Mastering is the final step in terms of turning a great recording into a great record. For this final stage to enhance your recordings I partner with Pat Keane at Pat Keane Mastering. Pat may be the best mastering engineer in the Portland Maine area and his work exemplifies it.
I’m a firm believer in that once a project is recorded and mixed it’s time for a second set of fresh, well-trained ears. Pat and his well-tuned room provide just that.
Back in the day, Mastering was known as “cutting”. The engineer transferred audio from analog tape to a lathe that cut grooves into the lacquers. This is where the phrase “cutting a record” comes from. During this process the engineer tweaked the audio to fit into the sonic limitations of vinyl. The grooves on the lacquers were then transferred to the plates that stamped the records.
Nowadays there are many destinations for audio: CD, vinyl, streaming and more. Mastering is where the audio is tweaked to sound it’s best on any and all delivery systems. Adjustments are also made to each song so everything sounds cohesive in the context of the entire project.
“We are Memphis Lightning, and we recorded our debut album at Garage Mahal. Rowan is a great guy and knows his stuff, so the experience was great and went as smooth as possible. It didn’t matter if it was a country tune, a blues tune, or rock tune. Rowan made us sound great and he’ll make you sound great too!”