Amongst his public speaking commitments and Melbourne Real video podcasts with guests, Tony Jack the Bear Mantz has been mastering projects for Dave Mudie, 5 Way Addiction, The Dead Leaves, and The Feelers (including for vinyl).
Adam Dempsey‘s been hunkered down mastering for The Bon Scotts, Cabbages & Kings, Gene Veldhuisen, Lilly Tunley, Lucola Bang, Pockets, Taxidermy Hall, That Gold Street Sound (including for 7 inch vinyl), Fabien Toonen, Tom Lee-Richards, Zulya & The Children of the Underground (mixed by Myles Mumford), and Jane McArthur’s ongoing ’12 Months 12 Songs’ series.
Tiny Little Houses ‘Easy’ from their forthcoming EP ‘You Tore Out My Heart’, engineered, mixed & produced by Steven Schram, mastered by Adam Dempsey.
With thanks to our recent clients and an amazing array of projects:
Tony “Jack the Bear” Mantz has mastered new projects for Dallas Crane, Damn The Maps, Electro Mafia, King of the North (for CD and vinyl), Royston Vasie, N’fa (for vinyl), Cornershop Kids, The Neighbourhood, Ten Cent Pistols, and more.
The Jack the Bear Foundation has had a another very successful mastering drive. Thanks to clients’ generosity and support we managed to raise $800 for Free To Shine to help them with their amazing and dedicated work in helping combat sex trafficking.
Adam Dempsey has been mastering new releases for Dark Fair, Dear Plastic (both recorded and mixed at Head Gap), Demi Louise (engineered and mixed by Neil Gray), the second solo album from Nick Batterham (set for release via Popboomerang Records), jazz trio Harry Coulson’s Raindogs (engineered and mixed by Jez Giddings at Hot House), Al Parkinson, Emilee South (both tracked & mixed by Fraser Montgomery at The Aviary), Rising Tide (recorded & mixed by Myles Mumford), Emily Soon, Modesty, DD & The Damaged Goods, Taxidermy Hall (digital and 7 inch release), Buddha In A Chocolate Box, Colour For The Grey, Sienna Wild, Melbourne Guitar Quartet, and Daniel Champagne (engineered & mixed by Sam Hannan at The Alley).
Andrei Eremin has remastered a track by Japanese Wallpaper to feature in an upcoming film “Wish I Was Here” by Zach Braff, as well as new tunes by Rat & Co, Fractures, Klo, Martin King, Milwaukee Banks, House Of Laurence, Boats, The Ship Shape, DXHeaven and Return To Youth.
Adam Dempsey and Demi Louise mastering her single “Ruins”
Amidst computer and software upgrades here at Deluxe Mastering (described by Adam Dempsey as “faster, quieter, RAM-er, better-er”), Tony “Jack the Bear” Mantz has been mastering for Captain Midnite, Pharoah’s Playground, Indiago, Moonshifter, Artemis, Pretty City, Torch The Village, the USA’s Jonny Craig, Modavia, Riki Lindsey, Mez Yasumo and Scwat.
Adam Dempsey has mastered releases for The Bon Scotts, Charlie Lim, Matt Bailey (produced by Brent Punshon, engineered and mixed by Neil Thomason at Head Gap studios), Osh10 (mixed by Myles Mumford in Swaziland), Matt Glass (tracked and mixed by Fraser Montgomery at The Aviary), Hunting Bears (NZ), The Morrisons for CD and vinyl, Andy Lacy, The Critique, another single for Hoodlem, and this year’s NMIT Bachelor of Music triple album compilation, with producers including Greg Arnold, David Haberfeld, Shane O’Mara, Andy White and Peter Farnan.
April 2013 marked seven years for the Deluxe Mastering facility, and we wholeheartedly thank our many clients, artists and the team here who made it possible! Here are just some recent projects we’ve been fortunate to have had a hand (ears) in:
Tony “Jack the Bear” Mantz twiddled knobs on projects for Neighbourhood Youth, Lemonberry, Justin Bernasconi (produced by Jeff Lang), Bass Kleph, Whitley, Dave Havea, Western Synthetics, The Geta Mob, Black Aces, EC Twins, Daniel Champagne, Shiva & The Hazards and Atticus Jones, to name a few.
Adam Dempsey has endured a privileged condition he’s coined “Sontec thumb” – a callus from EQ switching – while mastering new releases for Courtney Barnett (mixed by Dan Luscombe), Alister Turrill (produced by Lloyd Spiegel), Lucy Wise & The B’Gollies, The Stillsons, Les Thomas (produced by Jeff Lang), Sinead Beth, 23 AOA (mixed by Kent Len), Wild Oats, The Morrisons, Wiley Red Fox and the next Sounds of Melbourne Records unsigned artists compilation.
Andrei “Ony” Eremin has been tweaking tracks for Lower Spectrum, Swimming, D.D Dumbo, Stockades, Second Hand Heart, Skyways Are Highways and Joel Driscoll.
The relevance of mono audio and music is a topic that has arisen a few times lately.
First, let’s define mono compatibility in this context: a two channel audio signal, recorded or mixed to stereo, in which its elements remain audible when summed to mono (the same signal in both left and right channels), causing no significant imbalance to the mix or cancelling to its parts or its tonality.
Despite mono compatibility arguably being less important than it used to be, it still matters! Ultimately it’s just good engineering practice. A few reasons, in no particular order:
FM radio is broadcast via sum/difference signals as opposed to left/right. In situations of weak radio reception the sum (mono) is all you’ll get, as it’s the stronger signal of the two.
Better playback compatibility and likelihood of a cleaner cut for vinyl.
In general, lossy encoders will handle the signal better (as more signal is common to both channels) with less sonic artefacts than a largely uncorrelated “out of phase” signal. Try bouncing out a mono mix, convert it to, say, 256kb/s mp3 (not that we’d ever condone doing such a thing). Then go back to that mix, polarity invert one channel and convert that to the same bit rate (256kb/s). Compare the two results and the amount of masked lossy artefacts in each! (Leave a comment below).
Often, music simply sounds most “engaging” when its sense of depth is retained. This usually comes from a strong front and centre sonic image, with a sense of foreground/middle ground/background, which also helps create contrast and separation with the right amount of stereo width elements.
Of course, in a true stereo recording, mono compatible means phase-coherent, which in everyday terms simply means a more realistic sound – truer to the source.
There are no guarantees on how a permanently installed sound system in a venue, etc, may be set up, (e.g.: how far apart ceiling speakers may be). The more common the left and right channels are, the less loss there will be in such situations.
Ever seen people sharing ear buds, or listened to a streaming service or radio station via a smart phone speaker?
If your music is mixed to sound great in mono it will likely sound great in stereo, whereas the reverse is less often true. If it sounds good to you in mono, with no parts or tonality significantly cancelling/disappearing, then it should be fine, but any such errors really should be addressed at the recording and mixing stages.
The main thing is that you’ve checked for it and corrected it where needed. And it’s inherently part of what we check for in mastering.
As for mastering with stereo width processing? Honestly, I’d have to say I’ve used that maybe twice in as many years – and for the sake of bringing overly wide sounding mixes inwards a little to better match other tracks!
What are your experiences with mixing music for mono?
