Who is the best mastering engineer?

There are many fantastic mastering engineers in the world! When we discuss mastering we are talking about art, sound and music, and so there is no real framework to decide who “the best” might be. However the field does have prominent practitioners who have carved out a space for themselves through long careers, groundbreaking albums, adoption or development of state of the art technology, or great educational initiatives.

So, here are five excellent mastering engineers that are prominent and well established in the industry today (presented in alphabetical order). All have their unique approach, check out the recommended recordings for a sense of their work, and follow the links for more information.

Heba Kadry — Kadry is a Brooklyn, NY-based mastering engineer working on a wide range of music that often leans towards boundary pushing indie artists, her discography almost seems like the catalogue of an adventurously and forward looking record label. Kadry notes that she only works on music that she really likes, and I’d suggest this approach is the best way to build an amazing and unique discography, and it certainly amplifies the creative spirit in these records. From cadre’s vast discography Gordi’s Our Two Skins (Jagjaguwar, Liberation, 2020) sounds great, and is Australian, so is recommend.

Bob Katz — Katz is a multi-Grammy Award winning mastering engineer working out of his Digital Domain mastering house in the USA. He is an active educator and spokes person for audio quality and high fidelity. His book Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science is a much lorded, in-depth look at the mastering process. Katz’s work spans multiple genres having worked with artists and ensembles around the world. One of my more recent favourite Katz masters is Huntsville’s For The Middle Class (Rune Grammofon, 2006).

Bob Ludwig — Ludwig is one of the biggest names in the business having mastered may chart topping records for artists like Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Tori Amos, Bee Gees, Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead and so many more. He continues to master at the highest level out of his Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine. Radiohead’s In Rainbows (Radiohead, 2007) is a favourite.

Emily Lazar — Lazar is prominent in the billboard charts working with huge names like Coldplay, HAIM, and Jacob Collier. She founded The Lodge Mastering in Greenwich Village, NY and continues to work out of there. Lazar has a Grammy for work on Beck’s Colors (Capitol Records, 2019), and I love that album, so recommend checking it out.

Piper Payne — Payne is a prolific mastering engineer in Nashville, TN working under the Infrasonic Mastering banner. Payne is also highly active in education and in shaping the recording industry for the better, holding prominent roles in the Recording Academy and Audio Engineer Society. For some wild choral music listen to Volti’s This is What Happened (innova, 2017).

Katie Tavini — Tavini is a London-based mastering engineer and founder of the Weird Jungle mastering collective. She is currently dominating the indie band scene working with Bloc Party, Be Gregory, ARXX, and We Are Scientists. The Pillow Queens record Leave The Light On (Royal Mountain Records, 2022) is a winner from Tavini’s catalogue.

digital penetration — strata

strata is the new video album from experimental vocalist Sage Pbbbt, working under the pseudonym digital penetration. Pbbbt pieces together this sonically rich, glitchy record from acoustic and electronic samples manipulated in Reaper, and accompanies the work with visual component created in the same fashion. The pace and repetition of the music allows the listener to shift between the audio strata and engage at different time scales over the album. Also outstanding is the variation between tracks which reveals some heavy drops and disorienting moments, ultimately feeding anticipation for whatever might happen next.

strata is out now on Tone List

Produced by Sage Pbbbt
Mastered by Dan @ENCODERSound

strata will premiere in at the Audible Edge Festival 2021, April 17th, at Backlot Cinema

What does a mastering engineer do?

From a production perspective, creating a contemporary music release can be roughly divided into four main phases: writing, recording, mixing, and mastering. During writing the artist and producer collect and combine ideas to make the music, in the recording phase individual instrument and vocal parts are recorded into a Digital Audio Workstation (or onto a physical format). In the mixing phase these parts are combined and balanced to the elicit the desired experience for the piece of music. And finally, in the mastering phase the many songs of a project are brought together into a cohesive whole and considered in the context of the wider musical and commercial world. The mastering engineer is the person who finalises the audio, both sonically and in terms of format, utilising analog and digital audio signal processing to optimise audio for the maximum enjoyment of the listener, however they choose to listen.

Key to the mastering process is the engineers fresh perspective, trained ears, and specialised tools that ensure a level of professional quality and listener satisfaction in the finished audio media. To this end, a great mastering engineer possesses a wealth of accumulated listening experience that allows them to have a sense of how any recorded audio could best be presented and how that will translates to the end listener. In most cases this listening experience has come from a true love of music and many years of listening to music of many genres and styles.

As a mastering engineer begins to work professionally they start to accrue thousands of dedicated listening hours in the same listening environment, which in the best cases is a professionally designed acoustic space with a very accurate monitoring system. Having heard a great deal of music and other audio in this same accurate listening environment a mastering engineer develops a mental sonic imprint of how program material of varying genres and styles, could sound.

When a finished mix is presented to the mastering engineer, the mastering engineer considers this new piece of music in the context of this mental sonic imprint and makes subtle changes to sonic characteristics of the music such that it sits comfortably for them in their listening environment, and therefore comfortably in the wider world.

In making changes to the sonic characteristic of audio material the mastering engineer requires specialised signal processing tools, which can include:

Equalizer (EQ) — A filter that adjusts certain frequency bands by adding or removing energy from the specified frequencies. Perhaps the low frequencies of some piece of music are generally overpowering the midrange, a mastering engineer might use an EQ to reduce the level of the problematic low frequencies.

Compressor — A processor that sdjusts the dynamic range of a signal relative to the input level of the signal. A compressor begins to act on a signal when it reaches a given input threshold. When this threshold is crossed gain reduction is applied to the signal. A compressor also allows the mastering engineer to adjust the speed with which this gain reduction occurs, shaping transient information and getting the music to feel consistent and “together.”

Limiter — A processor that prevents a signal from exceeding a specified level. Often in mastering this level is somewhere close to digital zero (-1.0 dBFS, for example). The limiter provides a safety that prevents levels going over the nominated ceiling and also allows the average signal level to be increased above what would otherwise be possible.

Although these signal processors are also used when recording or mixing, the equalizers, compressors, and limiters in a mastering studio are often made to higher specifications and closer tolerances to facilitate very detailed work. Additional to the common mastering processors above, mastering engineers may employ processors for harmonic saturation, stereo width adjustment, and many more. In the majority of cases some combination of the processors listed are used. Processing can occur in the digital and/or analog domain.

A mastering engineer is the final person to adjust the sonic characteristic of audio material and finalise digital audio files (or analog media) ready for production and/or digital distribution. This may include the input of metadata, the production of a DDP file (used to produce CD), or the cutting of a lacquer (which is needed to produce vinyl records).

Sounding Together — Meelup (Moonrise), Boranup (Sunrise)

First peak at the new record from the participants of Tone List’s Sounding Together 2020. Fifteen improvisers in the south-west of WA. It is a difficult recording to explain, but an incredible listening experience. From the liner notes:

In January 2020, 15 artists joined on Wadandi Noongar boodja in the south-west of Western Australia at a shack on the edge of Meelup Regional Park. Across a week of playing, chatting and devising the group produced hours of music and performances. This recording documents two pertinent plays at different transition points in the day: a moonrise at Meelup Beach (Noongar: place of the moon rising) and a dawn at Boranup forest (place of the male dingo) amongst the Karri trees. The recordings are presented here in two side-length pieces, framed by shorter episodes that foreground the play (and downright silliness) that happened a lot of the rest of the time, and which nurtured these otherwise mysterious and sonically expansive pieces.

The album includes a sound collage by Stuart Orchard, entitled ‘Normal (Interlude),’ bifurcating the longer recordings. With catchphrase “I just wanna be normal” it is a little silly, but begs repeated listening.

Meelup (Moonrise), Boranup (Sunrise) is one of four Tone List releases slated for April 6th release during the Audible Edge Festival 2021, a near two week exploration of sound centred in Boorloo/Perth.

Recorded by Josten Myburgh
Mastered by Dan O’Connor @ENCODERSound

Nika Mo — Of Cloven Hoof in Honey, First Single

Out today is Nika Mo’s new single The Messenger of Death from the upcoming Of Cloven Hoof in Honey. It is the finest freak-folk going around. Musically, lyrically, conceptually, and sonically a really amazing listen. A little here about the concept (from Nika Mo’s liner notes):

One might wonder what is still relevant about the Grimm’s Fairytales; the social inequities and religious undertones of 19th century German culture are so solidly written into these stories, they’re like a fableist brick framework, holding each line firmly in (ideological) place. But in the shadow of the more widely known stories (Rumplestiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel), there are gooier, stranger, more unearthly things lurking. I feel genuine child-like glee as characters sprout feathers and make room-mates with a lion, or without surprise or alarm, communicate with the Devil, and Death; striking bargains and asking for help. I also feel a morbid fascination as a character discovers her sisters’ dismembered bodies then proceeds to reassemble them), or a disquieting queasiness reading the tale of How Some Children Played at Slaughtering, (which you can infer from the title, was not a fairytale ending). I find myself revelling in the fluidity of them; both the literal presence of many fluids (bodily and otherwise), and also the metaphorical slipperiness of the characters’ physical forms.

The full Of Cloven Hoof in Honey record is due to launch on April 6th during Tone List’s 2021 Audible Edge Festival. For the performance Nika Mo brings together many of the musicians who played on the record into a 9-piece ensemble which will lean into the extended improvised sections, filling The Rechabite Hall.

Recorded by Annika Moses
Mixed by Dan O’Connor & Annika Moses
Mastered by Lee Buddle