The Mastering Show

Stereo, mono, binaural or surround-sound ?

I've worked with this episode's guest in all these formats and more over the many years we've been working together - but which does he prefer, and why ?

Richard Durrant describes himself as an "Indie Classical" musician, which I think is a pretty good summary - but doesn't really take into account the fact that he also toured with Sky, worked as an accomplished session musician for many yea...

'Stem mastering' has provoked a ton of debate recently, with people claiming it crosses the line between mixing and mastering, interferes with the artist's intent, and isn't even really mastering at all !

But if that's true, why would Abbey Road, one of the biggest mastering studios in the world, offer a dedicated stem mastering service ?!

In this episode I talk to Oli Morgan, who specialises in stem mastering and mixing in mastering...

The term “legend” gets thrown all the time in audio production circles, but my guest this episode really deserves it.

I’m sure you already know this but Ken Scott has worked with the Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John and Supertramp amongst so many others, so I was delighted when he agreed to join me for this episode !

There were so many things we could have talked about it was hard to know where to start, but here are just a few of t...

We’ve been using “soft clipping" in mastering for over 20 years at this point, but it suddenly feels as if it’s all anyone is talking about ! New plugins, new suggestions about how to use it, and wild new claims about how amazing it sounds.

Except it doesn’t.

At least – not all the time, and not for all material.

In this episode Joe Caithness and I dig deep into the details and talk about:

* What clipping is, and what it isn’t

* Th...

The Billboard Top 50 global singles from the first half of 2024 have an average loudness of -8.3 LUFS

So that’s how loud we should be making our masters, right ?

Well…

It certainly might seem that way, but in reality it’s a bit more complicated than that. This is only one of the interesting results that Ian Stewart presented in his latest blog post for iZoTope, and in this episode I asked him back on to really dig into some of the det...

People are always asking me about mastering for vinyl, and I’m happy to try and help based on the experience I have. I don’t actually cut vinyl myself though, so that advice is always limited and second-hand.

So for this episode I decided to talk to a genuine expert on the topic - Scott Hull from Masterdisk - and really get into the details.

Scott’s knowledge and experience of cutting vinyl is enormous, as you’ll hear, and I took f...

I’m always arguing for balanced dynamics rather than loudness for it’s own sake, but some people have a different opinion - high loudness is important, and even beneficial.

Nick Di Lorenzo is one of them - he says that loudness is important regularly on his YouTube channel. So in this episode I invited him on to explore that idea in more detail, and really get into the nuances of the topic. Do you need to be mastering loud ? Topics ...

You can't go a day without someone telling you how loud your music should be, these days.

"Everything has to be -8 LUFS"

"EDM has to be -6 LUFS or louder"

"-11 is the perfect balance"

"Just master everything to -14"

...but they can't all be right !

In fact, none of them are, and even more importantly, they may not even be talking about the same thing. And the differences are really important. So in this episode I try explain really c...

DJs get a lot of flak, especially about loudness. There’s a deep-seated belief that “loud” masters are still a requirement for club music, and that DJs are somehow to blame.

But is this fair ? The reality is much more complicated and interesting than the popular cliche that DJs will only play loud masters, and in this episode Ian dives deep into the issue with Joe Caithness, who works as both a DJ and a mastering engineer. Topics i...

It’s amazing what mastering can achieve - but it’s also amazing how many things can influence the results we get right from the recording stage.

In this episode Ian talks to Mike Senior about how to fix mastering problems at the recording stage, without using a time machine ! Topics include how to avoid:

Muddy mids

Harsh guitars

Sibilance

Resonant snares

Boomy or hollow vocals

Exposed vocals

Stereo imag...

As mastering plugins become more sophisticated and more technical, there’s an interesting trend towards making the interfaces… less so.

As well as traditional technical terms and numbered scales, controls labelled with less technical terms like “warmth”, “bite” and “colour” are becoming more common. And some interfaces are just… bizarre !

Is that good ? Or not ? In this episode Jon and I like at some more unconventional plugin ...

You’ve probably heard of Eric Sarafin, aka Mixerman, but have you heard what he has to say about mastering ?

As always it’s entertaining, potentially controversial but also thought-provoking, so it seemed like a good idea to get him on the show and ask him to explain himself ! We talk about:

* Why he thinks if you don’t make money from your music, you shouldn’t pay for mastering

* Whether an online mastering service is actually ...

Apple’s announcement of Dolby Atmos support has caused an explosion of interest in the format - after all, it means almost any iOS user can stream immersive audio, even if they only have a pair of earbuds to listen on. But how does that even work? And for that matter, what is Dolby Atmos, and why should we care? And what about mastering for Atmos? Is it possible, or even necessary? 

In this episode we talk to Mike Hillier ...