Paul Abbott is an audio mastering engineer, musician, and owner of ZenMastering (located in San Diego, CA). Paul established ZenMastering in the late 1990s — at a time when there were very few high-end independent mastering studios. Since then, Paul has mastered over 1,000 projects for clients throughout the United States and around the world, ranging from up-and-coming indie bands to award-winning artists and labels.
How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins Learn a proven step-by-step mixing process that’s helped thousands of musicians make amazing mixes in their home studio, using only EQ, compression, reverb, delay, and saturation. Step By Step Mixing by Bjorgvin Benediktsson will help you make better mixes immediately in your home studio that translate […]
Paul’s perspective on mastering comes from decades of playing music, making recordings, critical listening, and rigorous comparative audio/sonic analysis. His mastering philosophy is that the highest-quality, properly matched analog gear produces the best sonic results.
Mastering guru, Paul Abbott from Zenmastering.com talks about the nitty-gritty of mastering in this in-depth discussion with Making Music Magazine’s Chuck Schiele. He’s mastered projects for thousands of clients, written articles for Tape Op, Recording, Mix and EQ magazines… and he plays guitar and composes music.
Part 1
The standout quality of metal music is the loudness and energy of the performance. Therefore, when mixing metal, you must be ready to deal with stuff like big sounds, loud guitars, in-your-face drums, and aggressive vocals. We also know that in order to make metal music sound exactly how it’s supposed to, it must be […]