A Sonarpilot Audio history lesson: Mastering, industry greats, lost friends and passing on the knowl
Post production and mastering has always been a key part in the process of bringing you the original Sonarpilot material and guest remixes we've released through the years...
We often remember our first mastering engineer back in the early 2010s when we launched the label, Paul O'Brian of POB Audio in Manchester, sadly passed away a few years back leaving a truly massive body of work that covered hundreds of electronic artists, labels and some of rock musics biggest names. Paul taught Sonarpilot Audio label manager Jonny, a lot about the post production stage while he lived in Manchester, knowledge that would serve him as the label grew.
During the Sonarpilot 'Radar' era, when productions and remixes were on the schedule from the likes of Trevino (another sadly lost legend and friend...) , Kirk Degiorgio and Brendon Moeller, we turned to Stuart Hawkes and his team at Metropolis Mastering in West London. Stuart is another of those mastering engineers that has his name etched onto many of the biggest records of the last 20 or so years. The man responsible for polishing music by Chase & Status, Disclosure and Amy Winehouse. The difference real, professionally mastered electronic music brings is so clear when listening to the Radar CD - epic, expansive, warm... The way it should be.
The last couple of years, we've bought in close friends to master projects for us... D-Malice is a young engineer, way beyond his years technically and Martin Iverson AKA Atjazz is fast becoming a world renounced mastering engineer, as well as artist, producer and DJ.
We'd known of Robert Babicz, the man currently responsible for mastering the new season of SPA releases, since the early 90s. His records under the name 'Rob Acid' we're mainstay at the legendary UK raves and techno parties throughout Europe. Robert continues to produce, travel and DJ but his RB mastering studio output has bought his talent and profile to a new level. We were happy to see he has recently created a special online course passing on his knowledge and skills to the next generation of producers and engineers, teaching the principles of listening, prep, his pioneering techniques in audio compression and eq, you couldn't learn from anyone better...