We started working on the Daniel Sexton project back in June. After arranging, tracking, rearranging, re-tracking, etc..... Here we are in February. The mixes are done. We worked way too hard on this record to not get it mastered.

I didn't want just anyone mastering this record. I've went with mastering guys in the past who have done more harm than good. Luckily, when I was down at the Michael Wagener workshop, we stopped by to meet Eric Conn and Donn Cobb at Independent Mastering. Eric and Don are Michael Wagener's “go to” mastering guys but their credits extend far and wide. Check out their mastering studio.

The Initial Insecurity

It's always kind of scary going into a new studio. Bands never know what they are going to get when they first work with a new engineer. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect at Independent Mastering either. On top of that, this was my first time getting my mixes mastered in person with a real guy who has mastered numerous cds that fill my girlfriend's cd wallet. (Independent Mastering has mastered a ton of HUGE country records....and just about every other genre as well). You can see their intimidating discography on their website.

Needless to say, I was seriously concerned that these guys would here my mixes and say “Look....son....I can't take your money. These are the worst mixes in the history of mankind. We'd love to help you, but it would be about like selling a dead bird to blind boy”. In other words, I was afraid that they would think my mixes sucked so bad that they would recommend that I quit recording and get a job at the post office.

Independent Mastering

Even after losing the map, and then the map being wrong we actually showed up to Independent Mastering about 30 minutes early. Don let us in. Immediately, it was clear that Don was about the nicest dude on the planet. He let us in, gave me the tour of the former Civil War hospital (Yes, there were men who had their legs sawed off with a hacksaw in their kitchen!!! AWESOME!).

Not long after we arrived, Eric Conn showed up. Eric is kind of the cornball jackass of the 2, but he also built his own Analog to Digital converter (or was it DA converter....either way). So he's one of THOSE guys. In some ways, it kind of reminded me of myself although I don't expect to EVER build my own converter out of microprocessors or whatever the hell you build converters out of.

World Class Service

The thing that completely blew my mind was the service and friendly nature of these guys. I had no idea what to expect from guys that had multiple gold and platinum records covering the walls when I'm just a piss ant recording in my house.

Donn and Eric went out of their way to completely take care of us. For example, I was blown away by their amazing coffee.So Eric comes back and gives me a bag of Seven Hills Coffee beans. That's freaking service!! The little things like that really added up.

We mastered about 6 or 7 songs and Eric was ready to go to lunch. They took us to this Irish Pub which was just around the block from the mastering studio. It turns out that Independent Mastering is located just around the block from the “Naked Statue”. That would have made it much easier to find the damn place. I wish Yahoo maps would have told me that!

Then, Eric and Don picked up the bill for lunch as well, which I TOTALLY did not expect them to do. At this point, I was saying to myself “Alright, how much is this going to cost?”. It was getting a little too good to be true.

We went back and mastered the remaining songs. It was clear that Eric and Don were robo professionals and knew exactly what they were doing (except Eric did take over 1 minute to insert my flash drive into his recording computer....ha ha).

Price

It turned out the price was well under the guestimate Eric shot me. In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if mastering with this caliber of human beings costs double what we ended up paying. Luckily, for my pocketbook, it was a more than fair price.

The Sound

Well, that's the tricky part. Daniel Sexton took the master cd (which was burned @ 1x on a “laser etcher” or something like that). Long story short, there is only one kick ass copy of the mastering and Daniel has it. I plan on doing an entire article on how the sound turns out when Daniel figures out how to upload the songs to my server.

The sound was much better in Daniel's vehicle ( which has about the worst sounding audio system I've ever heard in my life....EVER) after mastering.

Anyway, if you are considering serous mastering , I urge anyone and everyone to go with Independent Mastering.

Brandon