Randy LeRoy
Final Stage's chief engineer, Randy LeRoy, began his journey with music in high school as a musician. While playing acoustic and electric guitar in club bands through school, his working knowledge of audio principles was accented by his education at Middle Tennessee State University. As part of the "Recording Industry Management" program, LeRoy launched into studio production . After college, Randy was soon hired by CBS Records, Nashville, as an A&R Coordinator. While learning the different areas of LP production, Randy soon found himself working as an engineer and production assistant on a variety of CBS projects. In 1988 a prominent mastering studio lured him into a full time position as an engineer. At Masterfonics, Randy became Glenn Meadows assistant where he soon became an important part of their mastering process. At a time when digital audio was just beginning it's early development, Randy became fluent in both analog and digital mastering techniques. In 1991 LeRoy left Masterfonics and started Final Stage Mastering. Since then he has mastered thousands of LPs for both major and independent labels. "I'm one of the fortunate people whose hobby became their career", states LeRoy. "Everyday I come to work I thank my clients who continue to support Final Stage."
Chris Milfred
A few weeks after he arrived in Nashville in ‘92, Chris got a job at Brentwood recording studio, where he was given a weekly radio show to edit called the 'Country Music Countdown' that was aired in Japan. The digital audio workstation that Chris used to produce the show was called Sonic Solutions, and at that time, it was one of the first Sonic systems in Nashville. As Chris gained expertise, he started using the Sonic Solutions to master records for independent releases. Word got around that Chris took an honest approach to the music as well as the client involved, more & more recognized artists and record labels began to work with him. Now that Chris has firmly established himself as a recording and mastering engineer, with such clients as Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Tom T. Hall, Steve Forbert & Tony Bennett, he has realized that the compact disc was not going to be the recognized format of choice forever. The new formats that he believes will be the defacto music and multimedia formats of the twenty-first century are DVD & SACD. Since the time Chris realized that this transition was going to occur, he focused his energies on learning as much as he could about how the new formats are created. From this initial experience, he will be heavily ensconced working with the new formats, and gain more expertise for the future of DVD & SACD, not only for the music industry, but for many other facets of the entertainment and educational industries as well. Chris also believes that the Internet will play an increasingly important role in mass music distribution, and is also focusing on how he, as a mastering engineer, can make the quality of Internet audio higher, and the implementation of the process more seamlessly into the mastering environment. Chris is an active member of AES.