educations. I was very happy with that education. The
Berklee degree has turned out to be something that's a valuable asset in today's market of the music business. In the '80s, I always thought of it as the place where all the guitar guys would go.
It was. It was a jazz school and a metal school. Now they've built it into something special. We've had a number of people
from Berklee working here.
How did you end up in L.A.?
Without any plans, I went back to DC. Within about a day, I realized, "Here I am. I've prepared myself for life." I never thought
about that while I was at Berklee. I persuaded my mom to "lend" me her car, which was a fairly new Nissan Sentra. It was the
first new car she'd ever bought. I said that I'd bring it back in a year, and if she could let me take it and go to L.A., I'd be
eternally grateful. I headed west. When I came out here, it was before cell phones and everything. I knew one guy who lived in
West L.A. I eventually found a pay phone, told my friend I was here, and started crashing on his couch. I started the process
of getting myself integrated into L.A. I quickly found a few Berklee friends.
Berklee's always a really good networking background for graduates.
It is. It's better now than it was, but it was definitely a good thing. I decided, at that point, that I just wanted a job in the music
business. It didn't matter what it was. The guy whose couch I was crashing on knew somebody who interviewed for a job, but
didn't get it. I went for that job over at the Mastering Lab. I never knew what a mastering engineer was before I took that job.
The title of the job was called Box Boy... this is such an antiquated title. It should be Box Person, but those were different
times. When you cut lacquers you have to assemble a box with a little spike so that these lacquers will fit in there. The job
meant picking up sandwiches, cleaning the tape machines, cleaning all the U-matic 1630 videotape machines. Very quickly I
got to know [owner] Doug Sax. I was trying to get involved, saying things like, "I could do this!" He'd say, "No way, you've got
to have some gray hair." I didn't take no for an answer and he eventually realized I was quite serious. He slowly and steadily
started to trust me with his legacy, which I have always respected.
Doug had been doing this for how long, at this point?
He started in '67, and that was '91. Like 25 years, which is funny, because that's how long I've been doing it now.
So what would you say to someone like that?
That's a good question! The thing is, I had nothing to lose. I had a minimum wage job. I didn't fully grasp the true nature of
their standing in the industry, in the beginning. I just didn't take no for an answer. Over time, they'd ask me what I thought, and
I'd say, "Hmm, I think it should have a little more of this or that." One of the engineers left, and they were searching for a new
one. I started stepping in. I was just the punk kid in the studio, yet they needed the work done. I started to do the work, and it
just stuck. Very quickly, a lot of high profile artists wanted to work with me and connect with me, simply because those were
the sort of people who came to the studio, and I happened to be there. I embraced that.
The Mastering Lab was one of the most renowned mastering studios, at that point.
I embraced it. I lived the part, and I made sure that I was going to bring something to the table. I was going to make the facility
look good, and make people feel good for choosing to come there. I got to know some great people. One of the guys I got to
know at that time is still one of my favorite people in this industry, Jackson Browne. Anybody who knows him feels what I'm
saying here. He makes an effort to understand every human being he encounters. He relates, and he talks to you. So
accomplished and successful. He's an American icon in my view;. I mean he's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was
introduced by Bruce Springsteen.
As he should be!
He's got a very particular way of working. A lot of times when engineers were "done" he wanted to explore something, and I
was this kid who was thrilled to explore whatever he wanted. What's remarkable about that relationship is that it stayed fully
intact. I just mastered his latest record, and we were both reminiscing about how far we've come and how long we've known
each other. I had a slew of great records last year, and that was definitely one of them.
It's a nice, long relationship too.
Well, I understand him. I know how he works. I was the guy who picked up the sandwiches when I met him, and here he is
working on the latest record with me, 22 or 23 years later. To me, that feeds my soul at the highest level.
When did you branch out on your own? What happened at the Mastering Lab?
Doug was interested in moving up to Ojai, which he started taking measures to do around 2000. There was never any type of
official agreement that we had. We just kept the Mastering Lab open. All of us in this business are creative people. Musicians,
mastering engineers, and mixing engineers are all recording, producing, songwriting, performing... it's an industry filled with
creative people, and creative people tend to want to do things the way they want to do things. The older and more
experienced that they get, the more that comes around. How skilled are you, as to how imposing you are, is one thing; but I
think, for me, I had a vision of what I wanted a facility to be. A certain type of focus, a certain type of look. I personally had a
flavor that was attractive to me, in terms of the feel of a place. That requires a budget. I wanted the freedom, without any
approvals, to pursue my creative ideas. The feel of a place, the doctrine of a place, the way you run things. I never had that
set up really over there. It was cool. I had a team of people, and I worked there with my own crew for some years, but it wasn't
exactly how I'd envision running a place. I decided that when Doug moved to Ojai, it was like I was running my own business.
You were still running the Lab in Hollywood?
I was running it, but it never was a place that I could fully realize, in terms of the doctrine, the feel of the place, just the whole
thing. All the little elements that added up. There were some elements missing. I decided that it would be better for those
around me, as well as for myself, for me to come in and put a doctrine down, a realization, a vision, and see who wanted to be
a part of it. I looked around and found this place that we used to be in. I told Doug about it and tried to have an opportunity for
him to work with me continuing something there. We talked about it, and it was all good, but I think that we both ultimately
decided that it was better if I just set up shop. I had worked toward that, and he was in Ojai. He didn't want to be in Hollywood.
It made perfect sense. We both knew it, so I opened the doors and we got to work in 2005. Did a number of your clients migrate over with you?
I was pretty surprised. They all did. I thought people were going to be freaked out and worried about the new place. The truth
of the matter is, they have confidence in the person. If I call them and tell them where they're going to find me, they just want
to know where to park. The rest of it's on me. If I fuck it up, then I won't see them again, and they know that I know that.
Was it a big leap though, working to invest the money and set up the space? Were you nervous yourself, as far as
taking that leap?
Completely. I had sleepless nights.
I remember my own experiences with my recording studio.
At the time, I was living with my now ex-girlfriend. We were living together, and owned the house together. At the time, there
was a home equity line of credit that we had. I'd been collecting equipment over the years, so I had a lot. But, as you can
imagine, when you take over a facility, you have to do it up. That costs a few bucks. Plus, in a commercial facility, you have to
put quite a bit down to get into it. This is all that I've ever done. This is what I've dedicated my life of service to. This is what my
passionate craft is. I thought, "Why don't I just put my house on the line?" I am grateful to my ex-girlfriend, because she could
have lost her house due to my crazy ideas. It pretty much resulted in sleepless nights, complete anxiety, nervousness, and a
feeling of, "What the fuck have I done?" When you're in your late-30s, hitting 40, and you do dedicate your life to a career, put
the time in, and develop the track record and pedigree, this is the play to make. Otherwise, you're going to keep not making
that play or being satisfied with your creative mind. I wanted to fulfill the entirety of my creative vision. I was willing to throw
everything I had on the line for it. The money came from a home equity line of credit, and we ran lean. We still have a lean
setup. We don't want to increase our expenses to the point where we have to increase the rates and charge clients for things
that they don't need to be paying for. We just charge them for the service. That's it.
You don't have a chef who comes in?
I'm the chef. You've got your employees, your rent costs, and expenses like that, but all the gear's paid for.
That's a point that comes up a lot with recording studios and mastering studios. If you have a lot of loans against the
equipment that's in your facility, those loans can easily be the death of it.
Sure. And the equipment depreciates so quickly! Fortunately, I collected a lot of that over time. I made sure to continue that. I
made sure that there were, at minimum, two pieces of everything in the building. There were a couple of reasons. First, it
allows us to have a second room. But, really, the first motivating factor behind that was, in the early days, if a piece of gear
broke down, I'd have to send it to the tech and close the shop for five days while someone was waiting on me. Now you've got
two seconds of downtime if something breaks. It's really wonderful. That luxury also gives us a second room. We're very lucky
with that.
When did you open the second room?
The second room's been sort of on and off. We kind of had a second room in here since the beginning. We've had the gear for
it that we'd moved around the facility, but now it's been in here permanently, for probably a few years at this point.
Is it really identical equipment?
Yeah.
I assume you have another mastering engineer working here?
Yeah. Reuben Cohen. Reuben's been with me since the Mastering Lab days. He's really killing it. He's working with people
like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. Lots of film soundtracks, lots of hip-hop.
You've had a long history with T Bone Burnett. When did that start?
That started a long time ago. It was in the mid-'90s. He was trying different facilities. It was before O Brother, Where Art Thou?
That was a big hit for him. A few years before that, he started coming down. He liked the way I offered service, the way I dealt
with him, the sound. The most important thing was the sound. It was just a connection that clicked and worked. At that time,
he was just starting to work with Michael Piersante, who he still works with. In all that time as an engineer, he's only ever taken
on one additional guy, who's a great talent like Mike, a guy named Jason Wormer. He still works with Mike, but now, because
he's so busy, he's got two guys doing separate projects at the same time. It's as simple as that. It's just a click, a mesh.
What do you think it is about your approach to the sonics of mastering that clients come back to, and that someone
like T Bone appreciates? Are there certain aesthetics or concepts that you bring to the technicalities of mastering?
Well, I believe that everybody brings something like that. I suppose, at the end of the day, it's what I bring that somehow works
for him. What it is is that analog way of working that I was taught and see the value of. It's my version of that: how the analog
and the digital integrate. You have to store it digitally today, so you have to integrate the digital and analog technologies.
There's my tool kit, there's my style, there's the way that my human sensibilities use the tools that I have. How much level I
print, what's the shape of the sound, how I communicate with these guys and inform them to what I'm doing, as to delivering
whatever I'm going to deliver, as well as when and where. I take on the responsibility of how things sound and where they're
going to go. For T Bone, the shape of the sound is the most important thing. His sound is very unique. Mike Piersante and I
spent a lot of years figuring that out. One of the recent successes is the [Robert Plant and Alison Krauss] Raising Sand
record. When you listen to a record like that, behind that record is 18 years of figuring out the most minute, molecular details
that, over time, get worked out. But I'm sure at some point he'll want to try somebody else... or maybe not. I have no idea.
It's been a long run working together.
It's been a long run. Sometimes it's wise to try new things, so I'd be very supportive of that, although I'd have my feelings hurt
at the same time. You have to have an active community. You cannot be the only one. It's been nothing but an honor to deal
with him.
He's a really fun person to talk to.
He's a very passionate guy. He's probably one of the smartest guys I've dealt with on the planet. He's the George Martin of
today, in my view. He will stop at nothing to have the audio correct.
How do you deal with revisions? Are there many revisions along the way for mastering on a project with T Bone?
Well, with T Bone, we usually hit it right in the bullseye because I've spent so long getting into his mind. He's related to me that
he likes what I do to begin with. He doesn't want to alter that. He's the kind of guy who says his piece, assumes you listen, and
he doesn't say it twice. We just know where to go. So those projects find their zone very, very quickly. Like I was saying,
Raising Sand is based on years of work together to figure it out. The most successful job I can ever do is to make it sound like
I was never there. When you listen to the structure and tonal balance, and the way that it relates to a digital-to-analog chip in a
phone, the shape of that sound and how it will translate to consumer equipment... the music has to hit you in a way that
doesn't make you think some mastering person forced it in a box to work that way. It has to generate a feeling that focuses
you on the artist. If you start thinking of anything other than that, I'm not doing my job. There is vibrancy and color in what I do.
There's vibe and a little attitude in there, but it's felt and not heard. That's what happens with T Bone and, in theory, with
everything that I do. It's not about whether something has one click too much, or if we can take a little off the bottom. That
stuff's irrelevant. It's about how it feels to you, how it hits you. Could he call me and ask to change something? Sure. Little
things like that happen, once in a while.
With revisions like that do you bring your masters back in, go to your notes, and reset?
Always. Everything in our facility gets meticulously documented. Every setting, every song, every client. If a song comes in
and we work on it, it's documented. That way, if somebody wants a revision, we can recall it and match it up. Other times we'll
do a re-do.
Just wipe it and start fresh?
We can. But it's like cutting hair. If you add a little something here, you have to add a little something there too. I think a lot of
the younger people think you can just add a little something and be done. It's not like that. You have to feather it in, make sure
it works with the overall songs, and make sure it doesn't have an effect on the levels.
It's the same with mixing. If someone tells me to turn the vocal up or down in the mix, it probably means something
else beyond that needs to be addressed. How have you found a balance between sometimes getting instructions to
make it loud, and your own aesthetic, as far as presenting something in a perfect way?
I like that question. It's always nice to talk about this. I think a lot of music gets really abused in this business, especially when
people call themselves mastering engineers, without any type of mentoring or training. The fans get music where they're only
given one thing, so they don't know what it was before. They have to accept it. They don't know at which point in the chain it
ended up sounding flat and two-dimensional. But you also have to respect the industry standards. You have to respect loud,
and know what that is and how to get there. If you want loud, we can do it. But we have to carefully plan it. We're not just
going to jam it into a corner. There are ways that we can work with our tools to figure out how to get some perceived level,
while also maintaining that three-dimensionality. It's a constant struggle. The mixes dictate what level you can get. If someone
wants more level than the mixes will allow, then you're altering the mix. We explain that, and deal with it. Some people go for
it, others don't. Some people understand that when it's explained. There's a general rule of thumb. When people come in and
say that they don't want it to be the loudest thing in the world, what they mean is that they actually do. When they come in and
say they want something loud, they probably don't. I think that what people are saying when they say they don't want it to be
the loudest thing in the world is, "I really want it to sound good. I don't want to lose it to the level war." Then, when you get it to
that place, they do want it to compete with some of the other stuff. What they want is both. Really, our service, our output, our
creative service to the universe and the industry, is to figure out how, as Tom Waits would say, to have it lend you money and
pay you back. That's one of my favorite quotes. He called me once and said, "Gavin, I want this to lend me money and pay me
back." That was his description of how he wanted his record to sound! I completely understood.
That's awesome.
We went for it. The bottom line is that we have to figure out how to fit the record into the market, while maintaining artistic
integrity. You're combining art with commerce, something that should never mix in the first place. Like it or not, there's a
marketplace. The marketplace does have an area that consumers have come to expect as to where your levels reside.
There's a low side, a high side, and a middle ground. Most people are quite satisfied with the middle ground. Most are
satisfied that the dynamic range of the mixes allows me to get the most out of the mixes, and that's the level that they're going
to get on the final product. The majority of people are into that, and feel fine with it. People mix for the time they're in. The
trends of mixing now, for the most part, allow any mastering engineer to get into the zone of what the market expectations are.
It's not that much of a problem anymore. People have backlashed against overcooked level. You can sense it. There was that
whole Metallica episode where people got a window into the before, through the Guitar Hero game, and it caused a huge
backlash because people thought it sounded so much better. There was a whole debacle about that, but it allowed people to
see. The Foo Fighters sessions [for Sonic Highways] came from different studios.
Yeah. We had the discussion, "What are we going to do about this album?" Dave Grohl is an incredibly smart guy. He's an
artist and a businessman. He knows the market, his art; he's also plugged in and aware of every aspect of what he's doing.
We intelligently covered what we were going to do with the level of this album. The integrity of the sound was the most
important thing. Last year we did a record for Queens of the Stone Age. It got great critical acclaim. It's a loud rock record, but
it's not crushed. It's not slammed. There's plenty of level. The mix dictated where it wanted to be. That's, in part, why Dave
Grohl showed up here. Never, in the history of music and the music business, not even once, ever, have I heard of an episode
where a fan took a CD back to the store because there wasn't enough level. This is completely perpetuated by the insecurity
of a producer or an artist.
Or a manager.
Somebody. The market standards are there. If you come in a little under, no fan is going to make a peep about it. Our job is to
put reassurance in the minds of an artist, or producer, who's feeling a little insecure and remind them that if it's a good song,
it'll be fine. If it's a bad song, you won't be fine! We get our best out of the good music.
Were there any challenges on the Foo Fighters record? I'm sure the engineering was top-notch, but they're coming
from different recording devices, rooms, and cities... Were there any challenges in getting their team to come
together on that project?
Yeah, [there was] because of that. I was dealing with James Brown... he was the engineer on the project, along with producer
Butch Vig. Sonic Highways is the perfect title of the record, because it's a thread of connectivity. He's showing the connectivity
of music and roots, as well as what's behind where they end up with these rock bands. Yeah, it was challenging to have drum
sounds and instrument sounds from different rooms. It was all over the place. It had to come to one focus. We got there, but
the path took a bit longer than a usual mastering session takes because of that. You get the best out of each song, but then it
doesn't all quite gel into one thing. Then you change the songs to fit into one thing, and you might not get the best out of them.
The elements behind the decisions on this one were getting the best out of each song, while also making it cohesive. That
took some time to explore. That process alone was a very time consuming one. Then, there was the question of the overall
level. It's the Foo Fighters. You gotta slam that shit! But you cannot tell Butch Vig, Dave Grohl, or anybody in that band that
you'll lose something when you slam the level. You have to get that level with enhancement, in order to get the best out of
everything. How long does a project like that take?
Those guys had a four day lockout.
Gives you a little time to dig in.
We pretty much lived here for the four days. We were working into the wee hours of the morning, and starting again at ten in
the morning. The mixing was going back and forth during the mastering. James was on standby on the East Coast. We were
sending mixes and masters back and forth, exploring different things, editing different sections.
Do you ever get sessions where you're dealing with stems? Is that common these days?
Yep. I try to inspire people not to do it. I think it's good to make a decision before entering the mastering room. If you're
showing up with stems, it means you haven't quite decided. But there are times where it's more appropriate. If you're doing a
film score, and you've got producers and all these people with nobody satisfied, and you're trying to meet the deadline,
showing up with some flexibility in the mastering room to where you can satisfy the composer on a big budget movie score is
good to have. What it does is that it blurs the line between mixing and mastering. If you do decide to blur the lines on the
process, you have to know what you're doing. You have to be a seasoned and experienced veteran in order to succeed at
dealing with those blurry lines. When those lines get blurred, and you're with a group of inexperienced people, stuff can spin
out. If you've got some pedigree in the business, and know what you're doing, then it tends to be okay. I don't want to sell
anybody short. I support new people coming into the industry. I like decisions to be made. I like for people to come in and
commit, and then I'll do my job.
Is it very often that you'll request a different mix? I suppose it happens more than it used to now in my career, because it's so easy to do it now. Generally speaking, people
come in here with what they want. Some of the time, maybe they're so close to it that the vocal feels a little tucked in, so I'll
request a little more or less of something. It happens. It's the overall balance. "How does the music feel?" If there's something
technically off, I always think about how it feels. Does it feel complete, or is there some adjustment that can be made in mixing
that will feel better than if I do it in mastering? If so, then I'll request it.
I feel like mastering engineers are always the ones that don't get credited.
You need credits. There are movements out there. There's one called Give Fans the Credit run through the Grammys. But
there's another way that it affects us negatively. The person who picked up the sandwiches can take credit for producing the
album. That happens. There are people out there who claim to be Grammy winners because they were a runner in the studio
when the record got made. I've actually seen that! It allows everybody to go out and elevate their résumé. We can put on
social media that we worked on it, but a person in your position especially should know who the players are.
We used to be able to open up the album and see all these names.
It was a joy. I used to love opening records up. I know you do some remastering of older projects. I'd love to give a shout-out in this interview to a company called Omnivore Recordings. I have so much admiration for these
guys. I do a lot of work for them. I'm doing the lion's share of their catalog. What's great about them is that Cheryl [Pawelski] is
making every effort to get the original tapes. I'm thinking of the fans. It's always the fans that get shortchanged. She trusts me
with her fans, basically. They are out there doing catalog work, and doing it right. One of the areas that's been a challenge, up
to today, is that if you look at the chain of events in audio production, you're really as strong as your weakest link. One of the
weakest links, historically, is that the labels have come up with a policy where they cannot release the analog tapes. The
mastering engineer has to get a digital copy. They throw this beautiful tape at an inexperienced tape operator, someone not
trained in gain structure and engineering, to make a digital copy to give to a seasoned veteran mastering engineer. That
engineer then works with a compromised product, and the fans get that compromised product. I have seen great improvement
in this concept. People are starting to understand the importance of this. There's a guy at EMI who's very cognizant of that —
his name is Barak Moffitt. He's in charge of their assets, and he makes sure that when this policy gets enacted, a good digital
copy gets made. Cheryl bypasses that by getting the masters wherever she can. Anything that gets purchased from Omnivore
by a fan... they're getting the real deal. The other thing is that when I do the mastering for catalog music, there's a very
different approach. It's different than working on a new record. Imagine that I'm working on a record from 1979 for a reissue.
Let's say I was a teenager in '79 and I remember the record in a certain way. Now I'm in my 40s. I have to take many things
into account. I have to take into account it playing back on a digital device. Or I might be playing it back in a mobile
environment, neither of which existed in 1979. So when I'm presenting my mastered product to somebody to help them
reminisce their favorite song, I have to make them feel like how they remember it sounded back then. But, in reality, without
them realizing it, I also have to mesh with the level of today's cultural response to stimulation. It's not like mastering today, like
the Foo Fighters. There is some vibrancy of old-school vintage sound, but there's a huge weave with something that's going
on in today's sound. If you take a remastered sound that fits into today's remastering standards and compare it to the actual
original, they're very far apart.
When you deliver masters for vinyl, what are your concerns?
When you look at the tangible aspect of vinyl, and look at a record from today versus 1975, they look the same. In your mind
— if you don't know anything about mastering or mixing — they'll be equally qualitative. But what's happening today is that
most vinyl gets cut from a digital source. That's not what it used to be. You have to go through a digital to analog conversion.
One of the benefits you get from today's vinyl is having that digital to analog conversion happening in the mastering studio,
instead of on a consumer grade device. Hopefully you're getting a higher resolution file than you get when you download an
MP3, or even a CD quality. You're getting something that's at least 96 kHz, for the most part. But there are dangers; you are
getting a digital copy. Some of the standards in the pressing plants have gone down, so we've got to be careful where we
press it. In my opinion, you've always got to be careful of who cuts it. We like to send our cutting up to Ron McMaster in the
Capitol Records tower. All the work we do that ends up on vinyl, which is at least one record a week, gets cut by him and goes
off to various manufacturing facilities. Do you find yourself suggesting people and companies you find who do good manufacturing work?
Yeah, but most people who do vinyl are the bigger, major labels. They've got it dialed, so they've got their people lined up. I'll
put my two cents in. People usually do rely on me for cutting advice, so most of the time it ends up with Ron.
He must be busy.
He's very busy, yeah. He's consistent, rock solid, there's no drama. He does beautiful work. Bernie Grundman too. He's doing
amazing work. Then there are a couple other facilities that are great, like RTI. The two key elements are the sample rate
conversion, the higher sample rate, and the digital-to-analog conversion. The downsides are that if a bad pressing comes
back, it could be muffled. The pressing plant can send things back a little funky. We go through that a lot. The rate of rejection
for test pressings is very high.
Do you have your production people reference those things?
No. I do it. We line it up with the digital file and do a true A/B. It's a time investment. It's just something we do for people.
Have you ever considered cutting vinyl in-house?
The only way you can do it right is if you have the original equipment. Anything else is a compromise. I don't like to run a
compromise. I have access to Ron, who's got the gear, the pedigree, and the experience, so there's really no reason to do it.
What do you think the benefits and drawbacks could be of Pono, as well as peoples' awareness of high-res delivery?
There is purity in engineers who are passionate about high-res, but anytime you inject anything into the creation of a product
to get it out to the masses, you have to have infrastructure and machinery. I think the most valuable thing is promoting the idea
of high-res as a brand, as a selling point, and as an awareness. Everybody in the professional business knows what's
necessary, but now the consumers are talking about it. It takes people like Neil Young to start these things and integrate them
into the culture. Then a big dog like Apple will come in and put it into the system. That's what I hope for. Have you taken a policy of delivering high-res masters, as well as the CD rate masters?
No. We deliver only what's requested of us. We've recently decided that we have to record everything at high-res, and
everything gets made from that. It used to be that we'd make an LP master, a CD master, and a cassette master. Then it got
down to just CDs for the longest time. We just made one thing. Now we have to make one thing again; but it's high res,
because to master for iTunes it's 44.1 kHz, 24-bit. We have to go in at 96 kHz, 24-bit, which is the currently accepted norm for
high-res. Occasionally we're up at 192 kHz, if it's requested, but it does take extra time and it creates extra work. All the
production processes of verifying everything gets expanded by hours. That comes at an expense to us, and people generally
don't want to cover that time. It makes sense now to record everything at high-res. There's no reason not to anymore, even if it
takes us extra time to generate things. We only deliver what's called on. If we see that somebody's requesting something and,
in their scenario they could have something better, we'll give it to them or suggest it.