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Meeting Report: April 2011 – Audio Mastering

Melbourne – April 11, 2011

Speaker Name: Martin Pullan, Edensound Mastering

Meeting Location: Edensound Mastering and Armstrongs Studios

Summary

Melbourne Section members gathered at the historic Armstrong Studios location to hear Martin Pullan of speak on the challenges of modern day audio mastering.

Martin Pullan demonstrates mastering techniques He started with a brief historic overview of the mastering process, as it started as a highly technical discipline involving manipulating the audio to fit within the limitations of the disc groove geometry to the highly creative discipline it is today in the era of CDs and bit-rate-reduced music downloads.

He also covered the history of the building and its studios, from its early days as the Bill Armstrong Studios, through Metropolis Audio to today’s Armstrongs/Edensound incarnation.

He also touched on the challenges of audio mastering, now that the proliferation of low cost computer-based recording systems mean that much source material is recorded without the benefit of experienced recording engineers and in less than ideal monitoring environments. This places more importance on the mastering engineer’s role in quality control.