Your Song Isn’t Finished... Until | A Conversation with Michael Romanowski

Most people hear music on earbuds, in cars, or through speakers that sound nothing like the room where the record was made. So what happens between the studio and the real world? 

In this episode of Beyond the Notes, Vonn Vanier talks with 6x GRAMMY Award-winning mastering engineer Michael Romanowski about what mastering actually is, why it still matters, and how records either survive or fall apart once they leave the studio. 

Michael explains why mastering is not just making music louder, why some songs become physically fatiguing to hear, why louder can actually work against the music, and why the best mastering engineers are not trying to impose their own sound on a record. They are trying to preserve the artist’s intent while helping the music translate across real listening environments. 

They also talk about:

• why music can go wrong in “about every way you could imagine” once it leaves the studio
• what makes a mastering engineer valuable beyond technical processing - why “loud and bright” is not the same thing as mastering 
• what it means for a record to translate in cars, headphones, living rooms, and streaming 
• how artists misunderstand mastering when they confuse it with finishing the mix 
• why some artists ask for music to sound “worse” and when that can actually make sense 

Subscribe for more conversations with composers, performers, producers, and engineers on Beyond the Notes with Vonn Vanier.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It becomes physically fatiguing to hear loud music. So what happens is when we listen, our eardrum is doing this, right? And so if we limit the amount of play, if we stint this, just like loudness, our the muscles start to contract to protect themselves and to stay rigid. We don't know that consciously. We just go, ah, I want to go to something else. And then you click on to another song.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

That's legendary six-time Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer Michael Romanowski. When a song leaves the studio, his job is to make sure it comes across exactly as the artists meant. Whether you hear it on screaming, earbuds, car speakers, or in your living room. Mastering is the final stage before a record beats the world.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

It doesn't need to be anything except the way the artist wants it. And my job is not to put my sound on it. My job is to put your sound, is to make you sound more like you when you leave than you did when you came.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

In this conversation, Michael explains what mastering actually is, why some music wears listeners out, and why making a record sound more polished is not always the same as making it feel honest. My guest today is Chief Mastering Engineer at Coast Mastering, Michael Romanowski. I'm Von Manier, and you're listening to Beyond the Notes. Hey guys, just real quick before we get into the episode, I put in a lot of effort to find great guests who I think would be really worth your time, and I'd love to get this out to more people, and I could really use your help. We're on the road to a hundred subscribers, and I'd love it if you could be one of those a hundred. So hit the like and subscribe button and share it with a friend if you think it's a good episode. It would really mean a lot to me if you could. And with that, back to the show. Michael, welcome to the show. Thanks, Vaughn. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. So most people listen to music in cars or uh, you know, on earbuds where the the audio really isn't like it was as it was recorded. So from the recording process to listening, how many ways can a record realistically go wrong in terms of sound quality?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

About every way you could imagine. I mean, if you think about it, um, I mean, let's let's go let's go with uh a very basic thing that I you know I found. Actually, this was very early on um in my career as I was getting going as an engineer, as a musician. I started a musician and found that I have the technical and math skills and desire to try to tweak things. And and I noticed as I was paying more attention, every time I'd go to somebody's house, you know, there'd have a couple of speakers, but one would be on the floor and one would be on a bookshelf, you know, one would be out of phase and the other one would not, you know. And so starting to notice how people listened realize that there are an infinite number of ways things can go wrong. And it's not through any fault from anybody, you know, throughout the production, there's a ton of things that happen to get to the point of getting a record released. Once it's released, it's out of our hands. And so there's that dual-sided, you know, um, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but sort of push, check out the music, but do it in a way that is, you know, that serves the music. Out of phase mono, you know, uh sum to mono kind of stuff is going to be very weird, right? So the if you've got a turntable and you've got a mono cartridge on a stereo LP, or you've got a you know, crappy cartridge, or you've got a cassette with the heads misaligned, or, you know, or a Blu-ray player that doesn't do DSD, right? And so there now we get into immersive audio where there are different formats of different speaker configurations and delivery mechanisms and all. And so to your question, there's a whole lot of ways that things can go wrong between your best intention as an artist and you know the fan's best intention as a listener. And that's where I come in is like, how do we get it from one stage to the other in the best way possible that honors the music and the format and the distribution?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Mm-hmm. So to what extent then would you say your job on the day-to-day is artistic versus just making sure a record survives in the real world?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Oh, that's a great question. You know, the art the artistic decisions that I make are not um not what as I would call them artistic decisions, not necessarily in the same way that you would call them as a composer and a performer artistic decisions. By the time it comes to me, the the balance has been done, the die has been cast, as they say. Where you're trying to get to, those decisions have already been made. My job is to stand back at a 10,000 foot view and say, not what is it, but how is it? The creative decisions are what is it? Is that country rock, blues, is the solo up? Do the background vocals? What about, you know, what's the texture? How do you, what's the balance supposed to be? By the time it comes to me, like my job is to take the genre, essentially, the the what out of the equation and bring the how into the equation. How does it present itself? The artistic side, well, let's let's let's say the technical side, the how on the technical side is uh who's doing the manufacturing, who's doing the distribution? Is it gonna be an LP? Who's doing the cutting? Do they do their own cutting? What do I need to prepare for them to do the best version of making the lacquer? If it's gonna be a cassette, who's doing the duplication? What do they need? What's uh things like sample rate and frequency response and noise floor and headroom and things like that are all very particular to different types of um, you know, different formats and releases. Uh and to say, you know, even more so now beyond the physical, we've got all the, you know, the all the digital distribution methods. So high res, low res, you know, Spotify, title, you know, every there's there's every version in between there. So my job is to pay attention to the things that how is it going to get its best chance at being reproduced the best chance possible.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

I'd imagine then maybe maybe you think differently, what distinguishes the the bad from the the good mastering engineer is is the how and the good from the great is is the what in a sense or is the creative aspect. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Well, I uh maybe a little bit, if I understand that right. A little uh a little bit. I I'd say you know, what makes a good mastering engineer is somebody that is um both a sounding board and a you know sage wisdom to the artist. Like you you come in these days things come in all types of ways. They it used to be a little bit more, well, let's just say it was a smaller circle of people who did the recording and the producing and the mixing. Like it was now everybody with a laptop or a phone is a producer or an engineer to some extent. And so the way things come in to me are very varied. And I'll say one of the things about the way that things come in is kind of based on what their reference point is when they're doing the mixing, the stage right before it comes to me. Are they mixing in a room that has good tuning? Does it give them good feedback so they make good decisions? Is the room too bassy so then they put no bass in it because they hear a ton of it? Or or vice versa. And so my job is to listen, observe, step back, 10,000 foot view, and then talk with the producer, the the artist, the engineer, like what where are you trying to get? This is what I'm hearing. How did you get this? Okay, cool. You know, now there's a consultation part. And this is to me one of the things I think is great. There's a very necessary part about mastering engineers, for one, is having somebody who has an unbiased opinion. They are somebody who is not involved in the session. They're listening along, they're taking the 10,000 vote view, and they're giving you feedback. This is what I hear. So they're not trying to sugarcoat it or anything like that. It's meant to be a uh non-judgmental objective perception to be able to sit and listen to it. The other side is then there's recommendations, technical. You know, hey, I think you ought to try this. Could we try that? My room is set up for a way that I have, you know, tuning very particular for me, and it's a way that I know what sounds like in the outside world. But as a mastering engineer, and also I working with engineers over and over again, I can notice patterns in their mixes and help guide them to get better mixes out of their room. And so there's this sort of raise all boats in that sense, to be able to work with somebody.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

But going back again to to how people actually listen in in the real world, I think it's gotta be pretty frustrating when, you know, it's just a single speaker or low-quality earbuds or whatever. So how do you how do you navigate that?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Well, uh to your point, I would say separating a good mastering engineer from, you know, from maybe not quite or so is is again, is that understanding of translatability. I I actually have a small little box that I listen to things on just to, you know, occasionally QC and check and keep myself honest with what consumer systems. I certainly listen in the car, I certainly listen in the living room. If I'm doing immersive audio, I check on a sound bar, I check on playback, I'm on binaural and checking on headphones. And so part of my job is to be familiar with what playback systems sound like. So I know how to, you know, help steer them that direction. And just because something is low-fi or high-fi doesn't mean it can needs to sound bad or good on any type of system. It's the character and quality of the recording. Are we getting the message across of what the artist is trying to convey? That's a success to me. Somebody who just takes, as a mastering engineer, kind of to your earlier question, somebody who just as a mastering engineer takes something and makes it, you know, loud and bright to a certain stat. Hey, we have to pump it up. It's gotta be, you know, it's gotta be this sausage as it goes across. It needs to be, it doesn't need to be anything except the way the artist wants it. And my job is not to put my sound on it. My job is to make you sound more like you when you leave than you did when you came. And I would say the mark of a, I wouldn't say I've never used the word bad, I suppose, but at least not my preferred type of mastering engineer is somebody who does what they do and are telling you this is the way it's supposed to be, rather than work with you. And they're hitting a volume, they're hitting a commercialness rather than a heartfelt music quality thing. Whether it's classical jazz, rock, hip-hop, doesn't matter. There are, there are ways to get it out there to make it impactful.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

To what extent do you think the artists you work with are already familiar with with what mastering is and and are able to navigate the process in a in an effective way? Or do you do you have to, as you work with the artist and help them achieve their fullest sound, help sort of help them through it and help them understand what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

I'm fortunate enough that a lot of folks that I work with, I've uh well, for one, built up a clientele and a pe and people I've worked with on a regular basis for a very long time. So we've we know we've honed that in. We've honed in like the room, like honed in the little points and dips in a room by going through stuff over and over again, that everything is really nice. And then we get into very tiny details and stuff like that. And so, you know, I've built those relationships over the years that really helps with that. Early on, people came in and they just said, Great, do this. I got a record. They sat in the back, they listened. I loved having people here. They sat back in the back and listened, did my work, they went along, they took their reference, they went to their car, they wherever their, you know, their listening place of choice was, and then they go, Okay, cool, here we go. We got into a spot where as computers and technology were becoming where more and more people were capable of recording, more and more people were getting into it. They were also experimenting and trying, which meant they had more questions, which also meant they had more opinions. And so for a while, there was a lot of explaining to do in the mastering sessions to say, like, here's what's really happening, this is why we're doing it, this is what's going on. And then we kind of got to a spot where where folks were coming in and saying, This is what I want you to do. But they were doing so in my room when not having a handle on what my room sounded like and making objective decisions without context, and then would leave and go, oh no, let's go back this other way. Like that's where I was headed with it in the first place. So as more and more people I got into what mastering could be, or thought they knew what it was and wanted to do it themselves, or wanted to try to manipulate the process, they also stopped less letting mastering engineers do what it is they do, be objective, be translatable, be the bridge between creativity and distribution, and let it go at that. It's not a spot where we should be making creative decisions like hyper limiting or extreme multi-band compression, worst thing ever. Those types of things are saved for the mix side of things. Now we've gotten to where people are going, okay, cool, let's step back just a little bit. And if they go to mastering, I'm happy that my clients understand what the process is. We have a good dialogue. Um, there's less education, but now we're kind of back to being more of a good consultation. I'm a partner, I'm here for you, right? I'm I want to be working with you. And we're uh we're back to that again, I think, in a way, which is to me a happy place to be.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah. For sure. I I remember when I came uh to your workplace, uh certainly being in the room was was special. And and I think being able to to to have some ideas, but also have that objectivity uh and and have the expertise was was really special for me.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Good to have you. And and the other side is a good to have you this session because if I hear something, I can turn around and go, oh, that's cool, or was that intentional, or was that a thing, or what's going on here? Or how's the space between four and five? How is this? Does that feel good? How's that fade feel? Like there's a great engagement. I love that. This is or make a music. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah, definitely. So do do artists actually really understand how how hostile real listening conditions can be and and once it goes to a car or earbuds, like how how it can change, or is that an expectation for most people you work with?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

That's a great question. I think one of the things I find is that there are some that get out there and check the reference in as many different places as they can. Because they understand that every place sounds different, even the same system, you know, in a different room sounds different. The harder part is when folks want to go back to the place that they mixed. And I made adjustments and they say, well, it sounded better before because, you know, we mixed it here. But I made adjustments for translatability that's taking it to a different perspective. But to pull it back down to in this room, it doesn't sound like it did when it left, is short-sighted to how does it work around the rest of the world. And I will say that there are some places, some folks that have a very particular thing in mind. It needs to sound good in my room only. Okay, that's fine. I've done projects that are meant for cars only, and like it has to sound good in the car, and who cares if it sounds good in a living room? Okay, cool. But you know, to go in and say that it doesn't sound as good in the room that it was mixed in after I made some adjustments to it means that there's probably some problems or issues in the mixed environment. And there's where we get into that dialogue.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah. So nowadays people say some music today sounds loud or feels almost tiring. When a listener says a song feels fatiguing, what actually what's happening to them?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

That's a gr I love that. That's a great question because you know, people talk, we talk about loudness, but we don't really get into the dialogue so much of what does that mean or what does that feel like? And what that feels like is fatigue. So think about this. So you've got if we um set my T down, if we've got waveforms and they're doing this, and you've got transients, you've got, you know, uh peaks and valleys. When we get rid of the dynamic range for loudness, there's only a finite amount of energy possible per format for delivery. You know, vinyl 70 dB, cassettes 80 dB, you know, like that. You've got so much headroom. You get to CDs, you got 110 or 120, and we get into more for DSD, of course, and stuff like that. So you've got uh you've got X amount of volume of room, but you can't take it above the peak. So the way that people make things louder is to reduce the dynamic range, and then you've got more to turn it up. Where that came from, and the start of that is essentially the aha moment was radio stations covering wider uh area for the same amount of power, which gives you more advertising. This is all about money, right? So it comes back to that. Uh, you know, a 100,000 watt radio station compresses its signal to two to one, and now they're out 20 miles instead of 10 miles, more listeners, more advertising. But it also then jumped out of the of car stereos and radios and things at the time, or off of LPs, and people went, oh, if we compress it and we do this before we can make it louder. The problem is loudness, for loudness' sake, now what you're doing, think about this as your eardrum. Okay, so now you're taking this amount of peaks and valleys and you're squashing it. But when we listen, our eardrum is doing this, right? And so if we limit the amount of play, if we stint this, just like loudness, our the muscles start to contract to protect themselves and to stay rigid. It becomes physically fatiguing to hear loud music. So what happens is we don't know that consciously, we just go, ah, I want to go to something else. And then you click on to another song. Now we get out of albums because everybody's way of relieving pressure is to listen to singles or listen to songs on streaming. So, because now it's all hammered at the same level. And I'll just be honest with you, I can't listen to Spotify. It just sounds like crap to me. It's just flat and monotone, it has no musical life to it because it is just so flat and so hammered, I'm fatigued every time I turn it on. And so I just can't listen to stuff like that. But I listen differently, I listen for different things than other people too. So I'm not gonna say it's bad. I'm just gonna say it's not right for me. But that fatiguing part is to me, is what's happening is that we end up subconsciously getting tight. And then you then you do this is because you feel like you're being shouted at, you lean back a little bit. You know, the music that draws me in, your music, the music, I, you know, music that I that has a breath to it makes me lean in. Like I kind of go, I want to hear more. Like there's there's something, you feel this air movement going like this from the diaphragms of the cones rather than just this stilted, stuttery, distorted mess because of volume's sake. So there's my that's there's my soapbox on volume.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

But still, for for the wider audiences, there's a point at which loudness works against the the music rather than being attention grabbing.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Right. The attention grabbing is shock and awe, right? You want to hit somebody with something, but that only lasts for like this long. And as soon as that hits, we've moved on. You know? So that it's a it's like a dopamine hit that you gotta keep looking for. But when when it doesn't pay off again, you move along, right? And if you're you end up getting fatigued by listening to something, you know, you're you're not paying attention as much. You get to a spot, and because of distribution, there are levels, there are, you know, there are limits to what can be distributed. And the more one pushes above those limits, the more it actually sounds smaller. Most companies have something like sound check, which is there's a deliverable level. And if you hit that deliverable level, great. If you're a little below it, they'll turn it up if they can without doing any compression or any limiting or anything to it, you know, as long as it hits the headroom. If it's over that limit, they turn it down. So when people are going for loudness, they're actually, you know, getting close to being turned down. They'll be smaller. It's a tiny sound to go louder, you know. Um, it's kind of like a guitar am, you know, a tweed, like a vibro champ in a recording studio can sound way bigger than like a hundred watt Marshall full stack, right? You've because it's just you're you're getting a tone and a little bit of space. You're not moving the air in the same way in a in a volume of a room. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, I digress.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

No, no, it's so to go back to the creative side, before you you start on a project, what are you trying to understand about uh the album or the the the record that you're working on?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

That's a great question. I'm trying to understand what the artist wants out of it. What's their intent? Like just give me a few words or a few descriptions. This is meant to be bold, this is thoughtful, this is blue, this is brown, this is salty, you know, this is this is what I envisioned. You know, I don't I I don't normally need things like like Sometimes I've had folks want to describe the writing process. We're talking about the songs and they say, Well, I was thinking about my I'll just make it up, thinking about my dog's truck and my front porch and when I was 12. Like, that's all great. As a fan, I love that stuff. As an engineer, it it's a it's more detailed than I necessarily need. You know, um reminiscent or nostalgic or, you know, those kinds of words would would suffice just fine in that. I just want to hear from the artist what they're trying to accomplish. Whether what are they trying to get across? Are they does it they want people to feel happy? They want to, they like, this is meant to be in your face, this is meant to be driving down the road, this is meant to put you to sleep, you know. I don't know. So uh that dialogue is then, okay, cool. Now I want to feel the way you are feeling about it, and what what knobs do I turn to help emphasize that feel? That's where I start.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah. What when you as you mentioned earlier, when you get like words like salty or uh or brown, like how how does that translate in your work to to actual things that you're actually doing?

SPEAKER_01 23:11

That's an awesome question because it took me a long time to figure that out because and and also that everybody is different when somebody and that's the part with well, humans. Humans communicate in ways that are familiar with them, but not maybe adjacent to somebody else's understanding, you know, and you go, oh, well, I didn't really know what salty means. It took me a long time, a really long time, to figure out that somebody caught I had somebody was talking about, you know, make it more brown, make it more blue. I didn't realize I didn't know what that meant until I realized those are the color knobs on certain SSL consoles. And what they meant was whatever that did, change that blue one because I like that, you know? And so it wasn't necessarily related to an emotion, it was actual physical color. The biggest point there is, I guess, is really just understanding what people mean. We all have our ways of describing things. We all have the story in our head that few words try to describe as it gets out. And, you know, part of my job is is to be a good listener, not only for the music, but for the artist. And like what are they when they say this, what do they mean? I have to be able to interpret at times. It's there's a little sociology, psychology involved.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Yeah. So you you also work on uh kind of a variety of different things. You have movies and and uh just regular uh rock, you know, rock albums, pop albums, all sorts of things. Does the approach change? I I know so you've mentioned the artistic side of it. Well, that and also just you know what the artist wants, but is there anything else that that changes, you think, in in each of those processes?

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Um I will say a great question, because I'll say that, you know, for me, like I said earlier, is I'm not really listening, it's it's more about how is it, not what is it. So with that, I don't really care about the genres. However, there are some things about certain genres you've kind of got to pay attention to a little bit. Like classical music, you really don't want to do a lot of compression, if any, because you know, dynamics are part of the composition. Country music, however, no dynamics, just you know, decapitate it and then do it again because it's meant to be loud in your face and vocal forward. Okay. You know, jazz has a thing and hip hop has a thing and all of that. The the total, the 10,000-foot view is kind of always the same, translatability. So, you know, again, the consultation part, how is it getting released, you know, and who's going to be hearing it how is all really part of the process for every session.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Have you ever made something that that feels technically better but emotionally worse, or is it always just emotionally better is the priority?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah, yeah. Great qu again, great question, man. The um uh uh I've had it come, I've had people come back to me and go, it sounds too good. Make it more lo-fi. As soon as you said that, the first thing I thought of was there are folks who are who excel at loud, and I'm not one of them. Like there and it's just not my thing. I don't, well, for one, I personally don't agree with it, and to your point, music that has that loud for loudness sake turns me off right away because it's shouting at me, and I don't want somebody screaming at me, especially if I'm looking for entertainment. So I I you know sometimes I'll I'll turn down sessions. I've done that before. Well, I I'm just not the guy for you for that. In that I don't push it super hard, and if somebody wants it really done like that, I'm you know, again, well, I'm I may not be the person for it. And that ends up having, in that sense, back to the real example I was just about to give, in in that sense, now it feels too good. There's transience, there's headroom, you know, and they want it squash, squashed and like cheese-like, you know, or butter like, like a sausage-like, you know, that it's this big brick of things. And that's I'm not gonna take it that direction because I'll go to a point. I don't generally do that from the start. I I will I'll tell you my processes, I'll go through and I'll get it to a spot where if I'm making an uh an LP master and a CD or distribution digital master, I'll get to a point through my analog chain, and then I will take one and leave it natural, and the other I'll be able to give it a little bit more volume for volume's sake, but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna crush it for the crush it sound. And I've had times where people are gone, yeah, I need you to be more brutal with it. It needs to sound worse. Okay. Yeah. But again, that's what they want. And here's my job. I'm a service provider. At the end of the day, you asked me something earlier about how much does my opinion come into things. And my job is to be an observer and a recommender. Here's what I hear, here's what my experience tells me, here's what I hear you telling me, here's where I hear you want to go with it, here's what I'd recommend, here's what here's what I think should happen and go this direction. And sometimes people say, Great, but I want to go this direction. Cool. My job is to honor your artistic intent. And so I can recommend stuff all day long, but you know, my job is to is to uh provide a service. It's only when it gets to be like too much for the wrong reasons would I would I say, I you know what, I think we're not a good fit.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yeah, very, very cool. Well, I'll ask one more thing about this. When when someone tells you to make something sound worse, do you ever agree with it what they're what they're saying, or is it always j obviously, you know, it's it's just sort of against what your work is about, but does it does it ever make sense to you?

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Well, yeah, you know what? It's um every session uh to step back from that a little bit, every session is an opportunity to learn. And if somebody wants to go a particular direction, I'm I'm not gonna start with no, I'm gonna ask maybe why, or what okay, cool, tell me more so I can learn something out of because it might be something that serves me for the next client. Client comes in and says, you know, hey, I'm looking for this. I go, Oh, I just did that. That's exact now. I know why, and I can go straight there. So I'll give it a shot. I'll always give it a shot because I want to learn and grow. Cool. Very cool, yeah. Can you tell when people this is more of a philosophical sort of uh question, but can you tell when people don't care? I mean, when you're listening to music, are there things that you hear that you go, this is a product rather than a sharing? You know? You're gonna say it that way? You know, like this is this is a means to an end, not an itch that had to be scratched. And I I think we don't give people enough credit that they can tell that. And so I want to help celebrate those that have an intent to their creativity. They want to do something. I gotta say something, I gotta get this out there. You know, this makes me feel good. I'm not gonna feel whole unless I say this. I do I gotta get this out there somehow to the world. Somebody has to hear it. You know, like there's there's like an itch, yeah, you know, and then there's some that, you know, you can tell that it's more of a product. I'm I'm I'm moved by the itch. Yeah. And my job is to assume everybody that comes to me, I'm there to help scratch.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

It's sort of like what you were saying earlier about well, I won't I won't use the the the word bad, but not not preferred mastering engineer who who just makes like a commercially viable product versus someone who who uh matches the the artistic intent.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Right. And and and I and I in in no way mean to mean that as judgment uh for somebody that does that. That's just not what I prefer, and not the people that I prefer to work with. But there are definitely people who are very skilled in doing that. That's why people go to them because it's an art form to make it loud and listenable. I mean, it's uh just just like anything, it's a you know, it's an acquired, like it's a skill built up over practice and practice and practice to get there to be able to do it. So I admire the people to do it. I wish I could do it. I just don't get it or like it.

unknown 31:32

Or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

So so on a different note now, um, so you're talking earlier about uh a lot of songwriters today work entirely on laptops, just do everything digitally. So are they when they do that, are they mastering their music in in that way? And how has that changed things for you? And does that music still need to be mastered fully and and everything like that?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yes, great question. Mastering to me is important, period. It's because of the, like we were talking about earlier, having an objective, you know, observer, having somebody that's not emotionally tied to it to be able to go, okay, here. You know, there are many times that you'll listen to something as a producer and engineer, and you'll you get used to a mistake, and then it becomes something you're used to and you don't really realize it until later, you know, and somebody else sits back and they go, Oh, you know, that snare is like six dB louder than everything else, and you know, oh, I was just kind of digging it. Well, yeah, okay, cool. Here's what we need to do. Having somebody objective is to me is a huge part of it. I love that technology has moved on, that more people have access to creativity, to realize their own creativity than they had in the past. What I find is lost in the message is the purpose of mastering. It got to the point where people thought loud and bright needs to be loud and bright, and that's what mastering is. It's not what mastering is. What I find is the message that got so garbled is that now people put a tremendous amount of stuff on the master bus of their mix and they call it mastering. That's not mastering, that's finishing the mix. I don't care what you say. You're finishing the mix. Unless you have a particular hat you're wearing in a way, uh, you know, a mindset, sitting down and listening to it. The mix is done. Here's 10 songs in a row. I'm listening to them as a body of work, not a collection of songs. I'm not thinking about do the guitars need to come up, does the snare need to go down? Is this that? The mix is done. Separate yourself from the process if you're going to master your own stuff. Take a day, take a week away, take more away from it so you can be a little bit more objective. So I don't recommend that people master their own work because that loses to me the key things that you gain by having somebody and the whole reason for being there. But I think we're also losing what it is by people putting processing on it and this loud, bright thing, or, you know, um not being able to step back from it. Back to your original question: making music on laptops, making music on a phone, making music on two-inch tape, whatever it happens to be, that doesn't matter so much to me as the process of understanding what needs to be delivered and optimizing the deliverable for as best as possible distribution and outcome, and understanding the translatability and the body of work over a collection of songs aspect of it. How does it present itself as, like I said, as a body of work, not just as single, single, single, single? It's disjointed. I like artists that like are working on their um career. Like you're building this is this is it's not just one out and now I got my TV show or my tequila brand. It's like this now, my next record is here, my next record is here, and you're you're building a career. And I it's just it's it's great to see people do that. I love watching that and I love being a part of that, helping them each time just dialing in better and better.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah. Yeah. Uh well, Michael, thank you so much again. It's it's been truly an honor to talk to you and to learn from from all the uh the wisdom and and the the world of music that you've acquired in the last several decades. Thank you for having me, Von.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

I really appreciate it. Uh, and and I'll even from that standpoint say I really, really appreciate being part of your record. I think it's fantastic. I think you're tremendously talented, and it was an honor to honor to work with you, and it's also an honor to be a a part of this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Well, thank you so much. It's obviously it was an honor to to work with you and and truly, you know, really an an inspiration at every every second of the way.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Thank you very much. I look forward to talking and working again. And anything I can do to help, just let me know.