Adventure Thing #29 - Mastering Discussion (Patreon)

This week we began drum rehearsals in preparation for drum tracking. These will occupy most of March as we get Chad's parts dialed in and then hit the studio to cement the drums, which are generally the base layer of any recording and the one of the most important things to get right tonally.

However, we also started another conversation which I thought would be fun to share in the spirit of keeping you all up to date on the journey, and that's considering who we're going to use for mastering.

For those of you who may not be familiar with what mastering is, we will do our tracking (recording of instruments and vocals) and then our mixing (mixing together of those tracks from a level and tone perspective) with Noam Wallenberg at Rax Trax.

However, after mixing is done, it's time to send the final tracks to a mastering engineer. This is an essential step for a record to be "finished", and often has a huge impact on the overall sound and impression of the songs. You'll get to hear a bit of this since we'll be releasing songs at various stages along the way, and you'll be able to compare in the end. 

The interesting thing about mastering engineers is that it doesn't take a ton of time to do this last step, but it's incredibly important. This means that a lot of records end up being mastered by the same people, since they can handle a large workload, and everyone wants to work with the best. Sterling Sound in NYC tends to be the best-known facility where mastering engineers work.

So, all of this said, we started talking with Noam about who we'd like to do the mastering on this record. We used Ted Jensen for The Near Future, who I think did an amazing job, and he's definitely still in consideration. But there are a few others we're looking at as well, especially considering the 90's direction we're headed in sonically. It can be fun to check out these engineers' discographies, so I've attached links here. It's astounding how many great records they've generally worked on over time.

Mastering Engineers We're Considering

Ted Jensen: https://sterling-sound.com/engineer/ted-jensen/#selected
(American Idiot plus a million more)

Greg Calbi: https://sterling-sound.com/engineer/greg-calbi/#selected
(Harvey Danger, Dinosaur Jr, plus a million more)

Stephen Marcussen: http://www.marcussenmastering.com/
(Wallflowers, Toad The Wet Sprocket, plus a million more)

We're also going to get a quote from Bob Ludwig just for fun, but as he is one of the most sought-after mastering engineers in the world, I doubt it will be in our budget.

Now back to getting Chad all dialed in!