AUDIOSIEGE

01/16/2025

Pretty cool seeing these Hear Nothing earplugs from my friend and former band mate Ian Makau at in the studio!

01/06/2025

School is back in session and work is back to working for the first full work week of the year. Happy New Year everyone, and let’s get after it in 2025!

12/27/2024

It’s been a great year, and it still feels like I’m just getting started. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to these numbers, and helped to keep Audiosiege rolling through the years.

12/10/2024

Thanks so much to PDX locals Hard Pill for sending over copies of the two recent 12”s that were mastered here. I’m stoked on how these came out, and it’s always such a pleasure to work with the band. Bonus points for including the PNW Music Awards certificate for the best rock or metal album of the year… this is going on the wall! Great mix by Taylor Danley on the LP as well. I couldn’t be more grateful, y’all.

11/30/2024

11/14/2024

Don’t worry about waiting on your slacker bandmates to pay their portion of the deposit! For the next couple weeks, you can schedule mastering without paying up front with the coupon code “SLOVEMBER”.

11/13/2024

Huge thanks to Edmonton, Alberta’s Culled for entrusting me with mastering their fantastic new EP, “Psycles” and for sending a couple of copies of the vinyl version, which came out looking stellar and sounding great, thanks to Rob Lawless’s tracking and Jesse Gander’s mixing. It’s available now through the band, so give it a listen and buy a copy!

11/12/2024

Congratulations to Vicious Blade, Terminal Nation, 200 Stab Wounds, and Necrot on making the top 40 albums of 2024 list! I’m honored and proud to have worked with y’all… HELL YEAH!!!

10/22/2024

Mixed in Denmark, baked in Oregon… another one returns to the kitchen. Thanks so much to Livlos for sending a care package with their new album, “The Crescent King”, out now on Noctum Productions. And thanks to Jacob Bredahl, who I’ve always had a blast working with over the years, for another killer mix. This record is really, really good, so go give it a listen!

10/17/2024

I get a lot of emails and messages enquiring about rates and availability. I don’t mind answering emails at all, but I can be slow to respond sometimes. That being said, all the information regarding rates and scheduling is on the website, and mastering can be scheduled through there as well, without waiting for an email back from me. As always, i appreciate y’all!

10/11/2024

My new favorite transformer. Hit these with about 9 dB of gain, then pull the level down with a pair of 600 ohm Daven attenuators before hitting the Dangerous Bax, and it’s perfect.

10/10/2024

Seattle’s Heiress tasked me with mastering another stellar release, and they just sent a vinyl copy down Interstate 5. This one came out sounding and looking really good, and the band did a nice job on the recording and production. “Nowhere Nearer” is available from Indecision Records. Ultra mega thanks for everything y’all… I’m stoked!

10/03/2024

I often worry that I focus too much on the task at hand to really experience an album as a listener, but I do try my best to do so, and there’s a certain balance to it. When records I’ve mastered are released, though, I try to listen to each and every one, without wearing the engineer hat. There are few things that make me as excited as I get when I see that The Metal Epidemic Podcast has reviewed an album I mastered. It often spurs me to listen to the album again, and I get so proud of the bands and everyone involved when I listen. So here’s to all of y’all… and here’s a few recent reviews. Cheers! And Dave and Duncan… I love you guys! ❤️

10/01/2024

This Aseitas album came out really good. Huge thanks to the band for entrusting me with their newest masterpiece, “Eden Trough”, which was recorded and mixed here in Portland as well, and thanks for the copy on vinyl! Great work by Connor Reising and Hazel Henry in capturing the band’s songwriting, with a weight and technicality that rivals that of the Fremont Bridge.

09/27/2024

Muso update for this week… dropped two spots to 215, but still holding on to the spot in front of LANDR. An 8 point gap makes me nervous, and I honestly don’t think a service/tool should be ranked among human engineers.

09/25/2024

A word on peak normalization, and how it can really screw things up. These two screenshots are different songs from the same mix, both normalized to 0.00 dBFS. Since the normalization simply adjusts the gain to the point where the loudest peak is at digital 0, the levels of songs with the same mix settings can be thrown off substantially, even if the general RMS levels are close. For example, if one song has a single stray snare transient that peaks at -3.0 dB, that song will be turned up 3.0 dB when normalized. If the next song, from the same mix, has transients that are fairly even, peaking at -6.0 dB, then it will be turned up 6.0 dB when normalized. See the problem there? The latter of the two will end up being louder, at the expense of consistency. When preparing mixes for mastering, never normalize them.

09/21/2024

Thanks to my good friend Scott Evans from Antisleep Audio for the surprise mug and sticker!!! you’re awesome.