Brian Eno is probably the musician, producer and artist who has had the single biggest influence on my music taste and enjoyment over the years. His work speaks for itself and needs no introduction !
So when I heard Emre Ramazanoglu talking on the Working Class Audio podcast about re-mixing and mastering many of Brian's classic albums for Dolby Atmos, my ears immediately pricked up. I just couldn't miss the chance to talk to him in more detail about working with Brian - and the amazing detective work that it involved.
So in this episode Emre and I take a deep dive into this fascinating subject, talking about things like:
TMS #81 - Atmos mastering & mixing with Emre & Mike Hillier
ENO: the first generative documentary – and why you should see it
Brian Eno: Behind The Reflection (BBC Click) - More about how Reflection and Aurum were created
Generative Music 1 by Brian Eno - is this his rarest album ever ?
TMS #97 - Mixing Ziggy Stardust in Dolby Atmos, with Ken Scott
I wanted to do something a little different to mark the 100th episode, but wasn't sure what. I was wondering about interviewing myself but that seemed a little weird...
And then Matt Boudreau from the excellent Working Class Audio podcast invited me back onto his show, and it occurred to me - I could get Matt to interview me, which would be way more fun and get some much more interesting questions !
So here it is. Matt and I talk about all kinds of things including:
And loads more !
WCA #549 - "Part 2" of my conversation with Matt (including AI and the democratisation of mastering, more on being "The Loudness Guy", focusing on joyful, intentional work and much more!)
WCA #132 - My first appearance on Working Class Audio with Matt
WAC #300 - with Andrew Scheps
WAC #290 - with Joe Chiccarelli
WCA #220 - with Butch Vig
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Sound Engineering - or how stereophonic sound changed my life
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 years and has released albums in a brilliantly eclectic variety of other genres and styles over the years.
In this conversation we talk about:
Richard's Website www.richarddurrant.com
Richard's music on Bandcamp
Instagram @richarddurrantguitar
The Pollinator Cafe @thepollinatorcafe
Cycling Music
Richard's Guitars: The Bog Oak Guitar
'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 in Dolby Atmos at Abbey Road, about all these questions and more. We talk about:
Oli Morgan – Mastering Engineer
Stem mastering & Dolby Atmos @ Abbey Road
Nick Watson @ Fluid Mastering
TMS #75 – Stem mastering - or is it ?
'Pax Aeterna' – Tom Donald, The Monks of Pluscarden Abbey on Apple Music
'No Reason' – The Chemical Brothers on Apple Music
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 the topics we covered:
Ken’s book Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust
Ziggy Stardust in Dolby Atmos - Trident Studios playback and discussion
TMS #81 - Atmos mastering with Emre Ramazanoglu and Mike Hillier
Sound on Sound: Ziggy Stardust in Atmos
Ziggy in Atmos on Blu-Ray
EpiK DrumS - A Ken Scott Collection for BFD3
Interview with Ken on RecordProduction.com
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:
Must-watch: You don’t understand saturation
TMS #79 - Dan Worrall on non-linear processing
TMS #64 - Aliasing - is it digital audio’s Achilles Heel ?
DDMF Plugin Doctor
TC Electronics Brickwall HD
Newfangled Saturate
Schwabe Gold Clip
Leapwing LimitOne
SIR Standard Clip
Kazrog KClip
MeterPlugs Perception AB
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 details and nuance.
Plus I also wanted to talk to him about the amazing plug-in that got invented during the last episode he was on ! (Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it 
)
During the show we talk about:
Mastering trends in 2024: What you should be doing (Or not… ?!)
TMS #25 - Stereo: width, depth and image - how to measure, monitor and master them
TMS #76 - Is stereo bass a problem on vinyl ?
Ian Stewart - Flotown Mastering
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 full advantage of that in this episode ! Some of the things we talked about include:
Links
Making Vinyl @ Masterdisk: Podcast and YouTube
TMS #76 - Is stereo bass a problem on vinyl ?
What Artists Get Wrong With Their Vinyl Releases: A Conversation with Scott Hull
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 include:
Our previous mastering discussion on Nick’s channel
TMS #31 - What IS loudness ?
Higher LUFS - do they REALLY always sound louder ? (Includes the examples Nick mentions)
It's not how loud you make it, it's how you make it loud
So: How loud ? The simple solution to optimizing playback volume online - and everywhere else
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 clearly and concisely:
TMS #67 - Minus 14 LUFS, or not ?
TMS #52 – DON’T aim for LUFS targets online
TMS #44 - Loudness Units 101
The Loudness Penalty website
