Located just five minutes west of New York City, in suburban Tenafly, New Jersey, Alan Douches' West West Side Music Studios offers a quality alternative to the big name mastering facilities in New York. It's a comfortable studio in which bands can stay overnight, often enjoying the atmosphere of a fireplace and Alan's mountain dogs. A mastering house the majority of the time, Douches' facility also includes a recording studio, offers enhanced CD and DVD authoring and tape baking, and serves as home to his own Deko Records label as well.
Alan began as an assistant to Jack Douglas [Tape Op #90] and many other producers at New Jersey's Grand Slam Studios. Alan learned the audio trade the traditional way on a classic Neve 8038 board, and eventually became senior staff engineer. After assisting him for the past few years, I am still amazed at his skill and his innovative ideas about the music business and life in general. Whether he is pitch shifting one note of a whole song's mix, or overdubbing cowbell during mastering, I never cease to be amazed at the lengths he will go to for a great record to be made.
He has worked with a plethora of artists of all genres, including The Promise Ring, BS 2000, Trans Am, Martin Denny, Fatboy Slim, Snapcase, The Chemical Brothers, Earth Crisis, Jets To Brazil, Basement Jaxx, Damon and Naomi, Olivia Tremor Control, Yes, Train, Ben Folds Five, Burning Airlines, Hole, Oneida, Dismemberment Plan, Run DMC, Fleetwood Mac, The Slackers, Pete Townshend and Monster Magnet. After recently restoring the original Misfits tapes for their box set, he was called on to remix their classic collection, 13 Cuts from Hell, which he reworked in Pro Tools, with astonishing results. Now without further introduction...
How did you start mastering?
Well, back in 1992 it was very expensive to master a record with the big mastering studios in New York City. The only alternative seemed to be sending it right to the pressing plant and have someone there do the transfer, which was almost always unsuccessful, not only from my perspective, but from the artist and label's perspective as well. So I just started doing it myself, literally from 1/2" to DAT and then just sending that DAT to the plant with specific instructions about IDs. I then began working only with CD pressing plants that would assure me that the tapes weren't going to be messed with. So, initially, it was mainly a budget consideration.
How did it shift toward projects besides those you were personally involved with?
Well, it was Caroline Records. I was engineering some projects for them at the time and wound up mastering those projects as well. Once I mastered a few things for Caroline Records, the head of production at the time asked me if I wanted to do this for other projects that were on the label. Initially, I said no! [laughter] I still had aspirations about producing bigger and more successful artists, and I felt that turning towards mastering would have interrupted that part of my career.
Did it?
Sure it did. But Ialso found a lot of satisfaction helping indie labels and bands compete against the majors.
So what goes into good mastering?
It's knowing how to listen. Knowing if something sounds really good and not to touch it. Knowing how to add something, subtle or drastic, that will help, and not take away from other aspects. High quality gear and interconnects sure help. A huge factor is how a mastering engineer relates to his speakers in his room, how well he knows his room. Also, making sure that every piece of equipment or every process you add is carefully chosen, so that you know that that piece of equipment, even just plugging it in, isn't going to hurt the overall sound. It's often more that I am trying to get a greater result by accumulating subtleties. Every time you add a process, you risk degrading the signal. And, all through the process, you have to keep a subjective perspective.
So what do you think makes you personally qualified to be a mastering engineer?
Well, for me, it's been helpful that I've handled many of the other portions of the recording chain — tracking, mixing, producing, playing, writing — so that when I hear a track, I first and foremost listen to the classic parts of mastering — EQ and compression — but at the same time I'm also keeping in mind mixing and production aspects. It's usually not the best time to be changing an arrangement of a song, but sometimes bands want a song to have a different feel or sound, but technically, they couldn't achieve it, so we'll try a thing or two. Sometimes the band may take multiple versions home and call us after they've sat with it for a few days.
What's the best format someone can do a record on?
Pick a form at and get to work. Don't get hung up in the technology, and certainly don't get hung up on which format is going to be best to bring to a mastering session. Certainly, it's best to consult your mastering engineer, and plan out what formats they would prefer. I would suppose that some people who aren't prepared to do analog processing may rather have a digital master, and maybe that's a better route to go because perhaps they don't have multiple A/D conversion options, or whatever. So handing them a high quality 1/2" analog master could be anticlimactic, and you're just going to get your tape back and wonder where all your resolution went. I still feel that analog is better though. It seems more "malleable". You can do more to it without changing the original intent. Also part of the "pick a format and get to work" idea is not abusing the format.
Meaning?
Meaning that I'm always amazed at how much more potential there is in a master that comes in on digital with a few dB of headroom left, sometimes as much as 5 to 7 dB. Because they're not killing their transients. I still have some air to work with. Plus, if we choose to alter something in the digital domain, we don't have to bring it down in volume before any additional DSP.
How do you respond to those who say you're losing tons of resolution when you leave 5 to 7 dB of headroom?
Well, it's not tons. It all depends on how they're using those last bits of resolution. Coming out of a great set of A/D converters and getting the best resolution possible, that can be a wonderful thing. But too many people are utilizing O dBFS as a limiter, so they don't have any air left on top, and it really kills some mastering options. Never mind what it does to the mix. And the same thing can be true with analog.
So you're saying don't hit the tape hard?
I mean listen to it and make sure that it's what you're going for — not just something you read about. People think that hitting the tape hard is automatically going to achieve a certain result, which is not necessarily true at all. Tape speed, biasing, alignment, and even the brand of tape can all alter the sound of a mix. Some studios with digital multitracks go out and buy a used analog mix-down deck, which is great, but [they] never learn how to align it! It was shipped by truck across the country, align the damn thing! They have a tremendous amount of control that they don't use. Do they demag their heads? One producer I work with prints all his effects to tape, then slows down his multi-track and mixdown deck equally. When the mix down deck is brought back to normal speed, he swears the bottom is tighter and the transients are cleaner! Whether he's crazy or not is another issue. What's important is that he loves it and commits to it.
What are some of the common mistakes you see every day?
Over compression.
You mean on individual instruments or in the 2 mix?
Sometimes both, but mainly over compressing the mix bus. They're just not letting their mixes breathe. Compression is an amazing tool. We love it, but it can ruin the dynamics of the song! We can recreate some dynamics in mastering. Bringing the chorus up, or the intro down. Adding some space or air that was squeezed out by the 2 mix compression. But we can only go so far. Engineers are trying to make their mix reference CD-Rs as loud as commercially available CDs, so the bands won't complain about the mix. When I was first engineering, we would mix to make it sound as great as possible in the control room, knowing that we're going to be losing resolution down the line. That by the time it came back on an average turntable, we weren't going to have the same signal to noise ratio, we weren't going to have the same left and right separation. We needed to keep some dynamics.
Do you feel that records continue to get diminished as they go down the line like they did 10 or 15 years ago?
I don't think it's as common to lose as much quality through the production stages as we used to. Although it is getting harder to press really good vinyl. But you still have to be careful, and always listen. I've seen too many surprised faces on engineers when they hear the difference between their DAT masters and a safety or edited copy. Digital copies can sound good, but you can't take them for granted. Quality has to kept as high as possible throughout all processes.
So when do you suppose that things started to change?
Probably when DATs first came out, ironically. Those first DATs, the converters sounded poor at best, but we also weren't pushing the limit as to what we were trying to achieve in level. Because it still wasn't defined, we let that be defined by the mastering engineer. Rather than just mixing to a DAT to make the DAT as hot as possible, or to 1/2" or 1/4", where the level was just truly a reference for what we were doing. If we wanted hotter level to tape we knew how much saturation we would get on to tape. And we mixed to that and we would listen back and say, "Yeah that sounds right." People aren't necessarily aware of what a mix should sound like and what a master should sound like, and people are too often trying to mix and create a master in the same step.
So are you saying people just don't understand how it should sound before mastering, and that they're trying to create a mix comparable to a CD, rather than leaving something for mastering?
Which is why I say, "Pick a format and get to work". Pick a format, make a mix as close as you can to what you envision it to be. Experiment. Try different options. Then allow the mastering step to tie it all together.
In that case, what are some things people should leave for the mastering phase?
Well, a lot, if the budget allows. If possible, try and save it for one final step. Multiple passes or DSP processes rarely help. People will often try to pre- master things before they get here, to make it easier. Boost certain levels, try and EQ, whatever you can imagine. When, in fact, it often makes things harder, sometimes undoing what they did because of the quality of the gear they used.
What else can people do before the mastering stage to make their record sound better?
Well if you're mixing to analog, put tones on the tape.
What tones do you like?
As many as possible. [laughter] Sincerely. A sweep on the low end is great, since most machines will play back low frequencies slightly different. At least 10 k, if not 15 k on the top end for azimuth adjustments. Take up 3 or 4 minutes of tape and just shoot a bunch of reference tones. Even if you don't have a tone generator, just use some kind of sine wave... use a Moog. [laughter] If you're mixing to a DAT, make certain the IDs are properly noted for the choice takes.
Have you seen your client's attitudes change over the years with the invention of ADATs, computers and Digi 001s?
Well, I think a lot of people skip what used to be a necessary step in learning engineering... assisting. There is a lot of knowledge that can be acquired and passed down that a lot of people miss out on. There is something to be said for throwing away the rulebook, but more often than not, results can be better when you have the knowledge of the old ways to build off of.
How has mastering changed?
Well, more and more people are expecting a lot out of mastering. They come to the mastering session with expectations that they're going to have their record sound like a completely different recording. Obviously, any mastering engineer is going to do his best job to get it to sound as great as possible. Sometimes the expectations are realistic and sometimes they're not.
What's the most extreme thing you've had to do to make a master sound good?
Besides adding lead vocals during the mastering session? [laughter] One really extreme thing was re-doing vocals, on a Down By Law record — it just had to be done last minute. The vocals were just way too low to pull out. Then it became, "Well let's just sing another vocal on top of it." So my assistant stayed up all night and re-tracked all the vocals. In the end it's all about the song. The most extreme as far as real mastering might have been when a band brought a live record in that was multi-tracked and remixed from the live performance. They brought in the mixes and I sat there trying to make some kind of sound... some kind of happiness come out of the speakers. And I looked to the producer and told him that it wasn't going to happen. He was very relieved to hear me say that, and proceeded to get on the phone with the label and then came back and said, "Okay you can remix the album." I just laughed and said, "Obviously this is not what I wanted to hear. You guys have to go remix it and come back." They told me that they just didn't have the time and brought in the DA88 multi-track tapes. Fortunately, they had mixed to two empty channels of the DA88s, plus had two live mics from the live audience on two other channels, and then had the live mix from the house, from the board, on two other channels as well. So we realigned these 6 channels in the computer and wound up with a cohesive sounding mix without actually remixing the album. Many times people get here and are unhappy with their mixes. So, because we have a Pro Tools system, and a great mixing board, and some vintage outboard gear, we remix it. Sometimes we're kind of a mother ship for studios and bands that come to us, and trust us. I can point them in a new direction with someone who can do a really great job of mixing their project. I like to think I have a good perspective on who is right for the job and I would only recommend someone who would do the best job for the money, of course. Now that you got me running through my memory, there was also that Pinkerton Thugs record, where I had to adjust the phase by a few samples between the left and right channels in Pro Tools, a different amount for each track. We never figured out what the root of the problem was but it sure was weird.
You use Pro Tools to do your mastering while most mastering studios use Sonic Solutions or SADIE. Why do you choose to stay in Pro Tools?
It clearly gives me more options to create a better product in the editing options: Sequencing, filters, plug-ins, etc. The other day somebody wanted me to alter a song. They said, "That ending just sucks" so I put on a plug-in, I think it was Sci-Fi, and did something weird and they just loved it. All of a sudden it became the highlight of the album. It's just so easy. The options are there: Speeding up, slowing down, fixing pitches in the middle of a track. As far as the multi-tracking aspects, it makes combining instrumental and a cappella mixes a breeze. Lots of people will mix to a MDM, or to a workstation, and bring in stem mixes. We can process them individually, and try to create a better final mix for them. They may not have de- essers, they may not have good 2-mix compression or just may have lost perspective on the proper level for an instrument.
In that regard, you're often asked to give your opinion of a mix. A lot of people will argue that they are the only ones who really know their music. How do you justify your perspective to people that you work with?
Well, I'm listening to an average of two to three new records every day, sometimes more. I'm probably more familiar with what's being released in their market than they are, just by the sheer volume of it. So I may be a little more familiar with what people are doing before it gets out to the stores or into distribution. Most mastering engineers are that way, but we also hear a wide variety of music, so we can find where their music can fit in a little better.
What do you really like in a recording, personally?
The thing that I really like about a recording is when a recording doesn't sound like a recording. Where the technology doesn't interfere with the listenability of the song or the artists' vision. That may sound contrived but it's true. It's when you hear a record and you hear the performance and the music, not the compression, not the EQ, not, you know, "Oh that was recorded in So-n-So's studio, I can hear their sound." Even "hi-tech" and "lo-fi" sounds, hard compression and effects can be used in musical ways. I mean very often certain engineers work in one room and they get a very reliable and dependable sound. That's a wonderful thing for some of the bands, because they know they're going to have a certain sound coming out of the studio, but after a while it can get a little tired. Be creative, that's what it's all about.
What's in the Mastering Rack?
GML 8200 - A great precise parametric EQ with virtually no phase shift. Push and pull it all you want and it still keeps the intent intact. Pendulum Audio Passive EQ — A prototype tube EQ that has become part of their analog vocal processor. Not as precise as the GML but extremely smooth!
SPL Tube Vitalizer — A phase/time adjusting processor. It can add additional harmonic content to mixes that are thin.
Pendulum Audio 6386 Variable Mu Limiter - A very versatile tube compressor. I think it's still the only compressor that uses the 6386 tube like the old Fairchilds. The 6386 can be wicked fast, but it still sounds dynamic... I don't understand it... I just use it.
Eclair Engineering La La Limiter - A rebuild of a LA-2 in stereo. The heavenly smooth approach to compression. You never hear it working. We got some modifications to adjust attack and release times and to prevent limiting.
AD&R Compex Compressor/Limiter — This baby is all about sounding compressed. I sometimes use it after the La La if the Pendulum doesn't work on its own. Its peak limiter is great!
Universal Audio LA-3A - For vintage sounding compression. Also for vocals on stem pieces. Pendulum Audio Tube Mic preamp — Often used, but not mentioned, to create additional harmonic content on bland mixes.
EMT 140 Stereo Plate reverb - Not in the rack but sometimes you want a little bit of the real old thing.
