My name is Candace Corrigan. Welcome to The Nashville Nobody Knows, an interview and performance program featuring great music, usually found outside the mainstream radio machine. This program is brought to you by Tower Records, where I buy music. Tower records at Tower.com. Listen to the end of the program for how to enter our free weekly giveaway, a gift card from Tower Records, redeemable both on line and at any of the Tower Records stores near you. This program is also brought to you by MailSteward, for archiving your email on the Mac. At www.mailsteward.com
My guest today is Randy LeRoy, who has a crucial job in this world of recording fine music, what you might call the final step in the recording process before it goes into production, ...Randy LeRoy is a mastering engineer, with a very revered reputation in this town, I might add. Randy thank you so much for being on the program
Randy: Thank you. It's good to be here.
Candace: Randy first of all how did you get into the business of mastering music?
Randy: Well it all started with being a musician. I started playing guitar when I was a young kid, started playing in bands, got oriented to live sound, PA work, and kind of went into the whole engineering music field through guitar playing and started looking for colleges back then that were oriented for music business, and back then there were only a small handful, came down to Murfreesboro, where I joined the recording program, down there at Middle Tennessee State, and kind of got into the whole music business that way: college, playing, and hustling.
Candace:: The hustle makes the difference.
Randy: It's everything
Song: Walk Beside Me
CD: Real Time
Artists: Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott
Publishing: Howdy Skies Music/Foreunner Music, Inc/Famous Music/ Chuckwagon Gourmet, ASCAP, Full Light Records
Time: 4:11
Candace: And that is Walk Beside Me, written and performed here by Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott on their incredible CD Real Time. Mastered by Randy LeRoy. So when producers or artists come to you with a project to be mastered... what is the first thing that you usually do?
Randy: Well, the first thing I am going to do is sit down, and listen to your mixes, as they come to me, flat, and kind of jot down notes from song to song. And then I kind of look back, and address, how am I going to address balancing all these things out... and I think that is the key in mastering. What we try to do here is to take all of the finished mixes from an album, put them together so that the whole project can sound like one cohesive thought and musical experience.
Song: It's a New Day
CD: Welcome to Woody Creek
Artists: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Label: Dualtone Records, 2004
Candace: The song is It's a New Day, by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Very cool. So do most producers are they there while you complete the mastering process?
Randy: Well it depends on the project. Most of the time, I get some notes, but I probably do 80% of my work alone. Some producers come in here and are at my shoulders ... and very involved in the process. really depends on the producer. I welcome involvement.... it's at this point a lot of people just rely on my experience to put the album together and then they call me and say...hey, we need to make changes with this, we need to move this forward, or it may be just right and they say...hey...let's cut the masters.
Song: All that you Dream
CD: Across the Bridge
Artist: Drew Emmitt
Record label: Compass Records, 2005
Candace: That is All That You Dream by Drew Emmitt on his CD entitled Across the Bridge... Drew is also known for the band he records with, Left Over Salmon. ...and this project mastered by my guest Randy LeRoy... how cool is that?
Randy: It's a great sound album. What I like about this album is the sound of the instruments... I am a big fan of naturalness ...
Candace: Well all of the people involved here, the player, the producer, the engineer, and the mastering engineer certainly achieved that goal... I am in awe. It takes such an incredible talent or ear to achieve that.
Randy: Well, you start to learn, what to listen to. As an engineer or producer, what you are listening for to come back from mastering. I mean there are definitely things I do that affect the mix. It is by no means a remix, but, it's by heavy compression, limiting, EQ changes, EQ subtleties, you can bring certain nuances of certain instruments out, or you can tuck certain things of vocals back in the mixes, and it might be just those subtle charcterictiscs that the producer is looking for that really brings that song to its wholeness and completeness.. Its the sheen and polish on it that the mixes slightly lack.
Song: My Brother and Me
CD: Wrapped
Artist: Bruce Robison
Candace: And that is My Brother and Me, written by the great Texas songwriter Bruce Robison, from his album called Wrapped. I love that guy's writing too... We aren't going to have time for all of the different songs you brought to play, so I will have to list them on the website, lots of different sounding stuff.
Randy: There are all kinds of styles of music being played in Nashville. Of course, we always associate Nashville with country, folk, Americana, but there is a huge contemporary Christian, Gospel, a fledgling hip hop market, jazz, all different styles of music. One thing about Nashville... is it's a music town. You can go places and hear all different styles of stuff. And because of that, I am very fortunate, that all different styles of music come across my desk. I love that. I am by no means pigeon -holed into one style.
Song: Spirit is the Journey
CD: King if My World
Artist: Sam Bush
Writer: Johnny Clegg
Publishing: Copyright controlled
Candace; And that is Sprit is the Journey, by Sam Bush... I interviewed Sam a few shows back in case you want to hear other projects Sam has done. I want to remind all of the listeners that they can access the artists' websites and the Tower Records web site to be able to buy some of these fabulous recordings. Randy LeRoy, thank you so much for being with us today. As always, go on and register for the free twenty dollar gift card from Tower Records. It's the red and yellow gift card on the right hand side bar. While you are there, please vote for us as your favorite podcast at the big blue button there. You can vote once a month, and it is making a difference so... I am going to close with a cool composition called Tomato Jam, by Chuck Leavell, and we will see you next week, for another edition of The Nashville Nobody Knows.
Song: Tomato Jam
CD: Southscape
Artist: Chuck Leavell