Hi, this is Chris Gerringer from Sterling Sound.
You're listening to My Weekly Mixtape with Brian
Colburn. Welcome to My Weekly Mixtape, a podcast
that takes the classic mixtape approach to building
a modern playlist. I'm your host, Brian Colburn.
Joining me tonight is Chris Gerringer, a senior
engineer and partner at Sterling Sound. Chris
has mastered countless albums that are staples
of my collection, including titles like Wu -Tang
Clan's Enter the Wu -Tang 36 Chambers, Naughty
by Nature's 1991 self -titled album, as well
as albums for modern chart -toppers like Rihanna,
Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, and many, many others. The
songs and albums that Chris has mastered have
racked up over 20 Grammy Award nominations and
counting. It's needless to say, Chris, that it's
an absolute honor to have you on the show this
evening. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having
me. Now, before we get started, I always like
to ask my first time guests, what does the word
mixtape mean to you? So I'm old, so I know what
a mixtape is. I used to make mixtapes. A mixtape
to me. Is it's a person exposing their favorite
music, like their taste in music, a message that
they want to give and making a tape for someone.
When you make a mixtape for someone, you want
someone to know who you really are and what you
love. And, you know, whether you're giving it
to a significant other or a friend or for a party,
mixtapes like back in the day were really important.
Like when you came to a party with a mixtape.
Everybody was listening and everybody knew whose
mixtape it was. So it was a very important thing.
I've made a ton of mixtapes in my day. Now, tonight's
episode's a bit of a different animal from my
weekly mixtape, as the conversation here is usually
centered around bands and songs. And while we're
still technically centering this episode around
that, instead of talking about the songs themselves.
Tonight, we're going to be digging into the actual
sound of the songs. And then we're going to take
a look at where the loudness wars stand now and
where it might even be headed in the future.
Now, Chris, in case that last sentence made any
of my listeners' heads start spinning, could
you maybe start by providing a top -level 101
definition about what mastering actually is?
Mastering is the last creative step in the music
-making process. It's like Photoshop for audio.
You take what's been recorded and produced and
mixed already. And then we go through it with
like a, it's a third person's take on what we
did. You listen to it and you say, oh, that song
sounds great, but it sounds dull in my room.
Or that song sounds lower compared to the other
songs. That song sounds too bright or too aggressive.
And what we do in mastering is we reshape those
songs to match the overall flow of an album.
For singles, you would treat each song as its
own, you know, flower with its own look and own
smell. But for an album, we kind of like try
and put it all together. I mean, we used to back
in the day. Today, everybody is living in the
single world. So there's a different approach
in mastering, but it's basically taking each
song and making it sound as best as it possibly
can through EQs and limiters and compressors,
different pieces of gear that we do that with.
So then kind of focusing on the album side of
things here, because I know there are a lot of
people that listen to this show that are big
into the album listens. How do you take mastering
into consideration when an album has been recorded
with different producers at different studios?
Because especially in modern times, you have
artists recording everywhere from major high
-end studios to bedrooms and pretty much everywhere
in between. Exactly. So let me just go back in
the day. An album was generally recorded by one
or two people and mixed by one person pretty
much, you know, a full album. Today, like you
said, you know, I work on a, you know, a pop
record. It's got nine producers, 13 mixers, all
different things that now we have to try and
tie the whole thing together so it sounds like
a cohesive album. So it sounds like one piece
of art from one artist as opposed to... 13 different
sounds. I personally like when an album sounds
like an album. Today, some of the younger people
don't really care. They don't really listen to
albums or never have listened to albums. And
they're all about their song on that person's
album. So, you know, I use some of my old school
mentality to work and then I use some of my kind
of modern day, you know, what would I do in this
situation on the project as well. But it's tying
everything together. It's going through it. When
you have that many producers and engineers, it
makes it much more difficult to find that common
ground because you feel like sometimes you're
taking away from some songs to make them match
or adding too much to make it match. That's where
the master engineer comes in with his, you know,
his or her expertise and knowledge of this is
what I would do in this situation. And in my
room, it sounds perfect or it sounds the best
it can be. And rooms are very important in mastering
as well. That's your everyday piece of gear is
the room, not an EQ or a limiter or a workstation.
It's the room itself where you get your sound
from and you become confident in your sound and
know your sound. So very important kind of thing
to have. Well, I want to touch on something you
said there because you talked about the old school
mentality that you have. Now you're an engineer
who navigated the waters between the transition.
analog tape to digital files. So let's use Wu
-Tang Clan's 36 Chambers versus Dua Lipa's Radical
Optimism for an example here. I understand that
the fundamental nature of mastering is going
to be there no matter what the format. Were there
nuances that you had to take into consideration
when you were mastering on tape versus now in
the digital realm? Yes, actually the Wu -Tang,
so funny story, it all came in on digital tape
when it first came in. And I worked on the album
in the digital realm. I mean, with analog gears,
but back into digital. But then as they did the
singles, they remixed it all to tape because
I feel like some of the better mixers at the
time were working still in half inch tape. And
that's what they did. So a lot of the singles
of the Wu -Tang's album. are different mixes
than what's on the album you know and that was
kind of a common thing back in the day today
it's pretty much like you know it's digital file
and it just the digital file goes everywhere
single album cut whatever working in that on
like the Wu -Tang was much longer process everything
was done in real time you know Dua Lipa today
the files are sent to me from you know like Josh
Goodwin mixed most of it he sends me the files
from LA to New Jersey I, you know, log into my
computer, I pull the files down, I put them up
and I just start working on it. Back when I did
the Wu -Tang, they came in, they had tapes. We
had to do a lot of editing, like a lot of assembly
for the album. All those Kung Fu skits and all
those, the speaking pieces, the interludes were
taken from other tapes. We actually recorded
off of VHS in my lounge at the studio, some of
the Kung Fu skits. the lounge all the way into
my room into the converters and rizza played
watching tv in the lounge you know we had a giant
screen old box like rear projector tv playing
the kung fu skits and he's like all right and
i was like ready you know would yell across the
studio you know okay hit it and he'd play the
skit and i'd record it and then i'd edit it into
the album and stuff like that but he had to watch
some of it and know which pieces and It was just
way different. Today, nobody does it. Everybody
has everything done digitally on files and everybody
sends it. Nobody's recording last minute like
back then. We used to do a lot of, back in the
day, we would do a lot of interludes and skits
live in the studio. So I'd be like, just get
me a mic and I'm going to say something. And
you're like, okay. You know, today you'd be like,
get out of here. I can't do that. Yeah, it's
too much. But, you know, back in the day, there
was much more. analog involvement in making everything.
Everything today is pretty much like you said,
people are recording vocals, you know, in hotel
rooms, buses, you know, green rooms at TV shows,
you know, like the weirdest places you heard
somebody did a vocal track or fix something.
Yeah. Back in the day, it was much more like
you really prepared for mastering. You really
finished your album. Everything was kind of done
except for maybe the interludes. And then you
showed up today. Everything's pretty much done
in production. You know, a singer just sings
over a completed track and that's it. It's kind
of crazy today. Now, is that something that you
notice when you're doing a mastering session
where you can kind of almost turn to the artist
and say, you know, I could kind of hear nuances
of a reverb that doesn't sound traditional. Are
you sure you want to keep pushing? Have you ever
sent files back to the artist to say something's
not sounding right here? So that is the question
of the day. That beats all questions. Is it my
place to tell the artist this is just bad? Because
by the time it gets to me, it's gone through
the label, the producer, the mixer, and everybody's
kind of somewhat signed off on it. I don't know
if that's like the full extent of when it gets
to me. A lot of times it's like, get it to mastering,
we'll make decisions later. But I feel like sometimes...
There, you know, sometimes I would like to tell,
you know, the artist or the mixer, hey, this
could use a little more love or, you know, maybe
give this another look at, you know, before we
sign off on it here in mastering. You know, sometimes
there's things that just, you know, somebody's
rushed or the sample wasn't really good or there's
something in the song that's not really good
and they have no time to fix it or they can't
fix it. Now, as somebody who's been mastering
for as long as you have, do you have. certain
albums that you look to as quote -unquote shining
examples of mastering perfection, something you
show clients as a benchmark for where you'd like
to take their album, or does that change from
project to project? For me, it changes from project
to project. I do a really broad section of music
when I master. I do a lot of K -pop. I do a lot
of pop. I do reggae. I do... you know rock i
do metal i do stuff all over the place so my
day is not really like you know it's not like
i could put up a favorite album of mine in the
morning and then kind of go through the day vibing
off of that right because of what i do is so
so varied you know and in the digital world today
like back in the day you were limited to how
much work you could do because of the real -time
work and setup today my you know i have an assistant
do all my setups and he basically just sets up
files in my computer. So I just open up the files
and they're there and it's set up and I start
working. I don't have to align a tape machine
or wind tapes on and off and things like that.
It's much more intense, much more work today
because of that. But I do every now and then
I do listen to some references. If somebody mentioned
something, I'll sit and listen to what they're
talking about to kind of get a color idea or,
you know, a direction. And then I put their music
up and see if it even is close or, you know,
has anything to do with their references. And
then I go from there. I feel a lot of times people's
references today are just like, this is a hit
song you did two years ago and I really like
it. Can you make me like that? It's like, it
doesn't, the reference doesn't work like that.
Right. A reference to me is like, this is kind
of like the song that we're thinking we're like.
you know like this is the vibe of the song the
level the color the transients all the all the
things that have to do with audio is what i take
into account when somebody gives me a reference
not is it a hit but generally people just give
me hit songs as references nobody's giving me
some obscure track from 1993 that I did a hip
-hop record they're like this is the vibe you
know like it's it's always Dua Lipa or Rihanna
or Lady Gaga or something you know it's big records
it's never you know the obscure thing and I'm
way every now and then I get something a little
weird and I'm like okay this guy really means
for me to make it sound like that as opposed
to make it sound like a hit record or you know
a big star That to me is just like, OK, everybody
wants that. Nobody's nobody's bringing me tapes
or files and saying, like, just, you know, whatever.
Do whatever you feel, you know, kind of like
make it do your best work, you know. So, of course.
Now, the loudness wars crept up, maybe for me
at least, almost out of nowhere. And if I think
back, I'd say it started to really become prominent
around the same time that iTunes shot into popularity.
As somebody who works with mastering albums all
the time, did it seem as immediate to you? Or
did you see, well, hear the tides changing during
that time period? So this is going to be a little
history moment here. The loudness wars for mastery
engineers have basically been since the 80s.
Maybe even before that. Radio stations played.
play your music basically back in the day it
was set on one level an engineer set it and you
couldn't go past there you'd blow the system
so whatever the radio station played at they
never really adjusted the level so whatever the
records came in at if the records were loud they
played louder if the records were low they played
at that level and the louder records hit the
radio compressors a little better and kind of
gave it some oomph that maybe it was missing
so people started realizing the louder i deliver
a record to radio the better it sounds on radio
so the loudness war kind of created then and
it also happened in clubs with djs so djs would
always set their volume on 10 and the records
were the mix levels and the louder your record
was for the dj the louder it played in the club
So if they were playing everything on 10, if
your record was 10, it played at 10. If the next
guy's record was seven, his record played a little
lower and people are like, oh, okay. You know,
it was all reactionary to level. We go through
vinyl, the whole thing, the louder the vinyl,
the better for radio. Cassettes kind of nullified
all that. CDs came into play and then it was
more about not having noise, record noise, like
the ground floor of the record. and then it kind
of switched to people loading up cd players and
the louder cds sounded better and the louder
cds played louder on the radio for whatever reason
you know the same thing so everybody started
getting it to make my cd the loudest again and
kind of push the boundaries of digital audio
back then so now fast forward into playlists
and here we are again with the same scenario
if my song sounds the loudest on the playlist
i feel like it stands out more And I mean, if
you take a bottle of hot sauce and dump it on
one portion of your dinner, whatever that is,
is going to be the one where you're like, damn,
that was hot and whatever. Is it better? I don't
know. But you'll remember that one as being the
hottest plate. So the same thing with the songs.
If it plays louder, some people feel like, oh,
it's louder, so it's better. There's kind of
this thing, too, about most people don't notice
a level change until it's 3 dB. they don't notice
1 db or 2 dbs they notice 3 db the average person
so if your record is 3 db louder than somebody
else you notice it as apparently louder and that's
what everybody's looking for the louder the better
it's kind of like stupid and doesn't really make
sense to actually being true so as much as i
hate the loudness wars i hate that name i hate
the whole thing involved with it it's really
true and people really want a louder record so
there is a war over who has the loudest record
and it's never going to end it's going to be
there it's how do we as mastery engineers navigate
that through every genre of medium like from
records to cds to streaming now i don't know
if there's ever going to be anything different
than streaming going forward like what what could
there be you know It was in your head. I don't,
you know, I don't know where, I don't know where
we're going with that, but someone's going to
want to make that louder in your head. You know
what I'm saying? So going forward, the loudness
war is never going to end. That's what I kind
of came here to say today. It's, it's, it's annoying,
but it's never going to end and it's real and
everybody is going to have to deal with it going
forward. Yes. Yes. Music sounds better when it's
not. push to the max. And that is something that
a master engineer can generally tell you like,
okay, you know, if we're here and it sounds good
to everybody, and then the producer, whoever
wants it to be here, because it sounds better
in a playlist, that difference could be a couple
DB and it could be a game changer. For like the
vibe and the feeling and the space and the transience
and the movement of the record by squeezing it
that much more. So that's the part as a master
engineer and all master engineers hate to go
through. And it's like, if it was just this level,
it would sound so amazing. Like it blows my mind
in my room and the whole thing. And when you
push it too much, everything just gets kind of
in your face and it loses the vibe. That's the
part I wish I could really. explain to people
and really guide people in audio but everybody
lives by the thing if it's louder it's better
so it's hard to change we have to change everybody
to get that to work if one person stands out
it's the same way it started in the beginning
one person said if my record's louder it's better
you know so it's never it's never going to change
I said that. Well, it's fascinating you bring
that up because I want to play a short clip.
I did an interview recently with Eric Bass of
Shinedown and his studio album, I Had a Name,
was mastered by Ted Jensen over at Sterling Sound.
And he talked about that. I'd like to play that
because I feel like you and him are on the same
page here. Let's take a listen. Thank you to
Ted Jensen, the legendary Ted Jensen, mastering
engineer at Sterling Sound, because he masters
all of Shinedown's records and all of... my records
and anything i work on i have him master and
believe me man it's something i have to come
to terms with when i listen back to a mastered
record that i've made which is this is not going
to be as loud as everybody else's record probably
like comparatively you know it's just good it's
just not but there's a volume knob there and
if you turn it up three clicks three db whatever
that is, then it will be as loud as everybody
else's record and it'll have dynamics. And so
that is a conscious thing I do. I realized that
I have to give up some loudness shock value in
that, you know, like everybody wants a loud record,
man. I want a loud record. I want a really loud
record. I want the loudest record out there.
Everybody does, but you can't have it both ways.
Is Eric's approach in 2025 a refreshing exception
to the rule? Absolutely. Absolutely. And every
now and then I feel like some people get it when
they hear it the right way. Hardly anybody comes
to master ever since COVID people went out and,
you know, they went to sweet water and they bought,
you know, every piece of gear for home studio
for COVID. And now everybody just stays at home.
Like even big artists, just like, Oh, I'll listen
to it in my studio at home. I know the speakers.
And they miss out on this, what I have here,
which is like, it's a room designed for audio.
It's not some speakers with some diffusers somewhere.
The entire room is set up for the pristine, perfect
audio listening environment. And if they got
to hear what I hear here, they would maybe have
a different approach or they'd have a different
thought about making it loud. in the end and
hearing the difference between it being crushed
here and being dynamic and open here and the
right level but we need people to come in again
you know i you know i have actually have next
week i have two really big artists coming in
two separate projects and i'm excited that they're
coming in because they're gonna hear the stuff
here and know what it's know what i'm hearing
and there's less dialogue involved there's less
guessing involved it's like i look at them and
i watch them be like you know if they're like
like listening and they're like vibing and like
whatever then i'm i'm you know i'm taking that
energy as like okay this is good if they're like
going like this i you know i know we're gonna
have to make some changes so it's an instant
revision note as they say you know it's like
the revision's going on right now Where if it
goes back and forth, you never really know what
someone's listening to it on. You know, I have
giant ATC monitors in here. If they're listening
on headphones, it's a different vibe. If they're
only going to listen on headphones, that's a
different vibe. If they're going to listen on
small speakers, that's a different, you know,
there's just so many things. What I wish a lot
of clients would do and artists would do is trust
the process and the engineer. You know, like
this is not some home thing here. This is a real
studio with, you know. real engineers put this
together, you know, architects and electricians
and, you know, mad scientists put this all together
for, for a good reason. So it's just getting
them to that point. Well, as a listener for me,
there is loud songs like we've talked about,
but then there's brick walled songs. And I've
used that term with casual music fans and I've
kind of received some raised eyebrows over the
years. Can you talk about what brickwalling is
and what it means for you besides headaches as
a mastering engineer? So let me just say first,
the headache part is because you can't do anything.
Brickwalling is where somebody raises the level
of the audio so high that when you actually turn
the knobs, you don't really hear what would normally
happen on a normal level record. You know, you
hear distortion or you hear... like really broad
EQ changes or EQ changes that don't even sound
like what would normally happen because the level
is so loud going through the circuits and pushing
everything. And that's because people want the
record. They want this thing happening. And I
get some of it. So I've done records that were,
you know, minus two luffs, which is like almost
completely destroyed. And it worked for their
genre of music. It worked for what they were
doing. Was I happy working on it? I'm going to
say no. Like it's not something I like to, I
really like to do is deal. Like, I feel like
I'm only using one hand when I'm working on it.
You know, like I'm not, I'm only using one ear
because I'm so limited in what I can do when
a song is lower and has a lot of movement to
it. I can make it tighter. I can make it in your
face if you want, or I can relax it and keep
it nice and loose and have that spatial feeling
around it. When you get the brick wall, you can't
undo that. You know, you can't undo that and
put space back in and uncrush it. So there's
only one direction to go in and that's more,
you know, like it's more, you know, it's like,
what do you do? You know, like it's so limited,
you know, like I said, it's going back to like,
imagine, you know, eating something that's got
so much hot sauce on it. You can't like, what
do you do? Pour milk on it to, you know what
I'm saying? Like you can't undo it. So you just
have to eat it that way and deal with it that
way. It's always going to be that one. note of
like loud and distorted and that's it and some
people like that it's the part about the the
loudness wars that i feel like in the beginning
i didn't get and now i get and that's what it
is some people like that stuff some people think
that's artistically you know what they want well
an album immediately comes to mind for me when
you say that at least in terms of brick walling
and the loudness wars and that's metallica's
death magnetic which Ted Jensen over at Sterling
Sound mastered. However, he's gone on record
saying that the mixes were already brickwalled
before even arriving at Sterling. Is that something
that's become the norm or is that a more extreme
exception to this rule? No, I would say a lot
of the content that comes in now, a lot of the
files that come in are brickwalled before we
get them. Wow. I don't know many master engineers.
I mean, good ones are like people that work in
a real room that would intentionally brick wall
something to just impress somebody and say, look
at the level I got you. Maybe 10 years ago, people
would do stuff like that, but not in today's
world. You know, like I would consider that like
a, just an amateur move if somebody did that.
But mix wise, a lot of times the producers write
these songs and they're. When they're writing
them and creating them, they're ABing against
other songs that are already mastered or released.
So they're dragging their production level up
to that level of a mastered project. And that's
where they're creating their sounds and all their
stuff. And then they hand it off to a mixer.
And if the mixer lowers that, then the producer
is going to be like, hey, that's what I want.
You know, like that's where I've been working.
So mixer's now stuck saying, okay, I have to
mix this. at minus three luffs or four luffs
or whatever you know even six or seven luffs
to mix at is loud you know you're really pushing
the boundaries of you know modern equipment and
it's like i work every day with plugins and a
lot of these plugins aren't really set up to
go that loud you know you're really pushing all
the parameters of these plugins and analog gear
for sure so It's kind of like, you know, they're
stuck there. Everybody's stuck there. Once the
producer says, this is where I am, we're all
stuck there or the writer or the artist or whoever.
We can't undo that in a lot of cases. You know,
if you guys like guys like Shinedown going in
saying, we're going to make this with space and
movement and all that. Love that. Love that.
Because there's always an option to go louder.
You know, there's no, when it's too loud, there's
no option to undo that. Right. And that's where
it's kind of like. You know, I work on some projects
where they're so loud and so distorted that I'm
not necessarily like, like I'm not doing a lot
to it. So I don't really want like a full association
with like, oh, this is my genre or this is my
thing where people listen to and go, man, Chris
really cranked the hell out of that. You know,
it's like, no, I didn't. I didn't, you know,
like you get a little bit of a bad rep when stuff
is really loud like that. you know if it's a
hit record nobody gives a shit everybody's like
oh my god it's so good and i and i really laugh
at times when people like you know a really loud
crushed record becomes a hit and everybody's
like man that sounds so good it's so like whatever
it's like no you like the song it doesn't really
sound that good but you like the song and all
the magic works and i get that part but as far
as mixing or mastering it's not really that good
so let me wind back to metallica which is funny.
Like, I guess 15 years ago, we couldn't talk
about this because it was like a whole thing.
And I think Rick Rubin produced that. And you
know, there was like, he was doing a lot of stuff
loud. He was one of the first guys who was doing
stuff really loud. And I'm a huge fan of Rick.
Like a lot of his production, he did a Tom Petty
album that I think is one of Tom's. Yeah. It's
one of Tom Petty's best albums, you know? And
I'm a total fan, but. I kind of feel like that
level might not have been necessary for that
record at that time. And Ted got a lot of shit
for it. And when he said he didn't do it, you
know, Rick and everybody else got pissed off
saying like, oh, you threw us under the bus or
whatever, whatever they want to call it or whatever
they want to say. And I don't think Ted meant
to do that in any way, but it happened. You know,
it was one of the first records that people were
like, wow, this is really loud and distorted.
And it's not what. you know it wasn't at the
loud level that everybody accepted it went past
that so you know a lot of people shunned it and
now today you would laugh you'd be like okay
that's just an average sound level record you
know exactly because we've worked our way up
to that point now Now, were there any genres
that you feel are more comfortable in the loud
space versus others? Because like you said, Shinedown
is a rock band and they're trying to kind of
have some more atmosphere and space. Do you ever
deal with a pop or a hip hop artist that comes
in and says, you know what? We want space. We
want room to breathe at the top. I've been getting
more and more of that. It's kind of weird. Like
I do everything. I always give the client back
the level that I feel like. okay, this is your
genre. These are your, you know, the people that
you're going to be against or whatever in the
same realm or the same playlist. And I kind of
try and put them in that same level area. And
I've been getting a lot of people lately saying,
Hey, could you lower that a little? I don't,
it doesn't need to be that loud. And I'm like,
sure. You know, like it's going to change a little,
what's going to get a little better, I think,
but you know. I'm really getting into lowering
stuff and it's it's kind of funny as you know
every time I get one where they're like lowered
I kind of feel like oh wow maybe they think I'm
like that loud guy you know like it's like I
don't want to be the loud guy I want to be the
good guy let me go you know but it's hard without
anybody coming in you know like you know what
a lot of stuff I do it's like even a phone call
and explain until I hear it until I work on it
and you know bounce it off somebody It's all
this like kind of give and take thing. You know,
I do my thing. You listen to it. You give me
your thing back. And then, you know, we go back
and forth. But lowering stuff, definitely. It's
definitely cool. So has the vinyl resurgence
over the last 10 or 15 years played a role in
maybe changing the conversation a little? Because
I know for certain that dynamics back in the
early days of vinyl were extremely important.
And if you push it too hot. it could make the
vinyl sound worse when the vinyl goes through
the needle and goes through that process of playing
a record. Have artists started to say, you know
what? I know streaming is where the bulk, but
we need to think vinyl here. Is that, has that
happened to you at all? It has happened. It's
happening more and more where people, you know,
the funny thing today is when people listen to
vinyl they go oh vinyl sounds so much better
it's the loud file cut onto the vinyl so there's
no more dynamics in it but today a few people
are saying like let's not use the loud streaming
version let's lower that let's put something
dynamic on vinyl and do that vinyl has a lot
of physical restrictions electronically just
it's one groove on a disc and it's constantly
going they're next to each other the more amplitude
they have the more space it needs the lower the
level there's all kinds of math involved but
people today are starting to listen to vinyl
and say hey this i wish we could do like a vinyl
version and i've done a bunch of vinyl albums
for people in the last three or four years where
they're like You did my streaming. Now let's
start from scratch and do a vinyl version and,
you know, just give the vinyl cutting guy level
that's good for vinyl where he's not going to
have to raise or lower stuff. It's going to go
through the cutter head. There's not going to
be any kind of problems. And the vinyl sounds
cool. It's interesting. It's different. Like
if you really have a good turntable, you'll notice
it. Part of the other problem is that when you
do vinyl today, when vinyl was the main source,
everybody had it. a turntable and a system and
everybody knew how to maintain the turntable
and the cartridge and people kind of knew about
the needle and the all that stuff today people
either have like a ten thousand dollar turntable
or a hundred dollar turntable yes and the hundred
dollar turntables plugged into your sono system
or whatever you know there's no like preamps
and there's no people aren't really like they're
not really doing the analog turntable thing they're
doing a turntable with modern sound stuff so
there's kind of a disconnect in that sense of
the modern turntable but some artists are definitely
going back to mastering for vinyl and it's cool
there's some really cool i did a 21 pilots like
live record three or four years ago where it
was just for vinyl. There was no streaming thing.
So all the level and everything is just set up
for vinyl. And, you know, it's for a live show.
It's pretty good. It's pretty dynamic. So it's
kind of cool. By all means. Now, Neil Young spent
a lot of time over the years campaigning for
high quality audio in the digital space, dating
back to the Pono player that he put his efforts
into. And there's slowly but surely been adopting
of this, such as Apple Music, Tidal and Qobuz,
maybe a few of the other streaming services,
but it's not fully embraced by the music industry,
even though 4K video is the industry standard
in 5G. Why is there such a hyper focus on the
visual side of things and even audio for videos
such as Dolby Atmos mixes for movies and different
television shows? But with music, it's been such
a slow kind of. Let's see what happens. Transition.
I feel like, so it's of the four genres of entertainment.
I feel like film and television run everything.
They call the shots like Atmos came out of television,
you know, or film. It didn't, it didn't, it was
like surround sound was around and, you know,
whatever, but. As systems got better for television,
Sonos and Bose and all these things, that was
developed for television. It wasn't developed
for music. They just kept trying to tie music
into it because it's like, hey, we make speakers
that play audio. Maybe the music industry could
get on this. So Apple doing their thing with
Atmos was kind of a cool move. We could have
a three -hour conversation about Atmos right
now. i like it and i think it's cool but i think
it's a secondary thought right now i think when
people start focusing on atmos it will definitely
get better and be much cooler but i feel like
film runs everything the audio world the music
world kind of like we navigate around that broadway
and tv like whatever that stuff or not tv but
you know what i'm saying broadway they're like
at the bottom of decision -making and entertainment,
I feel like. But they're just doing Broadway.
Nothing against Broadway people. Of course. But
music, I feel like, is kind of like always getting
the, you know, like, hey, we have a good idea.
Now, you know, film's like, let's do it this
way. And like, hey, we have a really another
cool idea. No, no, you know, television's like,
no, do it this way. You know, and then streaming
services come in and they're like, hey, do it
this way. So we're always being told what to
do. You know, and the record companies just kind
of say, do that. You know, this is good. Hey,
we can do this. Let's change this. So we're always
kind of changing and evolving and getting stuck
in weird places. Like the formats and audio have
changed so drastically and none of it's really
clicked. And it's always been better, like DVD
audio and, you know, all this other stuff, mini
disc. And it's like, film is like, hey, we're
doing 4K and everybody runs out and just gets
4K, whatever, you know, like everybody jumps
on it. i feel like music has never really held
the key we kind of have but not never to get
out of the pocket if you understand that you
know like we're just following film or television
and i don't know i feel like it could really
go somewhere if everybody really gets in it the
artists need to get in on it on atmos and and
all that stuff and the artists really need to
get in on vinyl and say hey i want to make really
good vinyl you know i mean everybody does vinyl
today but i read this thing a couple months ago
that I don't know, 80 % of vinyl is never opened.
Like, they never opened the record. Or it's never
played. You know, they look at the disc and they
look at everything, but they've never played
the record. They're just buying it as, like,
this extra thing. Like, I mean, Taylor Swift,
Olivia Rodrigo, all these big artists that print
four different vinyls. You know, purple vinyl,
red vinyl, green vinyl. You know, single vinyl,
double vinyl. They do all that stuff. And the
fans run out and buy it. And it's physical, so
the artist gets the money. The streaming money,
like, we don't know, you know, where that money
goes or who gets it. No artists that I know are
happy with that, unless you're Taylor Swift or
Bad Bunny or, you know, whatever. But I feel
like the physical part is where artists are making
money, and they should be behind that, you know?
Cassettes are coming back, you know? Like, I
mean, weird things are happening. 45 records
are coming back. Well, as somebody who owns 4
,600 CDs and counting, I have to ask, I always
feel like, at least in the modern age, CDs have
become kind of the redheaded stepchild of the
formats. But there's something that I've always
felt is very versatile about the format. However,
CDs are only getting, in most cases, The brick
walled streaming mix. Tom Petty, we had talked
about earlier when he did the Mud Crutch album
back in the 2000s, put a audiophile CD in with
the vinyl, which I thought was really pushing
those boundaries in what music can be delivered
on CD. Do you see a world where moving forward,
if people start to embrace. sound quality and
dynamics more. We might see CDs start to get
a little bit more of a resurgence the way that
vinyl and even cassettes have. I think so. I
think the next step is really going to be higher
resolution audio, like title going 24 bit. If
I'm going to like listen to some other project,
if it's just a being, I listened to it on Spotify.
If I want to really hear a project and hear how
it sounds, I listen to it on title because I
know I'm listening to the real highest resolution
file if it's available on title. Right. So, you
know, I mean, I'm a master engineer. I love that
stuff. Does the average person know about it?
I don't know. And I feel like today, like, I
feel like Spotify runs the market, them or Apple.
Right. And Spotify does 0 .0 to better. the platform
zero and i if you spotify you know whatever like
i don't know where they're going to go next apple
at least apple's gone into like atmos and you
know you know they're whatever their high resolution
files and stuff like that like they're trying
and titles trying and some other platforms are
trying but spotify just they're just sitting
back and you know whatever files you send in
we don't care we're gonna do our secret Processing
to them and that's that and nobody has any say
or control over any of it But you have to be
on spotify if you want to be a successful artist,
I guess I I don't even know what you know what
i'm saying Like I i'm saying words and they don't
really make sense, but they they do make like
it's the words you have to say Um, I don't know.
I don't know what's next i really hope high quality
audio comes back like when cds got really big
like they were making really good cd players
with really good decoders and you know really
good transports and you know they're making really
good cds like high -end cds and i felt like damn
this is like as a master engineer you're like
yeah good you know really high -end stuff there
are people like me who listen to really good
you know they want to hear it really good and
now today i don't even know i don't know what
the the younger generation is listening to or
what they care about. Well, one thing I know
the younger generation is definitely interested
in, I think this, you can't talk about the future
of mastering without bringing up AI in some aspect.
What are your thoughts on AI? Is it something
that you use as a tool now like you would any
processor in the past? Is it something that you
look down your nose at? Is it something that
gives you concern? Do you think people are just
going to start dropping their songs into AI and
saying, master this for me? So the Lander thing,
when that came out, you know, the first AI mastering
tool, I put something through it. I listened
to it and I was not impressed. And, you know,
a bunch of the guys here were doing it too. Like,
hey, I put this song through, you know, like,
or some people would say, hey, I mastered this
in Lander. But I need you to do your thing. And
I would not listen to the lander file until I
was done mastering. And I swear, every single
time I did it, I made it sound better. And it
wasn't like just I said that. The client said
it, the artist said it, whoever said it, everybody
said it. AI years ago, so much. AI today, it's
probably going to get better. It's probably going
to shake the industry a little or do something.
I don't think it's the end all, and I don't think
it's going to replace people because people still
make music for people where AI makes what people
think they want. You know, like I don't, I don't
know. I don't know how to phrase that yet, but
it could work. I've used, I've tried AI stuff.
I never liked the way it comes out. There's one
plugin that I have. I won't say it, that they
have an AI feature and. Every time I've clicked
on it just to see what it does, it puts the same
seven plugins on it in the same weird seven kind
of things. And I'm like, when I work, I use two
plugins, maybe three, and this use seven every
time. So I kind of feel it was like, just like
overload of like, you know, what would this guy
do? What would this guy do? Maybe I would do
this. Maybe I would do that. And I feel like
that's a lot of. mastering today is like there's
so much equipment available you know back in
the day you had a room with gear in it analog
gear and you can only have so much gear in your
room and in the mastering chain so you learned
how to eq and you know limit on one eq and one
limiter or one compressor or one de -esser and
today like you can put 20 plugins on one song
and i feel like that's kind of the mentality
of the younger generation because it's available
Like, oh, I'll put this on and then I'll put
this on instead of listening to the audio and
trying to get it in its purest form. I think
AI at some point will be something. Hopefully
not while I'm working. You know, hopefully I'll
be like, oh, I read today AI is taking over.
Whatever. But it could be. I just feel like the
human element is so special. Like, we keep trying
to make. fake people and fake everything when
we don't realize the beauty of One person's talent
and how special that is, you know, like one singer
like has so like back in the day Singers had
to be singers. There was no vocal tuning. There
was no whatever you could only comp vocal so
many times So you really had to be a talented
artist. You had to be a talented singer talented
musician talented producer and I feel like today
almost every celebrity has sung some record at
some point you know or whatever because we can
go in and tune them and do whatever and make
music for them um there's whatever it is 1900
submissions a day on spotify you know what i'm
saying like back in the day that wasn't there
because of the human element and i feel like
ai is creating this you know just this stuff
that It's big in numbers, but as far as like
what it means to people and what's happening,
it's not really happening. You know, if you get
that, you know what I'm saying? Like, I kind
of still feel like we are as humans, we make
television so we can watch stuff and cry. We
make movies. We do all this crazy shit that no
other species does. You know, deer don't make
movies. You know, zebras don't, you know, watch
TV. You know, like we do all this crazy shit.
We make fantasy. We make all this stuff to really
push our emotions. And I feel like. Even though
computers can put that stuff together, they can't
do it in the way that we do it. We have crazy
minds that work in crazy ways. You know, some
of the greatest talent I've ever worked with
are insane people. And until you can make AI
insane, I don't think you're going to be able
to, like, do that. We're a very special thing
on this planet. You know, as far as art and music
and film, it's very special. That it is. And
Chris, this has been an absolute pleasure. I
thank you so much for joining me on my weekly
mixtape. Thank you. It's been really fun. And
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