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Florian Ross • Pianist • Composer • Arranger

Since I was never really content with the situation that after a mix you give away a recording for mastering and it sounds really different, I decided some years ago do my own mastering from now own.

I've been watching other people do the process since 1998 and then successfully mastered my first own trio album in 2005. I feel that one of the flaws of mastering studios often is that they are paid by the hour, hence they try to finish the job as fast as possible. Also they have usually a ton of outboard equipment of which rarely more than 10% gets used.

Also in Jazz, the artist is mostly the producer, so when mastering, I try to transport the sound of the mix to the final CD as closely as I can without changing the character of the recording.

Some things, however, regularly need fixing, such as:

• the amount of treble, brilliance
• the amount of bass
• the "punch" and clarity of the bass
• compression
• overall loudness
• diminishing shrill top end
• getting rid of boomy bass
• sometimes very subtle "tape compression" or "tape saturation"
• stereo image

To achieve this goal I use Samplitude with external plugins, hence the quotation marks - no tapes rolling here. During the last 20 years I spent with a lot of sound professionals and in many studios, I got sick an tired of the voodoo behind certain opinions like analog vs. digital and such. Often times the people who had the strongest opinions were not to the least open to anything but their opinion and never really made an effort to make real comparisons.

I found that it is far more valuable to have someone who understands the music and the sound the artist is after than someone with a huge list of expensive gear who is really only interested to use it.

When I am mastering I use equipment that my ears find neccessary to have - no more no less. And, of course, the most important factor: time.

I usually let a new mastering project sit several days and work on it off and on, always with a fresh set of ears. I use two sets of studio monitors, I listen to it in the kitchen, in the car, on my ipod, in the living room. On a cheap Hi-Fi system on an expensive british "handmade" Hi-Fi and so forth. I usually burn between 5-10 versions on CDs and listen to them again and again.

When the recording sounds good in all those situations, I am finished.

That's my idea of what mastering should work like. If you are interested in having your next record mastered by me, please drop me a line. I can deliver DDPs, Image files ore physical CDs all including CD-Text, ISRCs, EAN (if needed).