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| Eddy Schreyer of Oasis Mastering |
Mastering has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Why pay this other person lots money to do it? Why is it different from mixing? Why do they need fancy equipment to do it? When I heard that Oasis Mastering, one of the top mastering houses in L.A., was using their UAD-1 cards instead of hardware for mastering, I knew I had to investigate. So I called up owner Eddy Schreyer.
Tell me about the history of Oasis Mastering.
Oasis mastering opened in late April, 1996. I had previously worked at MCA, Capitol, and Future Disc Systems, for five, seven and six years respectively. I decided it was time to build and equip my own environment to further expand my career. With consult help from David Manley, Oasis Mastering opened for business in Studio City, California. Today we are located in Burbank. In June of ’05 I purchased our current building, which was previously occupied by Technicolor for Foley and ADR work. I commissioned George Augsberger to help with the acoustic design of our new mastering rooms. With concrete ceilings and walls as the exterior frame, our completed mastering rooms are by far the most accurate monitoring environments I’ve ever used in my career. These rooms are each a little less than 500 square feet, and our entire facility is designed for a client-friendly atmosphere. At Oasis Mastering we have had the great pleasure to work on many terrific projects such as Kanye West, Akon, Christina Aguilera, Prince, Hannah Montana, System of a Down, Filter, The Offspring and Pennywise, just to name a few.
I’ve never been more excited with respect to the art of mastering. The tremendous improvements in digital editing software and plug-ins, the UAD plugs in particular, play a major role in the quality of our final product. I really feel that I’m doing the best work of my career to date, here in Burbank.
How did you become an engineer, and particularly, how did you become a mastering engineer?
I played guitar in L.A.-based bands for some ten years. In my mid-twenties I wanted to experience the engineering aspects of recording music. I enrolled at Sound Master, a local recording school, and while attending was fortunate enough to be hired as an apprentice mastering engineer for MCA Records. I so enjoyed the mastering process and lacquer cutting, et cetera, that I realized I never wanted to do anything else. I have done some recording and mixing over the years, which today pays great dividends with respect to my communication with mix engineers and musicians.
Why does a project need professional mastering engineers? How is it different from mixing?
The tracking and mix stage involves getting sounds on a track-by-track basis. Changes of EQ and dynamics during the mastering stage affect the entire stereo mix, as opposed to the finite work and balances achieved during the mix stage, especially when applied to an overall blend and flow of a complete album or project. Today’s production can require well over 64 channels of arrangement. Multi-channel mixing attempts to balance various instruments and vocals within the production. The engineer has control of the equalization and dynamics of each specific instrumental or vocal track. The use of equalization, dynamics and effects are applied as desired. But the actual fine adjustment of the relative level and sound of the tracks is a learned art. A good mix truly is a work of art. Recording budgets have forced many musicians with less experience to track and mix their own music at home. Even experienced engineers are working in lesser environments. Professional mastering can improve the final mixes to a great extent. We can add power, level, and detail. I think good mastering is needed as much as ever to help deliver the best possible record.
The beauty of the Multiband is that it is a frequency-dependent compressor; therefore you're able to dial in specific problems within that stereo mix and have a much more finite control.
Why is special equipment used for mastering?
Mastering hardware and software is generally evaluated for specific stereo qualities. The ability to retain good stereo image and maintain depth is a good start. User flexibility and low distortion are most of the requirements I look and listen for. Such as the A/D and D/A converters, which are also very important pieces of gear in the mastering engineer's chain.
So, what’s your typical signal path?
Our analog path features Manley, Avalon and Tube-Tech gear. We use Lavry A/D and D/A converters. Studer A820 and Ampex 102 are our preference for 1/2” playback. The digital path uses various Cube-Tec VPIs running Steinberg’s WaveLab and of course, a multitude of UAD plug-ins.
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| The main studio at Oasis Mastering |
And your monitor set-up?
We use dual 15" Tannoys with Tannoy super tweeters. And I have a pair of Aria subs, which are a custom-made sealed cabinet system with dual 15” drivers. They are powered with Hothouse 2000 amplification. Each dual 15 Tannoy has its own 2000, and the Aria subs have a dedicated 2000. On what I would call the midfield monitors, which are about 8 feet from the console, we use Tannoy 6.5 powered speakers. Again, those were chosen basically because of the Tannoy sound in general. We're very pleased with their phase coherency and accuracy. And via these amplifiers, which are pretty powerful MOSFET amplifiers, it's a very good marriage of amplification to speaker. I've been on Tannoys since I was at Capitol records, which was in the mid-'80s.
Which UA plugs are you using?
For equalization we really like the sound of the Cambridge and Precision EQ. For compression, great choices include the Precision Multiband, Fairchild and the LA-2A. I very rarely use or like plug-in reverbs for mastering, but on Prince’s latest record I used the DreamVerb with great success!
Which of the Precision Series plug-ins do you use, and how?
We use the Precision Equalizer, the Precision Multiband and the Precision Limiter. Those three are what we use the most. The Precision Limiter is a great limiter for adding gain. It's not a piece of equipment that I like to add a lot of gain with, but maybe half dB to a dB, somewhere in there, is a great window for that particular piece of gear, without compromising dynamics to any big degree. During the tracking and mix stage I’m sure considerably more gain could be added. The Precision Limiter is very clean, very nice sonically. Again, image depth and detail, stereo image detail, is terrific.
De-essers are typically used for sibilance problems, with vocals, for example. Sibilance is any lyric that involve esses. They are used for smoothing out sibilance, and calming down some of the high-frequency spikes or bite of a mix. But de-essers can also help a little with respect to cymbals, overheads on drums being a little ring-y or splatter-y. Very good tool for smoothing out high frequency spit and edge.
I typically use the Multiband when I have--talking about styles of music--rock, most often, hip hop, when the low end, like the kick drum and bass is a bit heavier. It's a terrific tool to just dial in and compress back the bottom, without necessarily affecting and pulling back the mids and highs. So it’s a terrific tool. 5-band discretionary compression bandwidths, which are totally adjustable, attack and release, certainly, even ratio … great tool for getting control of mixes with heavy low frequency as I mentioned. Another example would be maybe a bit of a hot vocal. I can just dial in let's say 1200 to 2500, and dial it back, compressing just the vocals, to pull it back into the mix, at the same time not compromising the bass and lows--as in contrast to a single-band compressor. A single-band compressor, which I mentioned earlier, does affect the entire stereo mix. The beauty of the Multiband is that it is a frequency-dependent compressor, therefore you're able to dial in specific problems within that stereo mix and have a much more finite control.
Do you think of the Multiband your main tool?
I do use it a lot but I’ll tell you--I'm in love with the Fairchild, the LA-2s. Those are just simple stereo compressors affecting the entire stereo band, but sonically, they just sound terrific to me. Great punch, very clean. I would say probably 85 percent of the time, Fairchild is in. It's an absolutely fantastic compressor, and again, the beauty of these UAD plugs is that they really are--in my opinion--sonically as good or better than their predecessors in respect to the hardware. The original Fairchild is a tube piece of gear and with tubes, you have change in bias, the line voltage from the beginning of the day to the end of the day changes the actual sonic quality of the piece of gear. Even with balanced power and line voltage conditioners the tubes will come and go. The tubes heat up, cool down, everything affects the sound. The beauty of a lot of these simulated plug-ins is the fact that they’re so consistent--beginning of the day, end of the day, 100 percent recall, absolutely always the same. So this lends itself all the way back to the beginning, from recording to mixing to mastering. These plug-ins will give you everything and more that you've ever wanted from the old "analog" world of hardware, but will be 100 percent repeatable, 100 percent effective, and sound exactly the same in any studio you're in. I dare anyone to pick up two Pultecs, for example, which are tube EQs again, or the Fairchild, and have two that sound the same. So again, the beauty of these plug-ins, which involve all of us now in today's recording process, is the fact that everything's repeatable, it's dead on, I can go back two weeks later, dial up the same sound, and I all of a sudden I want to add a vocal, I'll be able to do it. Everything's the same, I just add a vocal, and/or guitar parts, or what have you, and everything's very repeatable.
With the Precision plug-ins, because of their sonic quality and their speed, did they facilitate your moving towards mixing in the box?
Absolutely. That's absolutely correct. Mixing, now, can be done in the box--everybody's mixing on digital platforms with great success—again using higher sample rates at 24 bit. This is very helpful for the final quality for the tracks and mixes.
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| Double screens at Oasis Mastering |
How much hi-res (96/192k) work do you get?
192k is extremely rare. 96k is used 10% of the time. 44.1k and 48k at 24 bit is by far the most common sample rate used.
What's the typical amount of compression, limiting and EQ that you usually use?
Always mix dependant. Less is preferred of course. The better mixes generally require one compressor and a 4-band equalizer.
How many sessions are attended by the clients?
A little over half the sessions are attended. I really enjoy spending time with my clients. It’s always a blast to meet the people that created the music that we work on.
Do you still see any 1/2" tape or DAT masters?
Two projects have been submitted on DATs in the last couple of years. We see 1/2” more often as a single mix only, maybe twice a year. The bulk of our work these days is submitted in the form of stereo digital files.
How much is done via web-based FTP these days?
We receive mixes via our FTP server about 80% of the time. Our clients will put us in touch with the mix engineer and then between us we’ll make arrangements for delivery.
Do you ever consult with the mixer about how they should be mixing the music before they give it to you?
Yes we do. Gene and I have probably--my other mastering engineer, Gene Grimaldi--we've probably sent more mixes back to do recalls than ever before. It's not the fault of the mixers, but the recall now is so easy, we can actually help engineers improve the final product because we do have that ability. In the analog days, you'd have to re-rent the room, possibly have to get certain rental gear, especially with analog gear. … It was almost impossible to do remixes, or certainly much more cost-prohibitive to do remixes. Nowadays we have the great advantage of getting a mix early from an engineer, hearing it, calling him back and giving them some help possibly suggesting some final tweaks. The end result is a better mastering job and of course satisfied clients.
Do you then send masters to the replicator via FTP?
Not usually. We do, however send DDPs via FTP to Japan quite often. Though many clients do request their references to be transferred by FTP for quicker approval.
Do you supply master MP3s along with production masters?
On occasion a client will ask for us to produce high-quality MP3s, but not very often.
What's the ratio of major record clients to indies these days?
Oh … I’d say about half and half. The indie world is growing quickly as exposure becomes easier via the Internet.
What are some of the problems that you see with indie mixes today?
Actually, for the most part indie mixes are sounding quite good these days. With the vast improvements of digital platforms and plug-ins over the past few years, the quality of home recording has improved tremendously. The best engineers and mixers are always the best students when it comes to staying on top of current tracking and mixing techniques. Here at Oasis, we like to hear mixes early on and give advice to our clients for final improvements. This provides for a more productive and cost-effective mastering session.
Any advice for mixers that would make your job easier and their mixes sound better?
If the client is willing and time permits, submitting mixes before the mastering session will always be a great advantage. At that point we can determine where the balance of the mix is and what improvements can be made. We also determine where we would like the overall level of the mix and at the same time leave room for any corrections that might be necessary.