S03 | E01 - Greg Obis - Wearing Every Hat

Show Notes About Our Guest JJ Golden is a mastering and vinyl cutting engineer at Golden Mastering in Ventura, California, the family run studio hisfather John Golden opened in 1992. JJ joined full time in 1998 after training at SAE Technology College in London and working as a technical supervisor there. He mastered the Grammy nominated Black Pumas self titled album, reissues for Sunny Day Real Estate and Band of Horses, and albums for American Music Club, Calexico, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Topics We Covered • A childhood spent listening for the details. Growing up around Golden Mastering, riding in his dad's 1964 Ford Econoline van, and learning to hear things like a well placed reverb on a snare hit from the passenger seat • The Tascam 388 years. Buying the eight track reel to reel Porta Studio in 1988 for junior high and high school experimentation, backwards guitar solos, blown channels, and a machine he still owns today • London, SAE, and Pathway Studios. Getting married at 20 and moving to London for a nine month audio engineering course, grading student mixes as a signal flow supervisor, and the 24 hour solo session at the now defunct Pathway Studios that ended with a kick drum that had gone missing for half a song • Coming home to mastering in 1998. Choosing the steadier rhythm of mastering over the unpredictable pace of tracking sessions, and starting full time at his father's studio right as digital was taking over • The hidden zero track. DASH machines, 1630 videotape CD masters, SADiE and Sonic Solutions, and the enhanced CD era trick of hiding reversed audio before Track 1 • The global lacquer blank shortage. Test cuts, cutter head overheating, tariffs and supply chain squeezes on lacquer blanks, and how the entire global vinyl industry now depends on a single manufacturer in Japan since the Apollo plant fire in 2020 • Taking the limiter off for vinyl. Why a heavily peak limited digital master loses depth and impact on a lathe, and the client conversation that comes with asking a band to hear their record without the squash they fell in love with • New Slang, Garden State, and a run of Grammy nominated records. Hearing The Shins' "New Slang" for the first time while working on the original Oh, Inverted World!, baking half inch tape to restore Band of Horses' "The Funeral" for its 20th anniversary reissue, and a mastering career that includes multiple Grammy nominations • Phone calls, landlines, and life on two wheels. Why a five minute call beats a week of emails, the old school answering machine that keeps work off his personal line, and riding a Triumph through the orange groves near Camarillo Links • Golden Mastering: https://goldenmastering.com • JJ Golden at Golden Mastering: https://goldenmastering.com/engineers/jj-golden/ • The Shins, Oh, Inverted World! (Sub Pop, 2001): https://www.subpop.com/artists/the_shins • Band of Horses, Everything All the Time (20th Anniversary Edition, Sub Pop): https://www.subpop.com/releases/band_of_horses/everything_all_the_time_20th_anniversary_edition • Black Pumas: https://blackpumas.com • Muttering, "Saturday Afternoon" from Love, Keep Me Afraid: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/muttering/1548588841

About Our Guest Idania Valencia is a mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, where she has worked for 11 years, starting as a production engineer for Tom Coyne. Originally from Mexico City, she studied music composition at Academia de Música Fermatta before Full Sail University's recording arts program, and now works out of Sterling's Los Angeles location. Her mastering credits include Sam Smith, Shawn Mendes, Charli XCX, Ariana Grande, Coldplay, and Of Monsters and Men. Topics We Covered The backup plan that wasn't. Growing up around music through her non-musician, bohemian father, choosing composition for college, and her parents' insistence on a backup plan that happened to sound like "an engineering" degree Finding mastering on purpose. Trying recording and a physically demanding, male-dominated live-sound gig first, and being drawn to mastering specifically because it was the mysterious, unexplained part of the process The resume that got the callback. Applying to every studio in New York, getting turned down by Sterling for an internship, and going in person anyway with a resume in a nice folder Trained by QC, not theory. Years assisting Tom Coyne, mentored by Aya Merrill and Will Quinnell, learning to tell the difference between a mix problem and a mastering problem one distortion at a time The moves nobody else can hear. EQ changes so small other engineers insist they're inaudible, but they're the difference between a master getting approved or rejected. Feel and instinct over pure technical process Stacking limiters. Why she sometimes runs two or three limiters instead of one, same type or different, for more control than any single limiter gives her LUFS, true peak, and the loud-ref epidemic. Her real-world targets (around -8 to -6 LUFS depending on genre), rarely applying true peak limiting herself, and her nuanced take on loud references: it depends entirely on who the mixer is Burnout, fibromyalgia, and finding balance. The insanely paced years assisting Coyne and then Randy Merrill, the chronic pain that followed, and the therapy and boundary-setting that got her to a healthier place NYC vs. LA. Sterling's self-contained East Coast culture versus the more open, curious engineering community she's found since moving, and why Mexico City always felt more like LA than New York ever did Links Sterling Sound: https://www.sterling-sound.com Idania Valencia at Sterling Sound: https://www.sterling-sound.com/engineer/idania-valencia Idania's Mix with the Masters mastering workshop: https://mixwiththemasters.com/masters/idania-valencia Rose Gray, "Club to Your Arms": https://rosegray.lnk.to/clubtoyourarms Academia de Música Fermatta: https://www.fermatta.edu.mx Full Sail University: https://www.fullsail.edu Maddie Ettrich: https://www.maddieettrich.com

Our guest today is Sarah Register, a mastering engineer, from New York City, NY, USA. Sarah has worked with The Shins, Lee “Scratch” Perry, John Mayer, Meshell Ndegeocello, The Donnas, and Wye Oak. We talk about early memories of experiencing music, starting out mastering records in NYC, managing your body and time, how community plays in to work and life, working with Kim Gordon, keeping physically active, and what does success mean? This episode’s music is brought to you by Bel from Philadelphia, PA - USA. For more information on Bel, head to instagram: @iz.fur For more information about Sarah: Check out: https://sarahregister.com/ And Instagram: @ _sarah_register

Our guest today is Jeff Lipton, a mastering engineer from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Jeff has worked with Agnostic Front, Arcade Fire, Click 5, Throwing Muses, Superchunk, The Magnetic Fields, and Andrew Bird. We talk about process/quality control, getting started in the Boston music scene, Fort Apache, working with Stephin Merritt, how it used to be with A&R historically, video chats for mastering sessions, never figuring out a work/life balance, working in and educating clients about spatial audio, and Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies. This episode’s music is brought to you by Valories from Nashville, Tennessee. For more information on Valories, head to instagram: @itsvalories For more information about Jeff: Check out: https://www.peerlessmastering.com And Instagram: @peerlessmastering

Our guest today is Chris Gehringer - a mastering engineer from Edgewater, New Jersey. Chris has worked with Dua Lipa, Drake, Ed Sheeran, The 1975, Rihanna, Harry Styles, and Selena Gomez, and is part-owner of Sterling Sound. We talk about getting started at Greene Street Recording, Trutone Records, and the Hit Factory, changes and evolutions in the music industry, teaching newer clients what mastering is and isn’t, caring about your sound and individuality, being cognizant about balancing work and family life, listening to music passively and actively seeking out new music, credits for records, meeting new people and networking, NAMM, struggles in your career, respecting the mix, and your favorite limiters.