Hello,
If you have been following the Quiet One process then you should know by now that the mastering for the Quiet One album is now complete. I was fortunate enough to be invited to Abbey Road studios to put the final touches on everything. I'd like to explain the changes and the adjustments that were made at this late juncture. First of all, the mastering process was allegedly 'one of the easiest' that the engineer (Christian Wright) had ever experienced. This was the case because of two main reasons, the first was that the mixes of the Quiet One album were very 'mastering friendly' as they were mixed well and I was able to leave a little headroom for Christian to work his magic with, and the second was that the album doesn't need to be pushed really loud. Traditionally mastering is the process that not only makes the tracks work well together, but makes them radio friendly and also 'competitive' in terms of both treatment and perceived volume.
I had decided a long time ago that Abbey Road was the mastering house that I wanted to use. I'd heard a few albums that fell well into the parameters of the Quiet One album. Albums like Ed Sheeran's '+' were mastered almost identically, using the same gear and the same ethos. The ethos being that making an album like Quiet One LOUD would be ridiculous. The songs aren't meant to be blasted out of subwoofers, they are meant to be intimate and so we focused mainly on the sound of the music played quietly.
The mastering suite at Abbey Road uses a fantastic TG custom mastering desk with a Prism EQ which sounded amazing and really produced something truly musical from using relatively shallow cuts. The desk was made in the 70's and was created around a matrix design which essentially means that the desk could be ordered in whichever way the engineer needed. (i.e. Not just EQ > Compressor > Limiter) The desk has an in-build limiter however we found ourselves heading to an outboard piece of gear (flagging on the name...) to limit most of the songs as it coped so well and was almost undetectable.
We started work on the 2nd song on the album (which is a prequel to the song 'sink') and we worked our way through the album until about track 9 when we had a break for lunch. At this time Christian took me into some of the old studio rooms. We were lucky enough to check out Studio B which had an orchestra in it that were scoring the music for the new 'Prometheus' film (Oops?) (Announced?) I also met a 'mega-famous' female diva in the lunch hall (if only for 2 seconds)
After lunch we continued on through the album and finished with the outro song. We tackled the 1st song on the album last as we knew it would be the most tricky. I've attached a short sneak peak and some photos for you guys to take a look inside Abbey Road.
I hope you are well and please stand by for information about release and how to ensure you get a copy!
Be good,
B
"The Beatles Crossing"
"Here Comes the Sun"
"How Lovely..."
"Abbey Road Studios"
"The TG"
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