Meeting Topic: Mastering Mastering
Moderator Name: David v.R. Bowles
Speaker Name: Graham Boswell, Steve Penn, Ian Heaton
Meeting Location: Expression College for Digital Arts, Emeryville, CA, USA
Engineers from Prism Sound and ATC Monitors discussed topics related to mastering, stressing the need for a suitable listening environment. Graham Boswell discussed the philosophy behind the design of the Prism digital front end, illustrating the measurement with Prism's signal analysis products. Of particular interest was how jitter could be removed from incoming signal sent over faulty wiring. Steve Penn gave a general discussion of mastering tools contained within the SADiE digital audio workstations, and showed how certain of these tools could be used on individual tracks within a edit decision list. Ian Heaton showed how room dimensions would affect sound emanating from loudspeakers, and how acoustic treatment was necessary before applying equalisation to the signal. Questions and answers were encouraged throughout.
Finally, John Cuniberti talked about his career, from his days as a performer with The Rockets, making the transition to the other side of the microphone, working at Plant Mastering in Sausalito, and opening his own mastering business in Oakland, California.
