Ep. 05: What Exactly is Mastering?? With Greg Reierson

Stephen: [00:00:00] Welcome to Secrets from the Scene. In today's episode, we've got Greg Reierson, who is an old friend of mine. I've known Greg for like, I think about 18 years now. Greg: Maybe so yeah Stephen: yeah. I've done a lot of projects with him over the years, and he's a fantastic mastering engineer, probably one of the most well known mastering engineers in town. And I'm excited to have him here. Greg owns Rare Form Mastering, which he's done over 9, 000 commercial, records at this point, which is quite impressive. He's been in business for 37 years and has done masters for the likes of Prince, The Cure, Dan Wilson, Sufjan Stevens. All American Rejects, Motley Crue, All Time Low, Keb Mo, and others. It's an impressive list, to say the least. So, please welcome Greg to the show. Greg: Thank you. Thanks for being here. Sure. Stephen: Greg, it's been a minute. We've done so much work [00:01:00] together. It's, it's crazy to think back, about that journey. Like on my, from my own standpoint, the very first project that I brought to you, you were still at an older location. I don't remember what that building was. Greg: I was at the precision studio downtown. Stephen: Yeah. Precision. That's right. Yep. When did you set up your new, your current spot? Greg: So the Guthrie went in downtown when it was being built, all the studios and everything along that technology row had to go, that was about 2005. I left there six, 2005 or six. So I, I built mine spring of 2006. I think that's right. Stephen: Yeah. And this would have been 2005 or so when I, yeah. . Stephen: That's crazy. Let's just start by talking a little bit about your background. First of all, are you originally from Minnesota? Greg: been here 34 years. Okay. originally from, born in California. My dad's from North Dakota. So I bounced back and forth between those two places. My mom's from California as a kid [00:02:00] and then finally settled in North Dakota. Grew up on a small farm and, went to college in Fargo. And out of college, I thought, you know, where should I go? Where should I go to do this thing that I like to do this music thing? And what's a little bit bigger city that's not too big. And Minneapolis was the obvious choice. So picked up and moved on here in 1989. Stephen: And then were you in that Precision location? Greg: I started, uh, with a company called custom cassette and it was a cassette duplication company. They needed a guy that would. Master the, the bin loop masters for cassette manufacturing and also work on the equipment. And that was like perfect for me. That's just exactly what I,, I was a new as a tech, but I knew how to do the other stuff. And so I learned the tech stuff as I went. And, I was there for five years before I moved to Precision, moved to Precision in, um, in 94. Stephen: And was Precision your company or Greg: Nope, Precision Powerhouse was a big AB company. [00:03:00] they had, let's see, I think three soundstage, well three sound studios, audio studios, and three or four video editing suites, a big soundstage, multimedia, cassette, and video duplication, all that stuff. So big company. I don't know how many people work there, 50, 60 people work there. So I just had a small one, just one room there. Stephen: Okay Yeah. Greg: I can barely remember that, but. Yeah. And I was there for 11 years and, it was, it was good. It worked for me. Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. Well, how did you, I mean, growing up in a small farm in North Dakota, how did you get into music? Like how did, Greg: so I, you know, I was a musician, I was a drummer, and I think I was in my first band around 15 or something, so I'm the guy that learns how the PA works, of course. Plus I'm the guy of all my friends had the big stereo and you know, , just that guy, I had a cousin that was , it was a stereo guy fixed everybody's TVs and radios, and he kind of got me into that and I get to college and, I've [00:04:00] got a computer science major. As a freshman that I hated, Stephen: Okay. Greg: ditched out of that very early, started taking elective classes, took a radio production class and the instructor of that class was the local NPR affiliate. program director. And so he said, come to work for me. And I said, sure. Okay. So I switched my to mass comm. I went over to work for the radio station and it just kind of all snowballed from there. I was doing location recording. I was doing editing, production in the background, kind of stuff, backroom stuff, and my first mastering credits happened there. , it was cassette because that was what people could afford to do in the mid eighties. And I remember getting a cassette back. I said, mastered by it's like, well, what even is that? , you know, I edited this thing I did some small tweaks to things, but didn't really know, , that that was a thing. , I mean, I'd grown up listening to records and I would read the liner notes, but I'd read who the [00:05:00] musicians were. I'd stop at the rest of the credits. I was like, I wonder who the bass player is, who the singer is. I didn't really pay attention to the rest. And so at that point, I was like, okay, let's read the rest of the credits. What are these other people doing? And, that's where it all started. Stephen: So your first mastering credit, you didn't know you were mastering. Greg: Yeah. Cause I already been doing that very same thing for. For broadcast , at the radio station, a location recording was done of some local band or a choir or a concert or something. And I would edit it together for content. They would play it on the radio and that's essentially mastering, you know, it's basically post production anyway. Stephen: Got it. So. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I, I love that because in some ways I feel like that's going to tie into later parts of the episode when we just explain mastering. Because I think a lot of people now with home recordings are doing mastering and don't know that they're mastering. Right? Yeah. Okay, you're doing all the different steps. Why mastering? What drew you to that spot in [00:06:00] terms of your focus? Greg: I think it's the,You can take your time with things. You can back up and try something different. Or, you know, you're on your own time. it's, it's not like a live thing where this has to happen right now. You don't have any choice. it's not like a recording session where you have, a band in a room and they all, they're all looking at you saying, we're ready. What are you doing in there? You know, or the other way around. I can work on my own pace. , I can experiment and try things and learn how this all works. , so I just, I just like the aspect of. of the post guy in a room working alone until you were happy with it. Stephen: Yeah. Greg: And I still do. , that hasn't really changed. , It's really strange because prior to COVID, I had a lot of sessions, attended sessions at my studio. COVID kind of shut all that down. Post COVID,, I barely do any attended sessions and I like it better that way. And what I do is, is have clients in at the very end if they want to listen, but so it's all the way back to that guy alone [00:07:00] in a room just working. Yeah. Getting Stephen: to tinker with things. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Before we move on to the next stuff, I want to go back to , your time in North Dakota on a farm. Because I grew up on a farm. Okay. In Southern Minnesota. Alright. And was also that guy that like, Figured out the PA, started playing in a band when I was 15, that sort of thing. So there's all these parallels. What was the farm like? Greg: Small grain farm. and as you know very well, stuff on the farm breaks, you drop what you're doing, you fix it. Right? So that, whole sort of mentality of, I'm gonna make this thing work now, has served me my whole career. especially as I got into vinyl, you know, , building my own equipment and all that kind of stuff. So I think there's just a DIY attitude there. that serves a guy that has his own company and kind of just a one man band. Stephen: Absolutely. Greg: that really works well for me. Stephen: Yeah. So when you're in North Dakota, you start playing in bands, what were you playing? Greg: [00:08:00] Cover bands. Oh yeah, we're playing The Cars, we're playing Leonard Skinner. This is, you know, this is 80s, very early 80s. Stephen: That makes sense. yeah. absolutely. So rock and yeah. Yeah. And you're the drummer. Okay. Greg: Yeah. Stephen: . So when you were in college, were you taking music lessons or was that Greg: I didn't. Okay. , college was busy for me. I ran track in college. I worked at the radio station. , there was a group called Campus Attractions, which is the group that brought bands to play at school. And so I did roadie work. I did rigging work, spotlights, that kind of stuff. And so I was kind of too busy to even play in bands in college. And it wasn't really until I moved here that I got back into playing. Stephen: Sure. How long did you play live for? Greg: when I moved here, I joined a band in 90. And I quit playing just after my kid was born. I quit playing about 15 years ago. so I had a pretty good run. I played in lots of bands, a lot of Phil stuff. Stephen: Sure. Greg: But, you know, I also recognize that[00:09:00] I'm not Michael Bland, you know, I'm just a guy who can play drums. Okay. And it's fine if I stop, because there's plenty of guys that are better than me that can do it, and that's great. And, I just moved on, Stephen: But I have to imagine that that Having all those experiences from being a musician and knowing an instrument to doing the roadie work to working broadcast, all that stuff helps give you a wider perspective, a wider understanding of everything that goes into Greg: Yeah, for sure. To you. Absolutely. mean, I've never been a, a studio recording engineer, but I've been on the other side of been in this room playing. , and I, you know, my own bands, we did a couple of records that I did engineer for sure, but I was never the guy , in your room day to day doing that kind of thing. So , I saw the perspective of the musician. you know, a little bit different view. Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. Which is still, I think, very helpful no matter what part of the process you're in. . , I feel like we've danced around. We got to get to like, what is mastering for the [00:10:00] people that don't know what mastering is. And I do want to point out really quick for those that aren't. Watching on YouTube. If you're just listening, Greg and I are, sitting doing this interview in my studio in the Twin Cities out in Excelsior. So we're sitting down in the live room and that's what he was talking about in terms of being in this room where the musicians are actually recording versus the control room, which is where I work, , my office. But Greg, walk people through what mastering is. Greg: , the classic definition is it's the last step of the recording process. , you are back to sitting in this room that we're in right now, the live space. A band comes in here and lays it down and you're in the control room. You're recording it and then later you're going to mix it. You've got a song, you've got a collection of songs. Somebody has to put that all together in some cohesive whole. Or if it's just a single, it still has to match what's out in the rest of the world. ,I'm basically a listener. That is my primary job. , that's like 90% of what I do. The other 10% [00:11:00] is I turn some knobs once in a while to change things after I've heard and listened and decide something needs to change. But it really is a listening game. And,You know, that's just one of those things. It's a skill that you build over time, a long time. And,I haven't heard a lot of things I've done from like, you know, the late eighties, early nineties, , it'd be kind of fun to go back and listen to see what decisions I made then. but also everything was so different than technology. It was very different than. you can pull any record off the shelf from then and listen to it and say, well, I would have done that differently. So you can't be too hard on yourself about that. Stephen: Well, and even the, Devices, people are listening on change so much. So what, Greg: huge, huge change. Stephen: so what you're mixing and mastering for in those days is different than what you might Greg: Well, I'll make this, I'll make this argument. Let's just say in 1975, right. I was 10 years old. what did people listen to? , people have big stereo systems at home , if they were into that, or they had a three inch speaker on their dash, or they maybe had an AM radio, just a little, you [00:12:00] know, little portable. so that's a pretty big range for a mixing engineer or a mastering engineer to hit. And they did in the seventies. If you listen to music on the little three inch speaker here at all, or the big tower speakers that somebody spent all their money on , it sounds great in all those environments. And so that's a thing now where people think less about that. People think, well, , what about just the headphone market? Or what about, , just the boom box market or the club market? And my argument always comes back to, . If it sounds right, it'll sound good everywhere. So that argument still flies. Stephen: . I guess one thing that I've always wondered about, and maybe you can speak to this in terms of the consumer listening devices, let's just say speakers for,maybe because of changing technology or whatever. But I feel like , obviously there's more bass than there used to be in those devices Greg: now, So, Stephen: you know, in terms of mixing for that, that like the common, playback [00:13:00] systems now are generally more bass heavy than they Greg: once were. They have, and they also have, something's kind of artificial base, which is right. The missing fundamental. creating harmonic distortion to make the bass sound bigger. That's how these little speakers work, and it's amazing how that works. and how the small headphones can sound so good. Stephen: right? Greg: they're, they're faking it a little bit. But , from a consumer perspective, that's fantastic. You know, it's really what you want. But, still, still, play the 70's stuff. The good stuff on those systems still sounds good. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. So, it all comes back down to how good is the spectral balance of your recording and your mixing and then the mastering. If it sounds right on a really good system, it should sound good everywhere. And, the other thing now is, I think I heard a statistic, it was 80% of people listen on headphones now. Stephen: I believe that. Greg: Streaming from their phone, their headphones, or whatever it is. , you know you have to hit that. [00:14:00] But you also know that people have big systems, or car systems, or club systems. So, , back to the whole mastering, , why mastering, right? , your target is so broad now. You know, you have to hit all those things. So, that's why you need to keep it right in the middle of the lane. Absolutely. It can't be leaning too far this way or that way. If you're mixing just for headphones, you're missing the big systems. Stephen: Yep. Greg: If you're mixing for the big system, you're missing the headphones. Stephen: Plus you just end up chasing your tail Greg: Totally. Stephen: if you do that, cause then all of a sudden you pop it into a different Greg: Right. Stephen: you go, why doesn't it sound good here? Greg: I've had clients bring a boombox in and say, hey, this one note sticks out of my boombox. I'm like, that'll happen. Do you want to mess up your mix for your boombox? Mess it up for everybody else, you know? Stephen: Yeah. Okay. So mastering is the final step. And first and foremost, you're listening and trying to decide what might need to change, , and then you maybe tweak a little bit. I think that one way that I find myself describing to clients like what mastering is, is by telling them what it is not [00:15:00] right. , just trying to give the difference between mixing and mastering and that, you know, mixing, you have all the individual pieces, you know, each individual track and you're turning things up and down and you're making the bulk of the creative decisions in terms of. how you want the song to sound, you know, what kind of effects you want on it. in mastering, while you can do an amazing amount of stuff still in mastering, especially with today's technology, generally speaking, it's more of a conservative approach. Greg: a broad brushstroke. Yeah. , the biggest benefit that a good mastering engineer brings to the table is independent listening to something they've never heard before. I've got the sound of, you know, thousands of songs sort of stored in my head and when a new song comes in, I will know pretty darn, I mean, within seconds, , this is working, this part isn't working. This is bugging me. And you can dial that in pretty quickly. , when I master a record, I will spend a [00:16:00] couple of minutes on a song and I'll jump to the next song in a couple of minutes on a song. I don't want to imprint. I don't want to get used to it. I don't want to adapt to a sound. If you've been tracking and then mixing a song and spending hours and hours and hours on it, you stop hearing things. And my first listen is like, Hey, did you notice this? You know, so that's the value of a mastering engineer. I think that's, that's one of the big values of that, especially in a controlled environment where that person listens all the time and knows what to expect, you know? Stephen: I could not agree more. . You know, if you have a home set up, done any recording on your own , and you're doing the mixing on your own and you're just throwing a limiter on there and you're trying to get it to sound right. You've probably had that feeling of going, I am just working on this endlessly and I keep tweaking and I'll go listen to it in my car or on headphones and then I keep tweaking and I cannot ever figure out when it's done. Well, it's because you're just losing the sense of [00:17:00] perspective. Exactly. The more and more you listen to something, you just cannot really hear it the way that an average listener is going to hear Greg: Yeah. That Stephen: first listen is so... It's so important and it's so clear Greg: And plus I'm not listening to any specific thing. I'm not really even listening to the music itself. . My job is more about structure of, the sound of the music. , I'm not a content person, you know, I'm a sound person. And so it doesn't matter what the genre is. It doesn't matter what the content is to me at all. what the instrumentation is, none of that matters. So if you're tracking it and mixing it, and you're paying attention to this guitar solo and this vocal performance and all this stuff, I'm listening to this whole thing and I'm not paying attention to any specific pieces. And so that allows me to step way, way back and say, well, how does it all work together and what's sticking out and what's missing and you know, Stephen: Sure. Greg: That's the perspective thing. . Stephen: I would say the other important thing to understand about [00:18:00] mastering is that you might need specific things for specific formats. So if you, again, you've got your music, , most people in the computer, right, making it there. And then , if it's going to just digital platforms. Sure, you're already in this digital world. , you've got a WAV file and you're going to submit it to wherever. But Greg also does vinyl mastering, which is a whole Greg: beast. Yep. Beast is a correct word. Yeah. I've been doing that for, let's see, I think I got my lathe in 2012. Stephen: Now explain to people what a lathe is. Greg: Okay, so, the record is a flat disc, right? ... It's hard to explain the whole process, but let's try this. A blank record is something called the lacquer. It's a very soft material that you cut a groove into. The lathe is the device that cuts the groove Stephen: Mm hmm. Greg: My record lathe , is kind of an industry standard Neumann VMS 70. , it's 53 years old. [00:19:00] Most of it, some bits are, you know, replaced and remanufactured and fixed and whatever, but , this is the, basically the status of the vinyl industry is at least on the cutting side, a lot of ancient equipment, a lot of old, old stuff. There are new presses now in the world and there are new galvanic systems, but The cutting equipment is old and so you got to make sure this stuff is happy, you know I kind of describe it like you have a classic car and you take it out and everything works and out the blinker doesn't work today All right, I'll fix that. You know, all Stephen: the brakes are Greg: today. Stephen: Okay, I'll fix that. That's kind of a lathe. Greg: like, you know, it's got a million little pieces and you're always kind of chasing down What's working today. And Stephen: Do they make new lathes? Greg: No, haven't been made the last lathe. I think the last Neumann was an 82. so yeah, it's 40 years ago. Wow. But, after you've had a lathe long enough Stephen: time, you have Greg: eventually fixed everything at least once or twice. mine is [00:20:00] super happy right now. It's like, it's working Stephen: so great. And, uh, there was a vinyl conference in town last month. Greg: and the cutting guys get together of course, and talk and I said that and everyone's like, shhh. Stephen: up. Don't, yeah. Greg: You know, but, but luckily , I've got knowledge to fix it myself. And there's a couple of guys, and there's one guy in town, Eddie Cialetti. Yeah. Hey Eddie. that has saved my butt plenty of times. And there's some other guys in the country and other guys in the world that, you know, if you get deep enough, they can fix your thing. Stephen: Sure. So , if you want to make a vinyl pressing of a project that you worked on, you Greg: have Stephen: to go to somebody that has a lathe to Greg: lacquer Stephen: a lacquer cut. And then that lacquer goes to the vinyl manufacturing plant. Greg: That's right. Well, it goes to the plating shop first. So the, the lacquer that I cut is a very soft material and the plating shop turns it into metal stamping parts. Yeah. And then the stampers go off to the press. Stephen: Okay. Stampers is just a more [00:21:00] solid device. Stampers Greg: is nickel, so it's hard. Yep. You can get about a thousand records out of stampers. Stephen: Oh, they, so you can only do so much after Greg: one? So, well, there's a whole process of making,, the father, the mother, the stampers. Okay? And from the father you can make X number of mothers, and from the mother you can make X number of stampers. And, there's a finite number of records you can make from one lacquer master. So if you're, if you're, you know, who Adele or somebody, you might need a few more lacquers cut, but generally speaking, a local band is going to press a thousand records. And a bigger band is going to do 10 And, you know, some of the bigger titles that I cut maybe 40, 50, 000 and, you know, , they'll do multiple step plating process off of my one lacquer. So that still Stephen: Sure. Where did you learn how to run a lathe? Greg: Good grief. there is a community of people around the country that mastering people that I've known for years that, I found out which of them had a lathe and talk to them and got curious about it, [00:22:00] you know, maybe 15 years ago. And, there's a couple of guys in particular I would call and say, Hey, you know, I'm kind of thinking about this. And they're like, Can you fix stuff? , , Hey, I can. Okay, well you can't get one because there's none for sale, you know, that kind of thing. So there's all these roadblocks. Wow. and then finally, a friend of mine in New York said, Hey, quick, go to this other guy. He's selling his lathe. Get there first. And so I called the guy right away and like wired him money and it was mine. I had to drive down to Atlanta to get it and drive it back and, I had it for six months before I build a client. Six months of poking at it and fixing it and, you know, trying how does this thing, how does this work? What's a groove supposed to look like? , it's a big learning curve. Stephen: And how do you check your lacquer? Greg: well, you can play it. It's very soft. You can play it though, with the delicate playback system. Plus there's a microscope on the lathe itself, so you can look at the groove directly.[00:23:00] And that's how you measure the width and depth of the groove, and , you see what you've got, what you're working with. Stephen: Amazing. And you started doing cassettes. What's the process of mastering for cassettes? Greg: You know, it's not even all that different. I mean, The process for cassette is, back in those days, it was a bin loop tape. , you make a half inch tape with two tracks going one way and two tracks going the other way. That's just like a cassette. A bigger version of a cassette. That goes into an endless loop duplication system. So you splice the ends together and it just goes and goes and goes and goes. but it's kind of the same thing. , have limitations of the medium. Cassette tape runs very slowly, it can't handle a lot of high frequency, it can only handle so much level, and so it's very nonlinear in that respect, and vinyl is similar in the fact that it's very nonlinear format, it's not a what goes in what goes out at all, so it has very strict high frequency limitations, it has some low frequency limitations, and everything is level [00:24:00] dependent, and it's just this balancing act of ,What can I do that in the end on the player's table will, A, sound good, B, not distort. It's kind of the game. , how do I cheat distortion on the playback side? So that's the thing. If there's distortion, how do I make sure that distortion is colorful and interesting? Stephen: Right. Which Greg: kind of the sound of vinyl. If, if vinyl has a sound, I describe vinyl as high aesthetic. Like digital, good digital is high fidelity. And vinyl's not really high fidelity. , what goes in sounds different on the other side, but it's high aesthetic. It's got an effect. It's got a sound people like, and , that's what people go for it for. . Stephen: Yeah, so , clearly people do, prefer what's happening on vinyl than what goes in is not what comes out in the harmonic distortion and that sort of thing, which kind of makes me come to one other question, which is, , from a mastering, from a creativity perspective, you've got sort of. The technical side and then just the creative side. [00:25:00] And I feel like that's a little bit of part of that equation too, where, you know, when you get something in, you can listen to it and go, is this good technically? And is this good creatively? Yeah. Cause some things are meant to be. Greg: Well, you know, sometimes I run into that problem, , the problem is with the engineer that gave it to me. I'll say, I'm having trouble with this in the vinyl perspective, and they'll say, well, that's what the client, approved. I'll be like, Great. It's going to distort. I . Distortion is color, right? , we use distortion as, part of the palette and a lot of stuff has a fair amount of it and you know, it can get gritty and whatever. And you have come to some point where you're like, I like it up to here. If I goes to here, it's too much. And so fine here in the digital world, but in vinyl, this starts to just break up and fall apart. So. Yeah. Yeah. , like I said, it's very nonlinear. There's a lot of high frequency control happening, limiting, high frequency limiting, de essing, that kind of thing happening. just sort of like behind the scene, you shouldn't [00:26:00] notice it kind of thing. Like hopefully anything I do, you don't really know I did it, , , there's always some amount of control. And, when stuff is right at the edge coming in. It really pushes that boundary and sometimes they'll get the test pressing back and say, well, why is it distorting here? And I'll say, because remember that thing we talked about, you know, , that siblings that you are loving , in the digital world, it's just too much for vinyl. And I've tried. To mitigate it. But this is where we are now. So sometimes I'll send those back. I'll say, Can you just DS this a little harder on your side? I can do it. and I do. But if it's aggressive, and there's a lot of it, I would prefer for like the mastering engineer who sent it to me to do it and then have the client sign off on it before I try to cut it, Stephen: Right. Yeah. Greg: It's usually high frequency stuff like that. Stephen: Yeah. Vinyl is its own thing obviously because of the considerations with the medium, , in the digital world, you know, you're working with a local band, you get something that is [00:27:00] creatively lo fi. Sure. You know, how Greg: common. Stephen: yeah, it's gotta be common, but Obviously there's going to be a lot of gray area, right? Greg: I'm of the opinion that if they like it, it's good. Stephen: So when it comes in, how do you figure out what's intentional? Greg: Yeah. Sure. some of that boils down to , what I have to guess their monitoring system was like. Because very often there's stuff on the bottom end that I know they never heard. Yeah, definitely. Like all of this 30 Hertz energy, I bet they never heard that. Stephen: Yeah, unless you have a subwoofer in your room. And if it's Greg: tuned properly and in balance and in phase and all this stuff. Yeah. And so, on a pretty regular basis, I'm like, let's get some of that 30 Hertz down. And Stephen: hmm. Greg: the distortion that 30 Hertz was causing in their monitor system that was creating upper harmonics. Let's try to reintroduce some of that into the mix. So the 60 and 120 , that it was generating in the speaker. that isn't in the actual signal. let's see if I can invert this so that I've got less of this , [00:28:00] sub bass and more tone in the bass kind of thing. That's a pretty common thing. yeah, so it boils down to what I expect they didn't hear when they were working. Cause I, I expect it,, what they heard in the studio made them happy, you know? . Otherwise , they wouldn't have sent it to me. , they think it's done. They're very happy with it. And if I get it and there's an obvious problem, that's usually what I figure is the monitoring wasn't quite working for them. So sometimes I'll make that call and say, what about this? , can we tweak this? made a lot of friends that way, , made a few enemies that way, because people don't like to hear that their thing is imperfect. , but the ratio, I think is like for every 10 projects that I've sent back, nine of those guys say, thank you. Stephen: And Greg: the guy that doesn't, I don't want to work with him anyway. , he's interested in his own ego and , not how good this project is. my, view of my job is just to make everybody happy is to make the end listener happy. So I'm the bridge between the artist and the end listener. And there's a lot of engineering steps in the middle,[00:29:00] , I will make an argument saying the listener might prefer, and the artist will say, but I want, as I try to bridge that gap. Stephen: Yeah. So it's Greg: doing something that's really like unusual, like different than other genres or different than the genre they're working in and they really argue hard for it, then it's, well, it's their art, you know, that's, that's Stephen: how they want it to be. Well, I think that one thing that people should know, and if you're new to. To recording. , if you do recording at home or even if you're in a studio and you're getting started with that, I know like for me, the one thing that took me a really long time to figure out is that what I was hearing. Wasn't necessarily accurate. Greg: Sure. Stephen: And I just feel like a lot of people don't understand that concept, like just acoustics And what a room is doing to the sound that your speakers are putting out and what those speakers are putting out in the first place Is complicated. Yeah, it's very complicated to actually Hear the music Perfectly, because Greg: small[00:30:00] Stephen: and cheap speakers and things like that are all really drastically changing what is actually Greg: happening And and those speakers like, you know, the less expensive speakers you might see in a smaller studio. don't reveal small changes very well at all. , they've got a lot of inherent distortion and people make the argument, well, if it sounds good on those, it'll sound good on anything. And I don't agree with that. I think that's true of, of really highly accurate speakers because like a system like mine, stuff that sounds good in there, I know will sound good everywhere. And stuff that has flaws, I know I'll hear the flaws that other people may have missed. And so some of my favorite recordings, like in history, sound terrible in my studio. They might sound fine, you know, on a small system somewhere or, at a low volume or whatever. but when you really listen, you're like, ew. So that, that's a thing, you know, big hit songs, songs never heard of doesn't matter. There's, there's quite a, kind of a range. But the [00:31:00] really, really good stuff sounds good everywhere. And that's, that's every mastering engineer's goal is to find those songs as references. You know, I've got a pretty good reference library from quite a different genres that I will pull up and say, I know this sounds good and okay, this is the project I'm working on today. How do I push this a little farther in that direction? Stephen: Using references is great earlier on , in the Greg: the stages Stephen: too, just to make sure that you're listening to music in between. You know, maybe breaks or something so that you can kind of recalibrate your ear a Greg: Exactly The palate cleanser. Yeah. So I'll be deep into a session and I will question what I'm doing. I'll throw a reference song on and if the reference song sounds wrong. It's because my ears have adapted to something. Stephen: Exactly. The reference Greg: song hasn't changed. So I have to stop. I have to just, you know, give it half hour, come back. Then I'll put the reference song on again. And okay, it sounds right now. Then I'll listen to the thing I'm working on. Then I'll see where I'm at. Stephen: [00:32:00] Yes, then you know, oh, I got too used to something else. Greg: that's kind of the, the mixing versus mastering argument right there. Because in mixing, you're just going down this path the whole time. And when you get to the end of the path, you finally look up where am I, you know, that's when everything might be leaning this way. So yeah, that's the perspective thing. Stephen: . And I think one of the number one advantages of using an outside mastering engineer is just to have a fresh perspective. Absolutely. Particularly, I mean I know it matters, A single and an album, but particularly the bigger the project, just usually because it equates to more hours, the more you've spent on those songs, , if it's a, full length album versus just one song, granted, one song is still great to have an outside perspective, but particularly if you're putting a collection together, I Greg: I Stephen: think a mastering engineer, that's not you will be, not yourself, Greg: yeah [00:33:00] yeah Stephen: will be really, really beneficial. And to trust Greg: that people send me singles a lot And I'll send it back and they'll send it out into the world. Then they'll send me another single or two or three. And I will maybe then go back and tweak the first two because, oh, this record is going in a different direction. Stephen: Yes Greg: So it's all, it's all a balance. It's all interactive. . I'm kind of curious how, in your mind, , Stephen: how should Greg: somebody go about picking a mastering engineer? I don't know. It's very tricky. I mean, people say read credits of your favorite records. Sure. I say, I like it when people want to come to the studio and meet me. Or even just call. You know, people look at a credit list and that is kind of helpful, but the problem with credit lists is you have no idea what the mix sounded like. Stephen: So, Greg: All the best records, all the best sounding records you can buy in the store or stream or whatever came from the best mixes, so not [00:34:00] necessarily mastering engineers doing. Stephen: Because it's very possible that the mastering engineer said, Yeah, this sounds great, Greg: sounds great. Yeah, and you know, the big name guys, the biggest name mastering guys are working with the biggest name mixing guys who are doing the best mixes and they have the least to do. Right. Where if you're working with a lot of indie stuff, a lot of local stuff, you might have a lot of work to do to get things to be in range of where you want it to be. So, you need to, you need to be able to hear your own stuff before, after to make good judgments. I think, and having a track record of somebody really makes that a lot easier. but yeah, I mean, so much of my work is just referral. So , it's, repeat business, like most of it, then a lot of referral work because people have just had a good experience and want to come back. Stephen: Yeah, reputation is huge. Greg: I mean, that's all anybody has in this business. Stephen: Yeah, which actually is a good segue. I kind of want to know a little bit more about your evolution, your history as a music professional, not specifically to [00:35:00] mastering, but just, you know, your background in the, in the scene here in, in the Twin Cities, like, what has it been like to work full time in music to make a living in music and in the Twin Cities. Greg: me, it's been great. I came in at a good time. it seemed like when 89, there were still quite a few big studios in town doing a lot of work. And so, you know, I met those people and got established. A new guy, but still, , starting to do work with these people who are well established this was before the advent of really affordable gear was common, like there wasn't a guitar center yet, you know, there wasn't a Sweetwater yet. wasn't like start up Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, it was, there was, you know, you could buy a TASCAM system or a FOSTECH system and get rolling and do that kind of stuff. That, that was there, that was just kind of the all that stuff.[00:36:00] but you kind of had to get in somewhere to get, you know, experience. And, a lot of that has changed now. It's been democratized in a way that. It allows anybody to play with it, which is good and bad in, in anything in the world, you know, and anytime you've got more people doing it, you're going to have more good people and more bad people. And, you know, the average quality might drift. But, I, I feel really fortunate that I got in when I got in because like, you know, starting now it'd be very competitive and very difficult to make a name for yourself, I think. Stephen: Yeah. Greg: You know, hard to break in and, and, because there's a lot of noise in the system now. There's just so many people doing so much stuff. There's go look for an online mastering shop and you'll find hundreds, thousands. I don't know how many. Stephen: Yeah, well now there's all the AI mastering stuff. Sure, yeah. Greg: Yeah. I haven't really been keeping track of that very much. I don't know what's going on there. Stephen: Well, I mean, not that you would need to by any means. I Greg: don't feel threatened by it. I [00:37:00] made the argument years ago that,the AI stuff, at least of the day, can identify what a good song sounds like and, you know, what it's supposed to be, but when it comes to something that has problems, let's say, One instrument in the mix is just wacky or, you know, the frequency band adds up to the right amount of energy in the frequency band, but it's the wrong blend of things. How does it know? You know, , I don't think AI is there. It probably will get there someday. I don't think it's there yet. Stephen: Yeah, I don't think so either. I mean, I think it's going to be just hit and miss. Greg: Yeah. Stephen: might find it that it does a good job sometimes and then not other times and... Greg: Catalogs are using it, just to get levels consistent and that kind of stuff. And for that, I'm sure it's fine. It's just not who my client base is. Stephen: I'm curious how the music, scene locally has changed over the years. Greg: , you know, 80% of my work comes from out of town now. Stephen: Oh, it does. Greg: Yeah. So I don't, Stephen: Is that a lot, largely because of the vinyl stuff? Greg: A lot of it's the vinyl stuff. yeah. Stephen: Interesting. Interesting.[00:38:00] Well. There had to have been a time where, , a lot of it was local, Greg: right? Mm-hmm. it all, it was all local to start. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Stephen: So, , that would probably make you, you know, at least at that time, prior to the shift to being more out of town work, like, you'd probably hear more local music than anyone else at that point. Greg: The thing that, mastering engineers know, and to a certain extent, mixing engineers know. Is that there are hundreds and hundreds of fantastic bands that nobody's ever heard. I hear records all the time. I share music with my friends once in a while. That they're like, who's this? Well, this band was dead 10 years ago. You never heard of them and they're gone. And, you know, they're not even on Spotify or whatever, but it's great. And so that's a thing. Yeah. You know, there's so much fantastic music that is just kind of at a dead end. Stephen: Yeah. You start to realize how talented everyone Greg: Yeah, yeah. And so, after a while you're like, I'm a big star because I had this accidental hit and whatever, you're like, great, I know [00:39:00] 25 bands as good as you, you know what I mean? Stephen: yeah. not too starstruck Yeah. Well, and I think that's probably good for, for artists here. Once in a while I know that, you know, once in a while I'll have somebody that's like brand new, come into the studio and they'll do a first session or something and they might ask me like, What do you think of my stuff? And it's like, yeah, you know, it's great. Good, good job. But you know, they'll want to, they'll want more specifics. Like, do I have a chance? And the way I sort of have answered that question over the years is, is, you know, well, you, you picked my studio because why you heard some stuff that I've done and, you know, and I played you some music, you, you're impressed by it. And a lot of times some of those artists would be like, wow, who is this artist? And this sounds incredible. They're already impressed. And then I'll just point out to them, I'm one studio of maybe what, 200 or something in this one city Greg: that has that many cool bands Stephen: that cool. Yeah. In one state, in one country. It's the magnitude [00:40:00] of really, really great stuff is shocking when you can, when you really start to know it. And a lot of people just don't fully listen to that much local music. unlike people that are working in the industry that do hear a lot of it. And it's, it's staggering Greg: , people are sometimes like surprised that I'm not up on pop music cause I'm not, because I listen to music all day, every day. And it's probably not going to be some big pop song that you know, it's, it's some other band that you may or may not have heard of that may or may not break out. that might be really cool or not, you know, I mean, not everything is great, but, yeah, I, there's an endless supply. And so, I mean, the, the, the other side of that is if you're a band and you've got, a unique sound that might work for you better, if you're doing the same old thing, everybody else is doing, because you know, how many times you've done the same rock record, I've done the same rock record hundreds of times. Stephen: Yeah, Greg: It's like, I know the next lick. Yep. I know that next chord [00:41:00] change. Yep. You know, Stephen: You know, Greg: might struggle to make any, any headway with that kind of sound. Stephen: Yeah. I mean, obviously people make music for different reasons. Greg: Sure. Stephen: if your reason is to, you know, get famous or rich or whatever, then yeah, you're going to need something. Either you're going to have to have a unique enough approach to what you're doing or a really great story or, you know, some sort of brand, Greg: But even, you know, even I'm just going to name a band, Cloud Cult. Sure. A completely unique sound. Everybody I know that has heard of Cloud Kelp loves them. They're not rock stars, you know, they're doing their thing. They're happy doing their thing. They're successful in their, in their, in their niche, right. But they're not like, you know, on the pop radio and they don't want to be, Stephen: Yeah. It's not, Greg: It's not, what it's about. Stephen: Yeah. And, and that was kind of a point I was trying to make before, which is, you know, people do make music for different reasons, right? Some people just want the experience of making music. Greg: want to make a cover record and, you know, just a jam record [00:42:00] or whatever. And, I mean, you know, I, I played in bands that made records that went nowhere that I still love doesn't matter. Stephen: Exactly. At the end of the day, the process of making the music is worth it alone. Absolutely. Well, I'm kind of curious, you know, I feel the same way where, you know, I listen to music all day working on stuff. It's like sometimes the last thing I want to do is you know, listen Greg: Yeah. Stephen: more when I go home. But I do feel from a, you know, from a producer's perspective, I need to keep up with trends Greg: Yep. Stephen: and know what's going on. Greg: Yep. Stephen: What about from a mastering perspective? So Greg: the thing that I do, I try every year to buy the Grammy nomination CD for one. Cause it's got, you know, 15 songs on it that are current and whatever. and clients bring in stuff and clients sometimes send references of the sound that they're listening to and what they want. so I think that's enough to keep me current with what's popular in any given genre. And a lot of genres don't change, you know, just new genres get added to the [00:43:00] list. So if you're doing like a heavy metal record or something. You know, there's a, there's 30, 40, 50 years of established, this is, this is how they've been doing it. This is our target. If it's something new, it's, you know, it's, if it's some electronic thing, that's kind of a new kind of a thing, I'll have to look it up maybe. But what I found out is that it doesn't matter in mastering very much what the genre is because sound is sound to sound to sound people want things to hang together in a certain way. a certain shape of, of the spectrum makes people happy and that kind of works in all genres. Yeah. And so. Stephen: Mixes change. Greg: Yeah. Style Yeah. Yeah. and you know what people are doing and all that that's all the creative side of things. Stephen: Right. Greg: that stuff can change. The presentation of that to the end listener seems to be fairly consistent and, , there's certain things that are always kind of problematic. There's certain things you always [00:44:00] try to fix. there's certain things that you want, you know, this needs to be a full rich sound. This can't be too brittle. This, you know, these basic kind of directions. Things need to go certain shapes of things, Stephen: Yeah. and Greg: applies to every genre. So it can be a classical piano record, it can be a heavy metal record, it can be a country record. It's the same rules. It's completely different music, but it's the same rules. Stephen: I was reminded from, you know, reading your bio That are you still on the Grammy voting? I'm not. Okay. you did that for a while Greg: though, yeah? For quite a while, yep. I kind of fell off that. It's just another thing I didn't have time for, I guess. Sure. I kind of lost interest in award shows and things. Stephen: Well, that was gonna be my question is you know, you you It's good to know what's Grammy nominated, but how much do you care what's Grammy Greg: two Grammy nominated records last year that I found out accidentally. Oh yeah. And it's, you know, I mean, okay, great. These people think this is cool. Do I think it's cool? Do other [00:45:00] people think it's cool? Do I think it's cool? Because they told me it is, so I'm not really, I don't really care what. this body of people thinks is cool. Stephen: Yeah. Greg: kind of, I've kind of lost interest in that. Stephen: Sure. Greg: and it goes back to the, all the stuff that we've heard that nobody else has ever heard that we think is awesome. Didn't get a Grammy nomination. Why not? It's better than that record, you know, that kind of thing. Stephen: Yeah. So you just, Greg: it's like, you know, and whose little tiny universe is that the best record of the year? Stephen: absolutely. And it'll be interesting to see how those award shows change now that music is so democratized. Greg: They have become less, like, I think it was the least viewed Grammys ever Stephen: Yeah, because, well, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see. how music changes for a lot of different reasons, but one in particular is just that you're not, I, I got to imagine we're not going to have a huge single star like we've had. We still have some now because they started a long time ago. We still Greg: have a Stephen: Swift because she started in the era before. [00:46:00] Streaming has become what it is But for somebody to come up now and have the market share that taylor swift have I don't think it's possible Greg: for any lasting power. they'll come up and they'll dip Stephen: but even coming up. I don't think you can ever get that big anymore. Yeah, Greg: or to yeah Yeah, Stephen: A prince or a michael jackson or any Greg: any of that sort of stuff Stephen: I don't think you can ever hit that many people, even though it's possible, you just won't capture that many listeners because listeners have too Greg: many options. Yeah, exactly. That's the same argument with, well, anything. when I was growing up, the, the thing that I did and some of my friends didn't, you know, people that they did is bought a big stereo system because there weren't gaming systems and. There wasn't YouTube and there wasn't, you know, all of the things that the kids do now , that, take market share away from, or, you know, spread the market share out between all the various different things in the 60s, 70s, it was like, it was music or maybe [00:47:00] movies, Stephen: Right, right. Greg: cause 1972. No. Stephen: No. So when you, when you moved to town, you had mentioned that you had, , met some of the big studios that were operating, but how did you go about integrating yourself into the community? Because even though you're not maybe as active in the, in the local scene now, but you had to have gone through that phase of like, Greg: I cheated because I went right to work for a mastering, a place that needed mastering for cassette duplication and they had a built in client base. And so people were coming to me. And they're like, well, who's the guy doing that now? Sure. And it was, I, yeah, I think cheating is the right word. I think I just got Stephen: lucky Greg: that I was in that position. Cause , as a mixing engineer, tracking engineer, you're exposed to your clients coming in and you're working with how many bands in a month. And I'm working with three, four, five, six, whatever projects a day. And, you know, in the cassette world, it was, it was rapid [00:48:00] to just get these bin loops out. And occasionally it was a little more involved process that was mastering from the perspective of making a master for manufacturing. It wasn't a lot of creative work for the cassette stuff, but, you know, you, you run across a project that needs a little work and you put a little effort into it and the producer finds out the engineer finds out and pretty soon people start to know you. And so I. I didn't really have to hustle, getting out of my studio, people came to me and Stephen: it's Greg: kind of still the same way, you know, I mean, having been doing it as long as I have, people come to me and it's, Stephen: totally, Greg: that's why I'm so glad I started when I did, because if I started now, I would have to go out and hustle with, with all of the competition that there is. Yeah. You know, I could be the best at any one thing in the world. And if you don't get the word out, nobody knows. Stephen: . I think now it's, it's more important knowing how to sell yourself. And I mean, you have to be good at stuff, but like we said before, lots of people Greg: Yeah, the key to success is a baseline competency, [00:49:00] being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people. Sure. The baseline competency thing is like, lots of people have that. Lots of people are super, super good at their thing in their basement. You know, how many guitar players do you know, personally, Stephen: Yeah. Greg: are amazing guitar players that don't ever play out? , you gotta have that combination of things, and exposure, and in my case it was the exposure of all those clients coming to me. Stephen: it's just as important to know how to How to sell yourself as it is to be being good at what you do. Greg: It's become that for sure. Like I'm not a very good businessman. I've got QuickBooks and I have an accountant, you know, and, and I mean, I don't advertise and I don't. Spend a lot of effort to that kind of stuff. But. You would have to starting out without a track record right now. You'd have to spend so much time doing that kind of thing. Stephen: Yeah. Greg: I'm a one man shop. And so I can, I cover everything myself, but I know, I know guys that have you know, front desk person and a scheduling person and you know, slightly [00:50:00] bigger operations and, They each have their job to do and there are things to do and advertising as part of that, and you know. generating work and, and, whatever. Stephen: Yeah. I think nowadays especially if you're, you're coming up as an artist or if you want to be a mastering engineer or a mixing engineer, Run a studio, any of those things that you're going to have to be on social media. You're going to have to learn these new things. however, people like Greg that maybe got in earlier, but ahead of that curve, are, are great people to know because you know, so many people. And I know that when I was coming up and sitting in on some of the early mastering sessions and meeting you, some of the advice that you gave me, even though it wasn't necessarily what you did was like, you know. Go to these networking events and meet your own people. Greg: Oh, that was huge for me when I moved to town. I was always the youngest guy at all these events, Audio Engineering Society events, Acoustic Society meetings. And I always looked around. It's like, why is nobody else my age here? They're, they're missing it. [00:51:00] And so then I worked my way up through management. I was the treasurer for the AES and I was the chairman of the AES section locally for a few years, I guess it was. And all of this exposure, you know, to, to people and smart people. Yeah. And just trying to suck all that stuff in. And for me, that was more technical knowledge. less business knowledge. But, boy, so valuable. And, the last time I was in this very studio, was with, one of the Audio Geek meetings. Wasn't that Stephen: it Greg: Yeah? And that, that's kind of an evolution of that. just getting out, getting out of your bubble, meeting people. Because I work in a bubble. Clients come to me, sure, but not very often to the studio anymore. And so much of my work is from out of town, so getting out of my little bubble to go out to other studios and meet my friends and just whatever, you know, it becomes more important to put an effort into that. Stephen: I agree. A hundred percent. And that's usually when we run into each Greg: [00:52:00] Exactly. That was the last time, wasn't it? Yeah, Stephen: Absolutely. well, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. I really appreciate this discussion and I think it's been great for people to understand what goes into the mastering process. So if somebody wants to reach out and work with you, what, what should they expect and how do they go about doing that? Greg: I'm easy to find online, obviously rare for mastering. it's usually when clients come to me, it's an email, sometimes a phone call. And they say they have whatever the project is, how many songs they have a little bit about it. I'll give them a window when I think I'm available. And they send me the stuff and on whatever date that I have selected to do their project, I send them back to masters. It's that quick. that's, that's usually, it's funny how lots and lots of records I work on. I never physically meet or ever actually speak to the person. It's an email, sometimes [00:53:00] text. kind of impersonal. If I were a band. Doing a record, I would think I'd want to meet the people. So, you know, when I work for people from across the country, I kind of feel like, well, they're coming to me on recommendation. Stephen: Yeah. Greg: Like they've worked with this producer, this engineer, and he said, work with Greg. And so they're trusting that situation. and I appreciate that. but I think have a connection to this person you're working with because it's a very personal, you know, it's the most important thing in the world to every client I have. you know, this record that they're doing right now, people ask me, who are the big name people you've worked with? And I'm like, why does that matter? You know, every client is the same. From my perspective, this is, this is their thing. This is their baby, their passion that they're working on. Doesn't matter who they are. And so I would think those people would want to make a connection with the people touching their stuff. So I do like when I get to actually talk to them, reach out. Stephen: I know I'm [00:54:00] the very first record I had you do. I was in the studio. Greg: Was it nine tomorrows? Stephen: No, it was before Yep. It was the band before that when I was still in college. Yeah. And I mean, terrible. I'm not even gonna, not even gonna name Greg: who that was. Stephen: Because I don't want anyone to listen to it. It's so bad. I'm Greg: the mastering was awful. Stephen: I'm sure that you were being very kind to us to sit to do the mastering for us because it was, it was bad. but it was a relationship, you know, and I've learned a lot from you over the years. You know, asking for feedback and advice and navigating the industry and all of that. What do you think If somebody is doing their first ever master, , what should they expect? Like, how do they process the information that comes back? Greg: Well, it's a good question. thing that I want them to know in the very beginning is they need to send me mixes that they think are perfect. Stephen: Yes. Greg: That's what I want. Stephen: And that's probably rare in their minds. I don't want Greg: because every note that they would possibly give me is a mixed note. They need to go back to the [00:55:00] mixer with and say, fix this stuff first. Stephen: This is super important, I think, for people to know. Yeah. Because, I mean, even me, I think that took me a while to figure Greg: out Stephen: like, what is the mastering engineer going to do for me? You know, and wanting, wanting mastering to be. Stephen: Just this godsend of like, please Greg: fix my It should, it should be a Stephen: light touch. Yeah. Greg: You know, it should be almost like a quality control step. It's like, well, let me just, sometimes it's very heavy lifting and, and really aggressive trying to fix stuff that should never have come to me this way. Yeah. If you're kind of new to this thing, listen to your stuff everywhere. You know, a lot of different systems, make sure it's exactly what you want. And if you do have some notes for me, make them be little things like, I need a little more bottom end on this song, or, or there's a click here or some little things like that, whatever. But, you know, hopefully what I'm going to do is open things up in a way you didn't really know you needed. Stephen: And then when Greg: hear it, you're like, Oh. You [00:56:00] know, that Stephen: sounds, Greg: or whatever, Yeah. Stephen: a small thing. So if you, if you're in a position where you feel like, well, I mean, I like my song, but. I don't think it's necessarily, like, perfect, then you probably need to talk to a mixing engineer first. , Greg: there's a range for mastering. , there's certain things that fine. It's not perfect, but nothing's perfect, but it's pretty darn good. And you're really happy with everything on my, on my intake form. I have a little. Couple of check boxes. And my mixes are, and the top box is perfect. Then one Stephen: says Greg: pretty good. And one says so so, and I forget how many boxes there are. And it's kind of, it's almost like a, it's almost like a, just a, a mental test to say, how do they feel about this? And cause I'll get stuff and they check perfect. I'll listen to it. I'm like. Yeah. So I guess they're not very picky. but I'm picky. I'm sometimes way more picky than my clients are. Yeah. And, you know, and sometimes they'll say, well, it's kind of rough. Do what you can. This is all I could do. I did this myself, whatever. [00:57:00] And if it's, if it's got problems, I'll call them up. I'll say, Hey, can you fix these three things and send me a new mix? Because , that can make the record sound way better than me trying to fight those , three things, you know, and that's all anybody cares about in the end. It doesn't matter who did it, where, what step, who gets credit for what, it only matters what the listener hears at Stephen: Absolutely. Well, on that note, what are the most common mistakes that come to you that you'd want people to know? Greg: spectral imbalances are probably the most common things, and by that I mean some things in the mix are bright, while other things in the mix are dull. What's super common is for things like the kick drum and the bass guitar to be dull, Like the vocals or the guitars or the cymbals to be bright, like a dull kick drum and a bright snare doesn't make any sense. It's one drum set. It should all match itself, right? Spectrally. Sure. if you're standing in a room with a drum set, it wouldn't sound that [00:58:00] way. , that was probably a, not even a creative decision. That was something that was just kind of ignored. In either the track or the mixing, but like a dull bass guitar, for instance, is, I just, it just drives me crazy because it just mumbles. You can't, there's no articulation on it. Stephen: Right. Greg: And then you've got something bright masking, so then you don't hear the bass at all. So then they turn the bass louder to be heard, and then there's too much low frequency energy, but not, it's still no articulation in the bass. Things like that's a really common thing. Spectral imbalances. That's kind of my biggest pet peeve, I think. And then, you know, we're, the world is just going through this Atmos gyration, which probably won't last much longer, but maybe it will, who knows, whatever. we still live in a world where people don't know what to do with stereo field. How to, how to make any kind of convincing image in a mix, you know? so I tell people to spend a lot of time with their mono switch. Yes. So hit the mono switch, see what changed. And then let go of it again and see what changed and [00:59:00] do things cancel out does, you know, does it mix fall apart? Does, you know, another thing is listen at really low volumes sometimes and see what's still there and what's missing because that'll start to tell you if, if you're layering and you're balancing of mix elements is working because some things will start to disappear from the mix that are less important, you know, And that's okay, because you expect that. But if you start to lose vocals, for instance, articulation, if you start to not be able to hear what's being said, that might be a problem. So, yeah, that's a good thing to do. Stephen: . I think those are great tips for people that are, working on, maybe trying to Greg: do their Stephen: first mastering of a Greg: And also, most mastering engineers will... If you ask them to, listen to your mixes and, and give you a little bit of feedback. Sure. I'm happy to give feedback. Sure. Because in the end, that makes my job way Stephen: easier if they'll fix something on the front end than me trying to fight it Greg: and [01:00:00] never get there on Stephen: on my side. Well, if you had to boil down to one main ingredient or, , the secret, if you will, to the success you've had for an almost four decade career in the local music scene here, what would you say it was? Greg: What is your expletive policy on this podcast? Cause I give a shit. The best advice I ever got. from anybody ever, was, my good friend Scott Hall who owns MasterDisc in New York. And he was speaking at a conference once, and he said, Listen, care, repeat. What more can you do? Right? , I bill myself as the give a shit guy. I'm the guy that will call you if your mix isn't working well. I won't just cash your check. You know, I'm the guy that sometimes cares more about how this sounds than you do. I'm the guy that will argue with the mastering engineer that sent me something to cut for vinyl because I know it's going to distort, even though that guy doesn't like me anymore. And that has happened a few times, but that's just how I [01:01:00] feel. My job should be, you know? Stephen: Yeah. I love that. Well, thank you so much for taking this Greg: time. Thanks for having me over. I really appreciate it.