Adam Ayan: The Art of Mastering, The Truth About the Loudness War, and Essential Ear Training

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Bala GE Guitars. Founded in 2014, Bala GE Guitars strives to bring modern aesthetics and options to vintage inspired designs. Go to bala guitars.com for more info. This episode of the podcast is also brought to you by Fishman inspired performance technology. Fishman is dedicated to helping musicians of all styles achieve the truest sound possible wherever and whenever they plug in. Go to fishman com for more info. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis and Eyal

Speaker 2 (00:00:34):

Levi. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast. Thanks for tuning in and listening. Today we're talking about mastering as we have been this month and mastering month is something we really love to talk about because it seems to be a mystery to a lot of people and we like to demystify things on this show. And also kind of just get a little nerdy about mastering because there's a lot to it. We have a special guest with us today, and I'm going to let Eyal introduce him.

Speaker 3 (00:01:05):

Hey, so on with us, we've got Adam Ayan, who is a Grammy Award winning mastering engineer's, done over a hundred gold and platinum records and worked with everyone from Paul McCartney to Katie Perry to Kelly Clarkson, and basically you name it. That's it. Yeah, right. I mean, I could keep on reading, I could keep on reading the list, but we want to actually talk about stuff. I could probably read the list for the next hour. So anyway, if you've heard of them and they've sold some records, Adam's probably mastered for them. So needless to say, we are stoked to have you here. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 4 (00:01:52):

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you guys for having me.

Speaker 3 (00:01:54):

So I mean, we'll start by just asking you some really, really basic stuff, but how did you even come to mastering in the first place? Did you start as a mix engineer, recording engineer, then go to mastering, or was this always the idea?

Speaker 4 (00:02:09):

It was almost always the idea. I certainly did record and mix professionally for a couple of years, but I knew right at the beginning that I wanted to get into mastering, and it really started for me when I was at the University of Massachusetts. My senior year I was the president of our a ES student chapter, and my job as the president was to ask industry professionals to come in and talk about what they do for monthly a ES meetings. And I had asked Bob Ludwig actually to come in and do a talk for us. He was gracious enough to come down to Lowell and do it and asking him to do that. I wanted to research as much as I could about what mastering was, and I had done that for everybody else that I had invited to speak. And as I got into it, I thought, as you had mentioned before, mastering is a little, little bit unknown, a little mystical in terms of what we do. I started to learn a bit about it and I thought, you know what? That might be for me. So I pursued it pretty early on.

Speaker 3 (00:03:08):

So speaking to the fact that it is a little mystical to people, how would you define it to someone who needs it but doesn't really understand what it is,

Speaker 4 (00:03:18):

Say

Speaker 3 (00:03:18):

A band who just got their record mixed and doesn't know what mastering is?

Speaker 4 (00:03:22):

Sure. I usually tell people it's a two-step process, and the first part of mastering is the last creative step of making their record. So here's your last chance to affect your recording sonically in a positive way. You've recorded, you've mixed, and a good mastering engineer will take that mix and bring it to its fullest. So potential make it sound as great as it possibly can. Translate your music in the recording is the best way it possibly can be. And after the creative step, we're also the first step in manufacturing and digital distribution. We then prep all the different kinds of masters that would be used for all of the formats that consumers are going to consume your music in. It's this two-step process, and of course both steps are very important, but what I do on a daily basis is the creative step. How can I take the mix that you have and make it sound better? And as a mastering engineer, I offer experience and fresh perspective that are two real important aspects of what I do.

Speaker 3 (00:04:24):

So you mentioned that you got Bob Ludwig to come in who's already a mastering legend at that point in time. I read that you assisted under him.

Speaker 4 (00:04:37):

I did.

Speaker 3 (00:04:38):

Was that instrumental in helping develop your career?

Speaker 4 (00:04:41):

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It was very instrumental. I had come here to Gateway in 1998 as a production engineer, and that's the role of that second part of the process creating final masters. So I was doing that for him for about a year, year and a half, and he wanted an assistant in the room with him and I wanted to be that guy. So I got that opportunity and it was very instrumental in starting my career off to afford me the opportunity to work with a lot of great artists with Bob and to learn the craft from him and from somebody that at that point had been doing it for 30 plus years at a really high level. And I have a lot of young people and students come to me and ask me what their best move is in terms of a career move. And I always tell them to find a good mentor, whatever that means for them and whatever respective part of the industry, they're going to find a good mentor because that will just be instrumental in launching their career in so many different ways.

Speaker 3 (00:05:38):

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, and it's also interesting that you said that you started off by helping on the technical side of things as well as that now you primarily do the creative side of things, which implies that you would've assistance doing the technical thing. And one thing that we always tell our listeners is that if you want to be employed, if you want the fast track into an audio career, get really, really good with technical things. Like for instance, if you want to be a recording engineer, get really great at editing so that a producer can trust you and let you do the technical things that they don't want to do or that they don't have time to do. So I figure it's kind of the same thing.

Speaker 4 (00:06:17):

Yeah, that's a really great point. I totally agree with that. And it is the same thing. In fact, I recall days assisting Bob, where this is the late nineties, early two thousands, the start of surround sound mastering and surround sound mastering at high resolution. This is when we were first starting to do 88, 2 24, 96, 24, so on and so forth. And I remember several days of handling the technical aspects of those sessions, spending hours setting those sessions up because they were very new to us, and then spending hours breaking them down at the end of the day and learning new workstations and all those technical things that freed Bob's Headspace to be creative and made me useful to him. So I think that's a really important point.

Speaker 3 (00:07:02):

And just out of curiosity, when you started working for him or assisting him, were you working for pay or was it like an internship situation?

Speaker 4 (00:07:10):

Oh no, it was all for pay. I was a staff engineer, still am a staff engineer here at Gateway. I will say that I've been very fortunate in my entire career going back to being about 20 years old, my first gig recording. I've never had to work for free. I've always been paid.

Speaker 3 (00:07:26):

That's amazing actually. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:07:28):

Isn't it?

Speaker 3 (00:07:28):

I've never interned either except for one day once in the early two thousands and I said, this is not for me, but I have recorded people for free at some point, but that's actually really amazing. I don't think we've had a single other guest who's been able to say that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:07:45):

Well, I should and I should add that I did Intern for Free as part of my program, the recording program at the University of Massachusetts. I had to do a four month internship and I did that at eworks Mastering in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But that was for college credit. That was different than just walking in the door and saying, Hey, I want to learn. Can I work for you for free? That was a very different animal in that way. And then subsequently Eworks hired me for a period of time before I came up here to Gateway.

Speaker 3 (00:08:16):

So do you think that getting hired right out the gate by Eworks helped you not have to go through the intern level basically? I

Speaker 4 (00:08:23):

Mean maybe. So I definitely had a lot of experience. There were other, when I was hired at Gateway, there were certainly other folks that were interviewed and I ended up getting the job and I'd like to think that that experience certainly helped me to have a leg up. But I also should say that here at Gateway, we don't have an internship program at all. We do not bring on interns or let people job shadow or have people work here for free for a number of different reasons. So an internship here wouldn't have happened anyways, but I think that that internship at Eworks was certainly helpful. It got me in the door at a mastering lab at the very beginning of my career, and I acquired a lot of knowledge and experience that I think was helpful in getting my job here at Gateway.

Speaker 3 (00:09:07):

So that brings up an interesting point, and we have talked to a few guys who don't take interns for whatever reasons. Some of them feel like it's too much work to have to teach somebody who might bail after a couple of weeks, or maybe someone just wants to be close to the artists if they're doing full productions and a well-known artist is there. There's all kinds of issues that could come up for why people don't take interns. But then that brings up, well, if someone does want to get a job working for you or a place like you, and mind you, this is not a audience, don't actually try to get a job with them unless you're qualified. But no, in a theoretical sense, I guess if someone wanted to work for you or someone like you that doesn't take interns, what would you say is the best way to get in the door for a new guy up and come?

Speaker 4 (00:10:02):

That's a great question. I'm not sure exactly what the answer is to that, but because we don't take interns, I still do mentor some young people and students and young engineers, and I do that in the sense that I'm happy to meet with them for a cup of coffee and chat with them and help them find their way through the beginning of their career. I think that's probably the best way. And then I really think there's something to finding gigs where you can get paid. I know that's easier said than done, but as I said, my very first gig was at a multi-track studio when I was 20 years old and they didn't want to take me on as an intern. They wanted to pay me because they thought I had the skills and because that was how they ran their business, which I thought was fantastic.

(00:10:47):

I think finding any experience you can and if there's an engineer that you really like that doesn't take on interns, try to at least develop a relationship with them. Most of us are, we're cool. We like to share some knowledge, we like to help out young and new engineers get started. And that's the way I've done it personally in terms of mentoring people. We don't do internships here, but I've had a number of people over the years come to me and want to just hang out and talk and ask for some advice, and I'm always willing to give some time for that.

Speaker 3 (00:11:17):

It's kind of almost the same thing just without the job requirement, I guess,

Speaker 4 (00:11:24):

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:11:25):

One of the reasons that we do this podcast and we have a few other educational programs that we do online when we do bootcamps as well. One of the reasons that we do this because we feel that with the way that the industry's changing, the mentorship, the culture of mentorship that used to be enormous in the recording industry is going away. It is going the way of the big studio. I mean, of course there's still some big studios out there. A certain number of those big studios will always be there because there's always going to be that top level. That's how it is. But there's less than ever, as we all know, and with that, there's less people to get mentoring from. There's just less places to go. And so we're trying to provide an alternative to that because we feel that that's one of the best ways, if not the best way to get better at this and to really understand what it takes to be on a pro or world-class level.

Speaker 4 (00:12:24):

And I apologize guys for doing that, and that's how I look at what I try to do in terms of mentorship as well, is that the structure has definitely gone away. Like you said, it's gone the way of the big studio. There are still a few, but the system isn't there for the mentorship assistantship roles anymore. So you've got to find other ways to knowledge share and help mentor people in this industry. And your podcast is one of them. I mean, the reason I'm here is because I believe in that as well. I also teach at our local university, the University of Southern Maine's School of Music. I teach a class a semester there, which I think helps in that regard. And there are a number of other ways to do it, but it's just different than what it was, at least when I came to start in this industry in the late nineties or middle nineties, I guess

Speaker 3 (00:13:15):

Mean even 10 years ago. It was completely different, I think.

Speaker 4 (00:13:18):

Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 3 (00:13:19):

I found, I think I started recording about 15 years ago, but I didn't really enter the pro world for until about 10 years ago. And it was only through having amazing mentors that I was able to accomplish anything in my life recording wise. And I don't know if those same opportunities would be around for me if I was starting now, I don't see it.

Speaker 4 (00:13:45):

Yeah, I think that's a great point, and I agree with that statement. I don't know that they are there. They're certainly not as plentiful as they used to be. They're fewer and further between and above and beyond how that's hurt, that mentorship assistantship those two roles. I think that if you take one step further down that road, you also see that it's changed the art in a lot of ways that in some ways is positive, in some ways is negative. In other words, I think the mentorship aspect is really important, but I also think peer collaboration and peer learning is very important, and that's gone the way of the big studio as well. It's harder to find situations where any engineer young and new or a bit older and experienced can be in, where they can be around their peers and learn from them and be pushed by them competitively in some ways, in good ways and collaborate in ways that used to happen when the big studios all existed.

Speaker 3 (00:14:47):

So I feel like really the only way to prevent it from, I guess the overall bar from slipping in my opinion, is for the generation that's already in the industry to help the up and comers. That's really the only way for it to happen is to be proactive about it because there just isn't an infrastructure for it there used to be.

Speaker 4 (00:15:15):

Right. Absolutely agreed.

Speaker 3 (00:15:17):

Joey, what did you want to say that I interrupted you so rudely,

Speaker 2 (00:15:22):

I'm just a little anxious to get into some actual process

Speaker 3 (00:15:26):

Mastering questions.

Speaker 2 (00:15:27):

Yeah, let's do it. Let's just say I feel like there's kind of two ways to approach a master, and maybe it's a bit of both, but I'm curious what your answer would be. So for you, when you go in to approach a master like cold, is it going to be a process or is it more of like a vibe?

Speaker 4 (00:15:45):

Oh gosh. Can you define process for me or explain that just a little more

Speaker 2 (00:15:49):

For me, I would define process as like, here's the 10 steps that I do for every single time I master a song. And vibe would be like, I've probably never mastered a song the same way twice, right?

Speaker 4 (00:16:02):

So I guess it would be a little bit of both. Maybe leaning more towards vibe because there's definitely, it's not cookie cutter by any means. In fact, if you look at the aspect of mastering a full album, it's more likely than not that each song is going to need something different vibe wise. So that mixes the concept of process in terms of why I always do this for this song, that song and this song and that song and the entire thing. That said, I mean, there certainly is some process. There's signal path that I like to use. There are certain tools that I like to use in a certain way and workflow that has always worked well for me and will continue to do so. But in terms of the creative part of it, it can be different. Again, within the same album from song to song, it's going to be more about vibe. What does each song need and what does each individual song need to live with the entire thing in terms of the album, so I guess I'm talking myself into more vibe, less process, but they go hand in hand.

Speaker 2 (00:17:05):

So how often do you think, well, I, how often do you approach a song cold or do you have a little bit of a rapport with the artists before you even get started? I mean, is that something that's kind of on the norm to call 'em up and get a sense of what they're looking for? Or do you just open a folder and go to town?

Speaker 4 (00:17:26):

It is more often open a folder and go to town more often than not. In fact, almost all of my sessions, not all of them, but almost all of them are cold in the sense that I haven't heard a note of the music that I'm going to be mastering that day until that day when I start the process.

Speaker 3 (00:17:42):

That kind of goes with the idea, the mastering engineer being the last objective point of change for an album.

Speaker 4 (00:17:51):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:17:51):

Going in completely cold.

Speaker 4 (00:17:53):

Yep, absolutely. And that's an important thing, the going in cold aspect. Now, the exception to that, and it's happening more and more often, and I think this is a really positive thing in terms of cultivating relationships with clients and getting best end results, is there are certainly situations where a client might say, I'm in the mixing process. Can I send you something to listen to? Could you put an ear on it and give me some constructive criticism and some feedback on how to make that mix better? I was working on a project this morning that that artist has sent me a couple of different mixes and we've gone back and forth to refine the mixing process a little bit, which I think in the end will yield a better result all around. That's one session that will be the exception to the rule. When I get into that actual mastering session, I've already heard that song a few times, but for the most part, I haven't heard anything before.

(00:18:43):

The session begins and I dive right into the process and the vibe and doing what I do when I start a session, and it does speak to that last final creative step in the whole process. And it also speaks to perspective that I think I offer and every mastering engineer offers within the process. And what I mean by that is that if I've never heard the recording before, I have no preconceived notions of what went into making it, which I think makes my job better. I think that that makes my ability to do my job better in a lot of ways. So in other words, you've recorded an album, you've mixed it and say you've had some problem spots, say the kick drum has been causing you grief throughout the entire process, and you've been working really hard as the recording engineer and as the mix engineer to make that work.

(00:19:35):

It gets to me, I don't know any of that has gone down. I have no idea what you've done to get the recording and the mix where it is, and I pull it up and maybe at first blush I think, wow, this sounds great. And I don't think anything negative of the kick drum or vice versa. I put it up and I say, oh, the kick drum needs a little bit of work, or there's a little bit too much low end. I need to finesse that. Either way, I don't have that preconceived notion that you've been focusing on that the entire way through the process. So I can see the forest for the trees and start with new perspective. And I think that that's really, really important in mastering.

Speaker 3 (00:20:11):

You get to, if that kick drum actually does present a problem or not, or going crazy,

Speaker 4 (00:20:20):

You might've been dealing with that throughout the recording and mixing process, and you might've thought, well, I hope I fixed that enough. Because you're so deep into trying to fix that problem that maybe you've lost a little perspective and maybe you've completely fixed it, but you're still a little obsessed with it. So if you went the next step and tried to master it yourself, you might still have that in your mind. And it might in some ways sully your process a little bit, but for me, I don't know what you've done to make that kick drum sound as awesome as it does. And I just know everything's good and I can focus on the thing as a whole without those preconceived notions clouding my process.

Speaker 2 (00:20:54):

That's great. So I actually do some mastering myself, and I do a lot of mixing, so I deal with all kinds of different feedback from synth sounds to how loud it is to how much bass there is to how the vocal edits sound. So I'm constantly dealing with all kinds of feedback. And for a mastering engineer, I think you probably deal with maybe even feedback from not just the band, but maybe the managers also the a and r, also the label, et cetera, et cetera. What do you think is the most important feedback from a client?

Speaker 4 (00:21:31):

Do you mean in terms of which client is most important for feedback or their most important type of feedback?

Speaker 2 (00:21:37):

I would say the type

Speaker 4 (00:21:38):

Of feedback.

Speaker 2 (00:21:39):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (00:21:40):

When they approve it. No, that's a really good question. Lemme think of the best way to answer that. I'm going to kind of think out loud a little bit here, but that's okay. I think that when I get feedback that is steeped in musical terms and maybe more vibey type of terms, or that's the best kind of feedback for me as a mastering engineer. So in other words, the way my process always works is that I master, say it's a song or an album or an EP or whatever, I master it. I send it to the client for approval or for feedback for revisions, which is what we're talking about right now. And if they call me and they say, oh, I really like it, but here are the things that I'd like to change. If they talk to me in very, very technical terms, oftentimes that makes it a little bit harder to do my job, which you would think it'd be the opposite.

(00:22:34):

Gosh, in fact, where I went to college, there was so much focus on the critical listening aspect and being able to speak in very definitive technical terms. That doesn't work for me very well in the mastering world. And that may speak to the difference between all the disciplines, the disciplines being recording, mixing and mastering. Where Joey, you could call me and say, Hey, I love what you did, but could you lighten up on the attack on the compressor, and could you add a little bit at eight kilohertz? And those are very specific pieces of feedback that are useful, absolutely useful to me. But what I would then say to you is, okay, that's great. I think I get what you're looking for, but explain that to me in musical terms. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:23:13):

You might want to have a different solution.

Speaker 4 (00:23:16):

Absolutely. Exactly. So in asking you that question, you might say to me, oh, well, I just feel like I'm losing the snare drum a little bit and I want a little more bite in the guitars. And I'd say, okay, great. And I can try doing it exactly the way you mentioned it to me in technical terms, but now that I know what you're looking for, I may attack it in a completely different way than you described it and get the best end result.

Speaker 2 (00:23:38):

Yeah, I often prefer those kind of notes as well. I guess I'd say the less specific. Sometimes I'll want something really, really specific. If we're talking about maybe the placement of something in a production, I'll be like, just tell me exactly what you want. But when it comes to I guess, sonics, I would rather hear, oh, it just feels a little dull, and then I could go take a look and see what's going on there. So definitely agree with you there. That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (00:24:09):

So how did you develop the ability to basically become a musical translator? And the reason I asked that with that term is because we have a show, our first show ever was called Musical Translator, and it's exactly about this, but not for mastering engineers. Actually for producers, we were saying that a producer's real job is to be able to interpret what needs to happen and what people actually mean when they ask for something. If they say they want it to sound in space, well, they don't really mean that they want it to be silent. You have to understand what they mean. So how would you recommend going about developing those types of interpretive skills? I think it's crucial.

Speaker 4 (00:24:47):

Yeah, and I agree. I think the most important thing, and this is outside of the technical and creative thing, is learning how to be a good communicator is so important. And also learning how to get good communication from your clients. And that's not that they're not good communicators, but good communication that will translate well in your brain to what you need to do creatively. I've always said that the most important thing I do is I'm a good listener, both as a mastering engineer, I have good musical and sonic ears and my critical listening skills are really high. But I think I'm also a good listener in terms of being able to listen to what's being communicated to me. And I don't know if that necessarily came to me naturally as a younger person. I think I had to develop that a little bit. I think that that's really, really important on the creative or technical side.

(00:25:40):

The other thing I could say is that being a musician is probably one of the most important skill sets that I have, at least in terms of my history as a human being. In terms of what I do. I don't know that I could do my job without the musical background that I have. I find that to be really important as well, because that already puts you somewhere in the ballpark of what that communication, what that, I guess, vernacular is that if I didn't have a background as a musician, I might be outside of that vernacular and find it harder to navigate.

Speaker 3 (00:26:16):

Do you remember the era when producers and engineers weren't necessarily musicians? I feel like that's rare these days.

Speaker 4 (00:26:26):

I agree. I think it is rare these days as well, and there are still obviously a number of engineers and producers that were not musicians that make amazing recordings. I mean, you can think of some of the best in the world that make amazing recordings, but from my experience and perspective, I couldn't imagine, and I haven't been a practicing musician in many years really since I started doing this professionally. So my chops are gone, but the overall vernacular, the

Speaker 3 (00:26:55):

Foundation,

Speaker 4 (00:26:56):

The foundation is there in such a way that I feel it's so important to me. I couldn't imagine not having it.

Speaker 3 (00:27:01):

Yeah, I always was amazed by those guys who could make amazing musical decisions, never having really touched an instrument in their lives. I know at least for Joey and myself, a lot of production involves actually playing things and having had, when you're talking to a drummer about how to play a part, the fact that Joey used to be a drummer and I took drum lessons for a long time, it informs our ability to give them suggestions that are actually realistic and make sense. It would be something that a drummer would play, for instance, it always blew my mind that some guys could do those sorts of things without actually having touched the instrument.

Speaker 4 (00:27:42):

Yeah, I agree. It blows my mind a bit too, but gosh, there've been some engineers and producers that have made amazing recordings and have had amazing careers. Not being musicians, not having been musicians, but for what I do every day, I can't imagine not. That said, I wonder if, and I'm kind of thinking out loud, is so many things have changed in the recording industry in the past 50 years, and especially in the past 10 or 15 years where roles are slightly different than they used to be, aren't they? In a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 (00:28:13):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (00:28:15):

There are more musician, producer, engineers all in one. There are more songwriters that produce and play parts it seems like. And I think that maybe there's more gray area in terms of overall roles of all the people involved in making a recording now, it's just different.

Speaker 3 (00:28:34):

Are you finding that also, I mean, that's absolutely true in our world of metal, so you're finding that as well in the pop world and the top 10 world?

Speaker 4 (00:28:44):

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think so. I've found it's more often than not, especially in the past five years or so, to have the songwriter be the record producer. Maybe not the engineer, but sometimes the engineer as well. I feel like the roles are definitely more fluid than they've ever been.

Speaker 3 (00:29:03):

So I guess with this change of, what's the number one gripe that you have about mixes that you have submitted these days? Like your current number one gripe, just something that you wish that would be different across the board?

Speaker 4 (00:29:17):

It's probably what you would think it would be. And that is the gripe of a level of things coming in. And it's not every day, it's not all the time, but if I were to think of the times where I've gotten a mix where I've struggled a little bit and how often it's the same thing. It would be about level and how compressed a mix is when it comes in. That's still probably one of the number one gripes I would have.

Speaker 3 (00:29:40):

And people just go to town with their slate, F, GX,

Speaker 4 (00:29:47):

Right, exactly. Or whatever they're using to get level. I feel like we've been talking about this loudness war thing for 15 years, and I feel like it's beating a dead horse at this point, but I also feel as though every time we think we're getting as an industry, we think we're getting away from it. My perspective is we're getting deeper and deeper into it. In other words, things are coming in more and more squashed than ever, and the expectation is to squash more and more than ever. I don't feel like we've gotten, I it's swung back in the positive direction much at all.

Speaker 3 (00:30:22):

My theory on why that is, at least from what I've seen, is that now that all the clients have pro tools or Cubase or Reaper or whatever, they all record their own demos and they all find tutorials about how to get things loud. That's what they're used to. They might have the worst demo recordings ever, but they're loud as hell. And so when we give them mixes, I know Joey Masters' own stuff, I don't, but still, when I give people mixes to give me feedback on, I have to put a fake master on there, I have to have it loud, or they won't be able to tell the difference. And I feel like the ear of the client is changing or has changed to the point where they can't hear what an unmastered mix is going to be like when it's mastered. So the drums are a little loud and the guitars are a little soft, and that's all going to change once it gets mastered. They don't know that and they can't hear it. And expecting them to be able to hear it means losing mixes. So I just think that everything is just going in that direction of that's how they like to hear things. So to take their master bus settings off before sending it to mastering, I probably have some sort of a fear that they're going to ruin it. That's my theory.

Speaker 4 (00:31:43):

Yeah, no, I think that a spot on theory, I think you're right on with that. And there are a number of, I'm thinking of a number of different things I could add to that. One. I'll add sort of an overall thing first is that I think not only has people's ears changed in a way that they can't approve or define what they like about a mix without hearing it at least quasi mastered first. I completely agree with that, but I'll take it one step further, and that I think people's ears have changed in a way that they've heard so much hyper compression for so long. Now, the things that I would've considered negative returns, like this is why you wouldn't push it so far, because you hear distortion, lack of base response, lack of dynamic range. I feel as though the whole window of what's accepted in that world has shifted. In other words, the things that when I started out 20 years ago that I would consider absolutely diminishing returns. And the reason why you wouldn't keep pushing something with level has become not only the norm, but has become accepted and become expected. Now, in recorded music,

Speaker 2 (00:32:52):

Almost even desired, maybe

Speaker 4 (00:32:54):

Almost even desired and sometimes desired consciously and sometimes is desired subconsciously. In other words, the expectation is, well, that's how a record should sound. If it doesn't have some clipping or sound, what I might've considered 20 years ago to be a little on the gnarly side, then maybe it's not a record, then it's not done. It's not what it's supposed to be. And I've had this conversation with a few clients over the years where I guess this has happened a little less and less for one reason or another, but you get the call and they'd say, we love everything. It's great, but we need it to be louder. And I'd say, okay, well, I'm happy to do that. Here's how I look at loudness. I think that every recording has a loudness potential and sort of a window of where loudness works. And if you push it too far, you get outside of that window.

(00:33:42):

And in fact, if you don't push it far enough, you get outside of that window. On the other side, this is where compression is good. So if I push it too far, here's what you can expect for diminishing returns, because I've brought it as far as I think I can bring it before we hit diminishing returns. So you're going to hear maybe some distortion, maybe some lack of clarity, lack of base response and lack of dynamic range. So that's my disclaimer. I feel like I've brought it as far as I can, this is how I usually operate. This is what I think feels right, but I'm happy to send you a version that's louder and you can check it out and see what you think. And I've had this conversation a few times over the years where they get the louder thing, and if we end up talking on the phone about it and we get sort of philosophical about it, I'm starting to feel like some clients are, and I've had a few of them actually say it to me, is that, no, I think what you thought were diminishing returns or what my expectation was and what I like about it.

(00:34:36):

And I say, okay, well that's good to know, and I'm glad that you like the louder version and let's roll with it. That's great. But it is made me form this theory or this opinion that this sort of window of what's accepted sonically has shifted in some way over the past, say 15 or 20 years.

Speaker 2 (00:34:52):

Right. Yeah. So how often do you feel that your work is actually evaluated for the wrong reasons?

Speaker 4 (00:35:00):

By the wrong reasons. Do you mean in terms of just overall loudness or that sort of thing?

Speaker 2 (00:35:04):

Yeah, so I guess you could define the wrong reasons in any way that you want. Let's say you were shooting for something that was a little bit more dynamic, but when it was evaluated, they were just concerned with it being more squashed. Or let's say you were shooting for something that was a little bit warmer and they were evaluating something completely different. How often does that happen where you're really just kind of not on the same plane? And I kind of asked this question because I feel like a lot of people will just be looking at loudness and not paying attention to all of the other great things that mastering engineers impart on a song.

Speaker 4 (00:35:48):

Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, I think fortunately, overall big picture stuff, my clients come to me because they like what I do, and we are kind of on the same plane in a lot of different ways. But I have jokingly said to colleagues over the years that my job has really, in a lot of ways become about loudness in an unfortunate way. So what I mean by that is if we just took loudness out of the equation and felt comfortable with the fact that every consumer would turn their volume knob up if they wanted to be more excited by loudness, then I could focus more solely on overall frequency response, overall sonics and the overall vibe of the thing without feeling like I'm fighting every step of the way to get all of those things. Like I want my cake and eat it too.

(00:36:35):

I want all of those things, and I want it to be competitive and level so the client's happy and it feels good next to any other record like it. And so there are some days where I kind of feel as though, boy, I wish I could take that loudness part out of the equation a little bit or lessen it a little bit so I can focus on these other things. But I think I firmly believe if I did that a lot of people over the years have said, well, you should just say no to level. And my response to that is, well, then I'm saying no to work, and I'm saying no to a profession that I love. So okay. I mean, that's the reality of it, right? Guys, if you say no to that, the clients are not going to come to you. That's, I'm not even saying that's a theory, that is a dead on fact. They will not come to you if you say no to that. No,

Speaker 3 (00:37:23):

That's reality.

Speaker 4 (00:37:24):

That's absolute reality. And so my of feeling of that is that my job is to get the kind of level that the clients want in the most musical way possible. And that's not easy to do. That takes a lot of finesse, and it takes a lot of experience and a lot of hard work to find that balance within each recording where you can get that kind of loudness that is certainly an expectation of everybody involved in virtually every record, but do it in the most musical way possible. So that's been kind of my charge over the years is, well, clients want it loud, the expectation is loud, the consumer expects it loud now, but how do I do that in the most musical way possible? How do I have my sonic cake and eat it too? And I've worked really hard over the years to try to do that. I can give you loud because that's expected under the umbrella of all of pop music, but I can do it in the most musical way possible. And then the other options are you can have somebody else just do loud but not musical. But that's not what I do.

Speaker 3 (00:38:28):

I'm really glad to hear you say that. And I'm glad that you teach at a college because a lot of the kids that we get who have gone to school have been told to not do certain things that are just commonplace for modern reportings, which that's going to end up losing them work. For instance, if they leave school thinking, you should never punch anything in. And mind you, I've actually heard this before, you should never reamp a guitar. You should never punch anything in. Every band you get should be able to play everything from start to finish. You should just not take clients. If they can't do that, well then I guess you shouldn't be taking clients at all.

Speaker 4 (00:39:12):

Exactly. Or either won't be any clients for you.

Speaker 3 (00:39:15):

Exactly.

Speaker 4 (00:39:16):

And I don't mean that as a, you're talking about punching in and amping and things. I don't mean that as a negative in terms of musicianship, but I just mean that's the reality of making records.

Speaker 3 (00:39:25):

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (00:39:25):

That's how records have been made since the Don have recorded music in one way or another. I think that's a really important point that there's academia and what you might think is textbook perfect, and then there's the real world and how do you make it work in the real world? And I could never, and I tend to be, I don't mind being a little outside of the norm in that way. In other words, I talk at a lot of industry events and talk at a lot of universities, and I teach a little bit at USM, I teach a class a semester, and I have no problem saying what I just said to you guys about loudness. I know the expectation is loud. I know that if I don't do it, I'm not going to have clients, which means I won't be able to sustain a career and make a living, and that's the real world.

(00:40:14):

So I could say with the loudness thing, for example, I'm just not going to do it. I'm not going to have any clients. I'm not going to work. That's not good for me. But I also think it's not good for recorded music as well, because as I said, I try to make loud and musical as best as I can. And I don't think every recording that's made loud is loud and musical. I think there are a lot that are just loud. So I'm still trying to do the best for the art as I possibly can, but within the parameters of the real world, and that's a really important thing.

Speaker 2 (00:40:46):

So I want to get a little bit nerdy on a couple things here before we close out, but I'm curious, what do you think about the playback normalization across the web and other media platforms right now?

Speaker 4 (00:41:00):

Oh, that's a great question. I am a little disappointed in it, and I'm disappointed for this reason. All indications pointed to the fact that playback normalization would be the opposite of what we're used to with FM radio. So in other words, FM radio, every station does it differently, of course. But overall, the idea is just push everything through a compressor and a limiter and bring the quietest stuff up to the loudest stuff, right?

Speaker 2 (00:41:28):

Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:41:29):

My initial concept of how this would work on the internet and in the digital domain and with streaming was that the services would do the opposite. They would say, let's get a profile of what all these recordings look like and let's take the loudest one and just lower it in level to match the average level of the quietest one. And that, in my opinion, is the best way to handle playback normalization for a number of different reasons. And it also, I think, can squash the idea of hyper compression because when you do that, you start to realize that the really, really loud compressed recordings sound really wimpy when they're just lowered and leveled to match the average level of the not so hyper compressed recording. So I thought that artistically that had a glimmer of hope for the issue of loudness. But what I've found in the past few years is that a lot of the streaming services are going back to the old FM model of pushing things through a limiter for achieving consistent loudness from one recording to another. And that just means we're just kind of back to where we were and back to where we were in a means where it's so much easier to compare things. It's not just an FM playlist. It's like you can create a playlist of all the music you'd like and in whatever streaming service you want to use. And I think that makes it harder for me as a recording professional to anticipate how that's going to affect the recordings that I master.

Speaker 2 (00:42:57):

So if there was, I guess, the single most important tool for mastering, if you could only pick one, what would you choose?

Speaker 4 (00:43:06):

Oh, boy, that's a tough question. Just one tool. I mean, really mastering comes down to two types of tools, 99.9% of the time, and they're equalizers and they're dynamics processors.

Speaker 2 (00:43:19):

And if you could only choose one,

Speaker 4 (00:43:23):

I know why you're asking this question and I'm going to be straight with you on it, I'm going to be straight and I'm going to dance around it a little bit as well. In a perfect world, I would just choose Equalizers because I could just focus solely on frequency response, overall color and vibe of every recording that I worked on. And I wouldn't have to deal with loudness. But in the real world, I might have to choose the dynamics processors because if I can't make things loud, I can't get gigs.

Speaker 2 (00:43:53):

I see. I like that answer. That's good. I think it's a struggle too for a lot of people who are getting into this to do it for themselves. I think they struggle a lot with the tools specifically. We've seen it a lot. They don't know what kind of compressors to use. And it seems like a lot of people aren't really willing to, I mean, they probably are forced to experiment, but it seems like they're not really willing to experiment with just trying different things and see what works. So many people seem to be lost. They're like don't know if they're using the right compressor, if they're doing the right EQ moves, et cetera. Is that something that you feel is learned through experience or is it just something that there's a school to it?

Speaker 4 (00:44:42):

Maybe a little bit of both, but I'd lean heavy on the experience side. And I think that if you don't want to put the work and the effort into trying different tools and experimenting with different tools, you're never going to get there. It is just impossible. You have to work and experiment with different tools to get there to find the tools that will work for any given master that you're working on. It may be different from one to the next. It usually is different from one to the next. And I think that all comes with experience. The unfortunate side effect of not having enough experience in that realm is the fact that going back to, I hate to keep going back to loudness, but if you think about loudness, if you're not finding the right tools to do the job well with loudness, then you're sort of using more of a brute force method.

(00:45:31):

And that just adds to the notion of recordings that have been brute force limited or compressed for sake of loudness, but don't sound great, but become kind of part of the norm in the vernacular of what a recording sounds like. So I think that you have to put the time, the effort, and the experience, and to add to that notion, that's also why I often if I'm asked, don't relay what plugins I use and what compressors I use and that sort of thing very often because I feel like I've put a lot of time and energy into my signal path and a lot of experience into it to formulate it. And I think that every engineer needs to do that themselves and figure that out themselves. And to get back to that idea of, well, you get kind of lost in a sea of what to use, but you don't want to put the experience into it, you're never going to get out of that feeling of being lost if you don't put the experience into it.

(00:46:28):

And you're never going to formulate your own way of working if you don't do that. And the one thing people ask me often is, how do I know when a master is done? How do I know when it's finished and it's right and it's done? And what some people might think is a lame answer, but is really truthfully the answer in my opinion, is, well, if I can listen to the song from top to bottom and not feel the need to turn a knob or change anything and feel satisfied musically and emotionally by it, then it's done. And I think that's a really important, it's obviously kind of esoteric and what does that exactly mean, but that's a really important concept for any engineer to hold onto. Because if this notion of learning tools and figuring out the best tools to use, well, you can get out of that sea of feeling lost by tools if you realize, well, I've used this tool, this tool, and this tool, and I can't get to that point of feeling satisfied with it musically and emotionally, so I better try this tool, this tool, and that tool. And you keep doing that until you reach that point of satisfaction, which again, only comes with time and experience.

Speaker 2 (00:47:31):

Wow. I mean, that's great advice and I appreciate your insight on all this stuff because I think mastering is a very important art to preserve and to carefully navigate because we do have this loudness war thing to consider, and it's really a tough battle for all of us. And I think having people like you at the top with the right mindset is going to help push this thing forward in the right direction for everyone.

Speaker 4 (00:48:01):

That's great. That's great to hear. We've

Speaker 3 (00:48:03):

Got a few questions from some of the listeners that if you don't mind, we want to ask you.

Speaker 4 (00:48:12):

Oh, no, I don't mind at all. Go for it.

Speaker 3 (00:48:13):

Cool. Joey, you know how to pronounce his name better than I do. Mike's actually another mastering engineer, Mike Ian, who was on another mastering Month episode, had a few questions for you. He's really, really great. He said, if you could go back to your first day as a mastering engineer and deliver one piece of advice, what would it be?

Speaker 4 (00:48:38):

Oh, one piece of advice to myself.

Speaker 3 (00:48:41):

Yes.

Speaker 4 (00:48:44):

I'm sorry. I'm stumped for an answer. That's okay. I don't want that to come off as a negative thing, but I think I am a little stumped for an answer. I mean, I think it would be to continue or to stay focused on overall frequency spectrum and that sort of thing. The thing about equalization that we touched on a little bit, aside from that, I can't think of anything specific, and I don't mean that to sound supremely confident, but I can't think of anything specific at the moment.

Speaker 2 (00:49:10):

Well, I think just focusing on frequencies is actually a very positive comment to that question because I think we have a majority of our audience focusing on dynamics and probably more focused on the side of killing the dynamics than preserving them.

Speaker 4 (00:49:29):

Sure, sure. Yeah, and I, and I can't say enough about the aspect of overall color and frequency responses being something that you really should focus on. In fact, I had been asked once, many years ago, what one piece of advice I would give to a new starting out mastering engineer. So I guess this dovetails perfectly with going back to myself as a young mastering engineer starting out, and that is exactly that, to focus on overall frequency response first, to not put your focus on level first and overall dynamics first, to put your focus on overall frequency response, because if you can tune your ears to understand good musical EQ curve for any recording you're working on, the other part will eventually start to fall into place. If you can't do that, right, if you don't get that right, you'll never get the other thing right? You'll never get the whole thing right. So I can't put enough importance on that.

Speaker 3 (00:50:22):

On the topic of EQ and being able to hear the right frequencies and the wrong frequencies, is that something that you developed just through EQing records or did you perform specific ear training exercises like eq, ear training exercises?

Speaker 4 (00:50:39):

That's a really good question. What I have my students at USM do that I did as a student at the University of Massachusetts that I think is invaluable is an ear training regimen with a set called The Golden Ears by Dave Moten.

Speaker 3 (00:50:58):

That's a classic.

Speaker 4 (00:50:59):

And he was a professor of mine at UMass. I had the very good luck of having him as a professor for two solid years at UMass, and it was about the time when his Golden Ears set first came out. So I went right out and bought volumes one and two, which in my opinion are the most important volumes, at least for mastering, because they're all about frequency response and training your ears to identify frequency response. And I spent a lot of time with those when I was at UMass, and then I revisited them a few years ago when I developed this advanced class at USM that's mostly focused on critical listening, and we got a copy of that left at the USM library and had my students use that. So I highly encourage any engineer, not just mastering engineer, to spend a lot of time with that set, because that will really help fine tune your ears to frequency response. I don't know that it's necessarily about bad or good frequencies, it's just about identifying frequency ranges and then identifying those relative to musicality and the Golden Ear set really helped me refine that early on.

Speaker 3 (00:52:05):

Anybody listening, we're going to include a link to the Golden Ear set on the page that this podcast lives on. So just if you're on our site, scroll down and you'll see the link. Here's a question from Nick Matzke. He says he's always been a fan of the work you did for Rascal Flats, and especially the Still Feels Good album. He says, it's been in my reference reel since it came out in 2007. When I first heard it, I was amazed at how loud the snare was without being squashed by the limiter. It wasn't until a couple years after I discovered Soft Clipping and started getting closer to that sound. I also really liked how the album was loud, but not as hyper squashed as so many albums were in that era. It was a breath of fresh air in the middle of the loudness war. So my question is, were you doing anything different from your peers at that time to achieve that sound?

Speaker 4 (00:52:55):

Well, I think in some ways yes, and to the point what great years he had in terms of the overall loudness on that record versus others. I don't recall if it was exactly that record or one prior to that. I've done everything for the Flat since about 2005, and most of those albums, we made a very conscious effort not to slam them, and that came from the band, and that came from the producer and from the engineer that we didn't have to go crazy with level. We should be in a good ballpark, but we didn't have to go that extra step and that kudos to the whole production team for taking that stance then and saying, no, we want this thing to breathe a little bit. We want it to feel good overall, and we don't need to hit it so hard, and kudos to your listener for picking up on that.

(00:53:42):

I don't think technically I was doing anything that much different, just not going for that extra decibel or two of level that would've been expected at that time and just letting it breathe a little more. And of course, as a mastering engineer, I feel really great about that record and the way it turned out. But don't forget, I also had the benefit of working with an amazing production team too. Dan Huff is the record producer. Justin Niebank is the mixer on that record. And I can't remember who the recording engineers were, but I guarantee they were stellar guys in Nashville. And so the sum of all of those things, of course, makes for a great end result.

Speaker 3 (00:54:21):

So Nick actually has a second question for you, which I also think is pretty good. And we have touched on some of this already, so if you feel like you're repeating yourself, you don't need to. But he said, what have been the biggest changes you've had to make over the past 10 years to accommodate the major changes in the industry? For example, so many people mastering their own mixes or changes from mastering just for no CD to mastering specialty for iTunes or other digital mediums.

Speaker 4 (00:54:52):

I think, I mean, gosh, there are a couple of them in terms of deliverables, end result, final masters, we've had a major shift in the past four or five years where there was a period in time where we just made one master for every record, like 1D DP master, and then the record label did whatever they were going to do with it to get it anywhere else. Now, today, for almost any given album, we might make 3, 4, 5 different masters. A high res master for HD tracks, a 24 bit master lowered in level for mastered for iTunes, A DDP for CD 44 1 16 wave files for most of the other digital distributors. And there are a few others in there as well. So that's been a major change. That's changed the second part of our process a bit in that it's no longer just one master for the album creatively.

(00:55:46):

I mean, I think the concept has always been the same to make things sound as great as they can. And I don't master specifically for specific formats, but maybe unlike some other mastering engineers for many, many years have been mastering at the highest resolution possible. So that always means 24 bit, and then that means the highest resolution that the mixes come in. And I've always been a firm believer that in doing that and then doing really stellar sample rate conversion at the end is the best way to provide my clients with every type of master that they're going to need. That

Speaker 3 (00:56:20):

Makes sense. One last question, and this one is also from Mike je, which is what types of things do you do to reset your ears between or during projects?

Speaker 4 (00:56:30):

I walk out of the rim just obviously in any given day. There are some days where I come in and I work on one project all day, but that's really not the rule anymore. That's the exception. Most days I might work on 3, 4, 5, 6 different projects. I might just walk out of the room for a few minutes. What happens to me in terms of perspective, I think I can maintain perspective really, really well, and I feel really good about that occasionally, and this usually will happen if I feel I really need to dig in on something, like I've been given a problematic mix and I'm trying to really hard to make it sound great, I may pull out one of those records that I love a lot, that I know a lot that I've mastered in the past that sit in the same genre or the same ballpark as the one I'm working on.

(00:57:15):

To reset my perspective, that helps. But more often than not, I just need to get up and walk out of the room for a minute or two and come back and it's like an automatic reset for me. Mastering, I mean, everything that we do, recording, mixing, mastering takes a very high level of focus. I've always found having done all three of those things, I've always found that with mastering, it's such a high level of focus on such small minute details that sometimes just that reset of getting up and walking away from it for a minute is exactly what I need to regain perspective.

Speaker 3 (00:57:45):

How long do you normally sit there before you take a break?

Speaker 4 (00:57:48):

It might be a couple of hours though. Once really, I can master a song in about 30 minutes. So in a given hour I might master two songs. And my workflow works as such that when I'm done and I know it's done, I listen to it from top to bottom. I record it down in real time. And in doing that, I am definitely going to get out of the chair and move around a little bit in the room, stretch out. I try not to stay seated for too long, so not more than an hour or two where I'll stay seated and then I might get up, walk around the room or eventually walk out of the room. But I try not to keep glued to the chair for too long.

Speaker 3 (00:58:23):

And I guess, how many hours do you spend actually mastering? Is there a maximum amount where you feel like past a certain point, it's just diminishing returns?

Speaker 4 (00:58:34):

Yeah, definitely. I mean, most days I'm in the building for eight, nine hours, somewhere in that ballpark, a busier day, maybe nine to 10, and maybe spending, I'd say at least 80 to 85% of that time mastering. I think once I get beyond say, 10 or 11 hours, it's diminishing returns. If I have a client here and we're getting beyond that, I have no problem saying, listen, I can keep going if you want to keep going, but you're not going to get 100% of me at some point, and I'll let you know when that point is and we're better off, let's schedule some time in the morning to pick up. And for me, it's not ear fatigue, it's all mental fatigue, that level of focus. At some point I start to get burned out and I just can't maintain that level of focus. And I'd say between 10 and 11 hours is where that starts to set in for me.

Speaker 3 (00:59:18):

I've just noticed there's a certain point where the light bulb just turns off for me. You can't compute things quite as quickly. And I always call it my give a shitter. There comes a point where the fatigue sets in, where kind of will allow things to slip by that you wouldn't allow when you're feeling a hundred percent just because you're tired. Just because you're tired. And that's what people do when they're tired. So I feel like when I reach

Speaker 4 (00:59:48):

Exactly, it's human nature.

Speaker 3 (00:59:49):

Yeah, exactly. So I feel like when I reach that point, that's when the session's over.

Speaker 4 (00:59:52):

Yep, yep. And it's great that when that point is, you know what that feeling is like because you're not accomplishing a whole lot, staying in that tired mode for too long.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):

No, I tell people that a lot. I harp on it a lot, but I feel like it's important because when you're younger and you're starting out, pulling all-nighters is cool and doing ridiculous stretches or seem okay. But even back then, if I'm honest with myself, I feel like there was a point after about 10 to 12 hours where it was just dumb to keep going.

Speaker 4 (01:00:23):

Yeah, exactly. And if you do it every day, you burn out really fast. And it's nothing positive in that, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):

Nope. Well, Adam, thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you guys for having me. This was fun.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):

Yeah, you've been a great guest and thanks for being so open with our audience and sharing, and it's been great to have you. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):

And special thanks for me for mastering some of my favorite albums. Great job. That too. Love it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):

Thank you very much, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):

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