From Signal to Aural
The selection of monitors and amps are especially crucial in making each mastering environment work. "For any engineer, it's really about the confidence you have in what you're hearing and knowing how it's going to sound wherever you go," points out Lambert, who monitors via Duntech Sovereign 2001 speakers powered by Cello Performance amps. "When I'm listening in that room, if the low end sounds light, I know it is light and that it's not a weakness or shortcoming in the speaker."
Constantly-updated Tannoy speakers transmit the audio information to Bernie Grundman's ears. "They're vintage Tannoy speakers that we recone and refurbish," he says. "We build our own crossovers and cabinets for our speakers, as well. We want them to be neutral; we don't want to hype the clients with a lot of sizzle and buzz. Everything is powered with Crown BC300 amps, which are hard to find. We haven't found anything better - they're very simple and that's probably why they sound so good."
Mark Christensen felt he took a gamble by putting Genelec 1031A self-powered speakers in his suite, but he's happy to report it paid off. "That was a leap of faith," he says. "We used them because John Storyk designed the room around them. I had trepidation about using them as mastering monitors, but when I turned them on I was instantly convinced. In the context of this space, they do their job magnificently. I actually can't tell you what they sound like, because in this room they disappear completely."
With the explosion of new incoming formats to deal with, as well as the gradual onset and accommodation of 5.1 surround, the learning curve of today's mastering engineers keeps on rising. No matter how complex their jobs and their gear requirements become, however, they'll continue to be united by a few simple goals.
Serving the Music
"We're here to serve the music," states Bernie Grundman, "and we should always have our attention focused on the monitors and what the music sounds like. Are we really doing something to improve it, or aren't we?"
"The challenges are always the same," Steve Marcussen adds. "People want something that sounds good, is aggressive, but not over the top. They define it differently, but people want to look at it as maximizing what's coming out of those speakers. Every tape has it's own tale and no two are alike. The rewards come when you get something well preserved down the line. You can get your stamp on something creative - not in the artsy sense, but in the know-how sense."
INFORMATION
Engine Room Mastering: www.engineroomaudio.com
Bernie Grundman Mastering: www.berniegrundmanmastering.com
Classic Sound: www.classicsound.com
Future Disc Systems: www.futurediscsystems.com
Marcussen Mastering: www.marcussenmastering.com
Domain," says Lambert. "The new Sonic is very helpful because it's so much faster. Sonic has always had a very good edit fade window, which is something I think has always set it apart and it can do complex editing very fast."
Future Disc Systems' Steve Hall also employs a combination of Sonic Solutions HD and 54. "54 has been the landmark of the mastering industry for some time," he says. They work and they work every day
and we've never had a problem with that. The HD was used because it was the road into DVD audio at the time and unfortunately Sonic Solutions had dropped that like a hot potato."
At Bernie Grundman Mastering, the Cube-Tec AudioCube is the DAW of choice, running five of the multi-channel, 24/96 systems at the facility. "It's a lot more expensive, but it runs a 48k floating point, so it's a little higher resolution system," he explains. "I look for a DAW that doesn't have the artifacts of a lot of digital equipment in general, which is a lot of graininess and a lack of detail and depth. Nothing matches the original source perfectly, but we look for whatever gets us closest."
Likewise for Steve Marcussen of Marcussen Mastering: his choice of Sonic Solutions is about the sound, as well as the overall comfort level. "It's the workhorse we've grown to love so much for storage and editing," Marcussen says. "It was a practical decision, but it does sound good."
A Confluence of Converters
When choosing A/D and D/A converters, the engineers polled picked sound as the sole criterion. "The Pacific Microsonics Model 2 is about the best thing I can find out there," Hall says. "There's no height involved on either end of the spectrum input or output - they're just neutral sounding. It makes excellent upsamples when I have to go from 48 to 96k. It's an incredible enhancement when I have to go from 16 bit to 24 bit."
Steve Marcussen's ears led him to the Prism Sound Dream ADA-8 converters. "We did a lot of blindfold testing and it was the converter that could conclusively be picked 80% of the time," he reports. "They seem to be extremely solid, with great image, attack and low level information."
Lambert also makes heavy use of the Prism Sound Dream in his suite. "I've always thought the low end extension on it was amazing and it can bring in many different sample rates," he states. "If I'm coming out of digital, what I usually do is convert that to analog and go through the analog console. We have different converters - a separate Prism, an Apogee, Mytek and they all sound great."