Today I Shall be Mostly… MASTERIN’!
Except I shan’t be mostly mastering because in all honestly I have no fucking idea what that is. Apparently it is tweaking the teeny-tiniest of things in the final mix of a song and still somehow making the most significant of differences. I’ve heard a good masterer get the most amazing clarity of instrumentation from a shitty, over-compressed mp3 file, to the extent that it sounded amazing on vinyl.
We tend to use Reuben Taylor for our mastering these days. As well as being a lovely (if slightly mental) fellow, he does an amazing job for a very reasonable fee in a very short space of time. He was responsible for the Meursault All Creatures vinyl, as well as the gorgeous Rob St. John record and the King Post Kitsch Honeytone EP.
Anyhow, today Rory Sutherland, who helped me record and engineer the record, and I will be off with the final mixes for the split 12″ we’ve been recording with Waiters, Sex Hands, Dolfinz and PAWS and this will be the first time I have witnessed the process first hand. So I’ll be sure to tell you what unspeakable wizardry takes place in the mastering suite. Assuming, of course, that I understand any of it at all.
All these photos were taken by the fantastic Nic Rue. Except the shit one. That was Rory.
Good mastering is knowing when to leave the fucking thing ALONE. Best kept secret in the trade.
Mmmmmmmm … I hope they break out the valve EQ for you.
Is that definitely masterin’ and not master’ing?
Doh! Spelling fail. If it was the latter, you’d have spelt it with a ‘u’ not an ‘e’ like I did.
How many tracks from each band are gonna be on the record?
Matthew, you wanker.
Chris, we recorded four songs per band and are putting three by each on the finished thing, apart from PAWS. One of theirs was a cover, one was an instrumental and one only a minute and a half long, so all of theirs are going on.
The remaining three songs will be on the digital download you get with the vinyl, as track 14, 15 and 16.
Superb! Really looking forward to it!
When’s it due out? When can I preorder it? is it going to be on coloured vinyl?