I met Paul Abbott in the late '90s when he was
playing guitar in a group called Rekless Abandon. I remember being quite
impressed with their concern for quality and integrity as a band – and also in
terms of the individual talents within. Namely, Paul Abbott. He struck me as
being "one" with his guitar, "one" with the band, and "one" with the room. I
was impressed because I don't know many musicians who concentrate as such and
therefore produce a result as such. Not knocking anyone, but just noting that
his zen is obvious – especially in his music. Uniquely so.
Things
change. Paul is good at riding changes. I see him from time to time and the
thing that always strikes me about Paul Abbott is the fact that he is always
collected, stable, confident, and firm about things – incredibly clear when
both listening and speaking. He has the friendliest way of being very matter of
fact about things.
Nowadays he
doesn't play in that band anymore, having chosen a path that led him to the
art, science, and passion of mastering. About six months ago, I ran into him at
some music event. We got on the subject of recording, mixing, and mastering
when he told me that his business, ZenMastering, is the only dedicated
mastering facility in San Diego. Others offer it on the side, but his facility
is built and designed solely for this purpose.
Only? I
couldn't believe it, and there before me was the premise of an article worth
writing.
Ohm!
Paul became
increasingly interested in mastering and sound quality, which was reflected in
the column he wrote for the San Diego Troubadour (2001-2004). He eventually
became so expert on the subject that he moved on to writing for national
publications that are leading authorities on the topic of recording and
mastering. Meanwhile, he's been busy with hundreds of projects from all over
the globe.
We got
together a few times for the purpose of this interview, appropriately in each
of our studios. While visiting my studio, Paul pointed out a few things with
regard to natural acoustics, making suggestions and music chat while nursing a
hot cup of tea. We decided to record Paul on acoustic guitar, letting him call
the day's recording technique in order to illustrate how our mix will result
following his mastering process. While visiting his studio we listened to
examples of music while discussing the objectivity that goes into the process.
Regardless of the array of little meters, dials, knobs, and computer gear, it's
a remarkably simple, yet efficient space.
I have
collected our conversations from these visits into this interview.
CS: How long have you been mastering professionally?
PA: 10 years. I began mastering in 1998, and officially
launched ZenMastering in 2000.
CS: How many projects have you mastered?
PA: Between 400 and 500. I've mastered music for artists in
over 30 states in the U.S. and more than 15 countries around the world, from
folk and classical to country to punk…and everything in between. Clients run
the gamut from indie garage bands to world-famous names.
CS: This studio is probably the cleanest studio I've seen in
a while. What is it that makes your facility unique? What's under the hood?
PA: Well, to begin with, ZenMastering is San Diego's only
dedicated mastering facility. There are recording studios that offer mastering
on the side, but ZenMastering is the only local studio built from the ground up
for mastering. This includes four main components: the room, the playback
system, the mastering equipment, and the engineer.
Mastering
is a completely different ball game from mixing, and it takes a different mind
set as well as specialized equipment and knowledge. It begins with the room.
The room I master in has been designed by George Augspurger, one of the world's
best-known acousticians. I hired him to consult on setting it up as a critical
listening environment in which objective decisions could be made that guarantee
that the mastered work translates successfully to the outside world. Then
there's the equipment. All the world's top mastering facilities use
audiophile-grade equipment, which is much different from the equipment you find
in a recording studio, and ZenMastering is no exception. This includes
speakers, amplifiers, converters, cables, equalizers, compressors, and limiters
all chosen for accuracy and transparency. Finally, there's the engineer: me.
Mastering is all I do. And after years of specializing in a field, one develops
a discerning sense for making informed decisions as well as specific knowledge
and skills. All of the above-mentioned are things that no standard recording
studio can offer, and I would imagine only a handful of mastering facilities
anywhere can surpass ZenMastering for the combination of quality and
consistency.
CS: You've written on the subject of professional sound in
some pretty heavyweight publications.
PA: I've been fortunate to have my audio articles published
in some of the music industry's most prestigious magazines. EQ, TapeOp, and
Sound on Sound have all run articles of mine about recording and mastering.
I've also been featured in Music Connection's annual Masters of Mastering issue
as one of the "hottest mastering engineers working today." That was a very nice
compliment.
I think
about sound a lot, and I enjoy writing articles about my ideas and experiences
in mastering. So, getting the articles published is a real bonus for me. I have
also launched a web site dedicated to promoting articles about music
production: http://www.audiorecordingadvice.com.
CS: Tell us about your music endeavors as an artist in years
past.
PA: I've been a musician most of my life. I began playing
guitar when I was eight and have spent a lot of my musical life refining my
skill as an instrumentalist as well as a composer. Along the way I dabbled in
related areas like music transcription. It was my experience as a recording
musician, though, that led me to mastering. After years of recording in the
studio – both solo and with bands – I was always curious why the finished
product never had the "polish" that my favorite recordings had. The missing
ingredient, I discovered, was professional mastering. This was what really led
me to where I am today.
CS: We know that much of mastering has a lot to do with
gear. But it's still about music. What is your philosophy on mastering?
PA: Do what's necessary to make a recording sound its best –
no more, no less. Sounds simple – and obvious – but it's like a chess game. You
first need to understand what a specific recording should sound like, and
that's based on years of listening to music and understanding different genres.
Then you need to understand the recording and mixing process, their purposes
and limitations. Finally, you have to understand the most effective way to
process recorded sound to improve it. In the end, mastering should really be
transparent – sonically and conceptually. It's the job of the mastering
engineer to make sure the music sounds its best in all listening environments, not
to prove that they have mad skills or insanely expensive equipment. And that
requires all the things listed above: a balanced listening environment,
audiophile playback system, objectivity, and years of experience. It also
requires professional maturity and confidence. A good mastering engineer knows
when to leave something alone.
CS: What's the best thing an artist or engineer or producer
can do to ensure the best possible outcome when handing off mixes to the
mastering facility?
PA: First, make the recording sound the way you hear it in
your head. The artist is the creator. Follow your gut.
Second, if
you're not sure why you're adding something – whether it's reverb, compression,
limiting, or equalization – then don't add it. Think of recording like cooking;
don't add a spice unless you know what it tastes like and what you want it to
add to your recipe.
Third,
don't be obsessed with making your mixes loud. That's the final step in
mastering…after everything else has been done. If you try to make your
unmastered mixes sound like your favorite album [that has been mastered],
you're going to ruin it.
Finally,
read the articles on the Audio Recording Advice web site
(http://www.audiorecordingadvice.com). There's good, easy-to-understand
information there about making your recordings sound better.
CS: Are there any trends in music and/or mastering and/or
production that you'd like to acknowledge or discuss?
PA: One thing I think people need to understand is that
recordings are done in three distinct sections: recording, mixing, and
mastering. Each one has its own purpose, which the other steps can't replace.
This is the way professional recordings have always been made. And just because
music is being recorded and stored on a computer – as opposed to a tape
recorder – doesn't change that fact. In the era of the computer-based home
studio, people are starting to do everything themselves: write, record, mix,
and master. This is a good way to learn, but isn't a realistic way to make a
world-class recording. Let me put it another way: find one recording on the
Billboard charts that was recorded, mixed, and mastered by the same person in
the same studio. When you do, I'll buy you lunch. Bottom line: professional
quality results require specialists, not generalists.
CS: It's kinda the same reason why they only let the kicker
on a football team kick. There's a lot of wisdom in that.
Let's
change the subject a bit. You are a member of the San Diego scene. Any thoughts
on it artistically speaking? The city-wide recording environment itself?
PA: San Diego has some of the most talented musicians I've
ever met – and I've lived in various cities across the country as well as
collaborated with musicians from all over the world. So, from that perspective,
it's a great place to make music and be involved in the music community.
However, I think it sometimes suffers from a small-town mentality. Because
there are seemingly fewer opportunities here to be discovered compared to a
place like New York or Los Angeles, artists have a tendency to be protective
and guarded. What I've learned in my 20-plus years of working in different
facets of professional music is that the most successful artists are not the
most talented; they're the ones that network the best and collaborate within
the community the most. And the same thing goes for local studios. We're all
part of a network…so let's work together. The more people that succeed, the
better.
CS: That's what I say! What are the things that an artist or
engineer should look for when considering mastering services?
PA: The most important thing is to understand the value that
mastering brings to a recording. If someone understands the importance of
mastering, they'll do their homework and choose a mastering facility carefully.
If they think it's a bunch of smoke and mirrors, they'll have the recording
studio they recorded the album in master it. And, in the end, you'll be able to
tell who chose what. But as a rule of thumb: reputation, previous work, the
mastering engineer's personality, and price are all things to consider. No one
mastering studio is right for everyone, just like no one guitar is right for
every guitarist.
CS: Name a few examples of what you consider to be superior
executions in recording production mastering, etc. Your favorites that come to
mind. Works,producers, etc.
PA: Well, this brings up an interesting point: no mastering
engineer is an island. If I do great mastering, it's because the recording and
mixing were done correctly and it really allows me to fine tune the work to a
high level of sonic quality. The irony is that really good recordings need less
work than so-so recordings. Marginal recordings are where you need to really
pull a rabbit out of the hat to bring it up to par with a great recording. That
said, I think that what impresses me most when listening to other people's work
is when I hear four distinct elements: clarity, impact, power, and detail.
That's what I try to bring out of the recordings I work on, and I think it's
just the aspect of focusing the recording so it really shines.
CS: What is the most satisfying aspect - enjoyable part - of
"mastering" for you?
PA: Hearing a mix and figuring out in my head how I can make
it sound its best. That chess game mentality…it's always a challenge.
CS: Here is the most common question I hear as a producer -
from a new recording artist - when it comes to mastering their recorded
project. Ready? "What does mastering do actually?"
PA: This question can be difficult to answer if you don't
understand the recording/mixing/ mastering sequence. It's sort of like asking,
"What does an editor do for a book?" It can be a lot, or sometimes it's just a
little; sometimes you're adding, other times subtracting; regardless, the
process in invaluable. Whatever is done in mastering, it's always in the
interest of creating a balanced sound and making the recording sound as good as
possible.
In the
simplest terms, mastering is a process of sonic analysis. An objective,
experienced mastering engineer utilizes a high-quality, audiophile playback
system in a professionally designed listening environment to analyze a
recording and decide if it needs adjustment. it's a huge plus that the
mastering engineer has not been involved in the recording and mixing process,
because he or she will hear things that people who have been involved in the
production of a recording have lost their objectivity about long ago. The end
goal is to guarantee the recording sounds balanced and consistent in all
listening environments: car stereos, iPods, boom boxes, home theater
systems…wherever. That the message of the music comes across everywhere it's
listened to. As the engineer analyzes the recording, specialized processing
tools (equalizers, compressors, limiters, and other "sonic enhancers") are
utilized to make the necessary adjustments to get what the engineer feels is
the desired result. These tools are specialized in that they are designed for
very accurate, fine adjustment; much more so than general tracking and mixing
equipment. So, in essence, it's a person with specific skills and specialized
equipment listening to a recording and saying, "this sounds good…now I'm going
to add a few elements to make the good aspects sound better and minimize the
elements that are problematic." Emphasizing the strong points and minimizing
the less-than-stellar aspects of a recording is what makes it translate
successfully to the myriad of listening environments. And to do that you need
objectivity, skill, experience, and the right tools. Chief among these tools is
the accurate playback system. If you can't really hear what's been recorded
then you're just guessing and that's not professional mastering.
In a more
subjective way, mastering has evolved into a specialized "secret sauce" step
that takes a recording and pushes it to the next level of production, utilizing
the above-mentioned equipment. It used to be that playback formats (cassette
tapes and vinyl records, for example) had physical limitations. Too much bass
in a master would make a record needle skip, and analog tape would distort if
it was pushed too hard with limiting. So the format set the limitations of what
was done in mastering. Now, with CDs, DVDs and MP3s, those same "format
limitations" don't exist. So, mastering engineers are asked to push the limits
of a recording beyond what can be accomplished in recording or mixing. This is
a newer aspect that's been around for about the past 10-15 years and, in some
form or another, is part of the whole process for mastering in general. The
degree to which it's done depends on the style of music being mastered and the
desire of the artist to create a "produced" sound.
But make no
mistake about it: every recording you hear today gets part of its sound from
what the mastering engineer did. You can learn more about Paul Abbott and the
mastering process at the following related links:
ZenMastering web page: http://www.zenmastering.com
ZenMastering MySpace: http://myspace.com/zenmastering
Audio Recording Advice web page:
http://www.audiorecordingadvice.com