Tales of the Mastering Bear

For everyone who doesn’t know, (which kind of included me until just recently, ) “Mastering” is the process a collection of songs goes through to make it sound like an “album.” The songs are given similar EQ and compression characteristics and are leveled out at a similar volume. It sounds much simpler than it is.

   Ok, well…..where do I start. The last month and a half has been among the most amazing times of my musical career. The more I think about it, the more insane I think it is.

     I told you all last time about going to Star City Recording and meeting with Jeff Glixman and Carl Cadden James…Two bona fide heavyweights in the recording industry. They gave us some free advice on mixing our album, which we followed to the best of our abilities. Then two weeks later, we went back and ended up getting MORE help. From those two meetings I personally gained a TON of knowledge about the art of mixing…stuff it would have taken me YEARS to learn otherwise.

   Then two weeks ago, we went again and they said we were ready for mastering at last. Carl had some other work to do, so he left us in the A room listening to our mixes. After a while, Jeff Glixman came in to see how we were doing and just to listen and hang out for a few minutes. He shared with us some of his philosophies on recording and mixing, which was COMPLETELY surreal. Greg and I looked at each other a couple times just to make sure it was really happening.

     Finally, the day was upon is. This past Wednesday, Bill and I got to Star City at 1:00. We were let into the A room again and Carl got to work on loading our tunes into their system.

    (Before I go any further, I just want to say that Carl Cadden James is THE MAN. He is amazing at what he does and yet still is TOTALLY cool about it. He had a lot to do and many hours of work ahead of him and didn’t hesitate once to answer my idiotic questions.)

     First, we had to decide on what Carl referred to as our “EQ Palate.” We listened through various songs from various albums we had with us and finally decided that the overall sound of “Follow Me to Sleep” from the bonus disc of Spock’s Beard’s Octane album was a good mark to shoot for. Carl played back one of our tracks and the Spock’s track at the same time, switching between them every few seconds. As he did so, he adjusted the Equalizer and the tube compressor that our track was passing through. Before long, our tune was taking on the general sound character of the Spock’s tune. There were some differences in the way the tracks were mixed, so a perfect match was impossible. Things were sounding GREAT nonetheless. Then Carl called Jeff in to have a listen and he made a couple minute tweaks to the EQ which took the tune away from sounding like the SB tune, but made it sound better over-all. It was then that I received the biggest boost to my ego ever. I suddenly looked up and saw Jeff Glixman, a guy who has recorded some of the greatest musicians in the world, playing air-guitar to one of MY solos.  

     After that, Carl went through each of our tunes comparing them to the first one and adjusting their bass, mid, and treble characteristics to match it.  He told us again that he thought Forever Changed was a really strong tune and that we should do something with it. Coming from someone in his position, that means more than he could ever know. Now what the hell do we do with it?

     Before long, Bill had to leave for a rehearsal, leaving Carl and me to finish the mastering and authoring (authoring is the process of maximizing the volume of the tracks and putting the right amount of space between them.) This whole process took a LONG time, but ultimately took our little album to a level I had never considered we could reach.   

     So now it’s just down to artwork and duplication. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to be UNABLE to do anything more to the album sonically. It’s been a LONG road, but I’m 100% satisfied with the job we’ve done. We’re still hoping for a December release, but that’s all dependent on how things come together from here on out.

K