PRESS KIT ..................................................................
Final Stage Mastering would like to congratulate
all of our 52nd annual GRAMMY nominated projects!
Alison Brown is nominated in the category of Best Country Instrumental Performance for the track "Under the (Five) Wire" from The Company You Keep.
Celtic duo Liz Carroll and John Doyle’s "Double Play" is nominated in the category of Best Traditional World Music Album.
Jim Lauderdale’s "Could We Get Any Closer?" is nominated in the category of Best Bluegrass Album.
Final Stage Mastering congradulates Jamey Johnson
on his three Grammy nominations for 2009.
1. Best Male Country Performance — "In Color"
2. Best Country Song — "In Color"
3. Best Country Album — "That Lonesome Song"
We feel honored to be a part of your success and you choice for mastering. Best of luck!
"This month DMT features... After 16 years of adding the finishing touches to records of a all genres, Randy LeRoy shares details about his career and the tools of choice to operate his mastering facility."
Studio Survival
May 1, 2006
BY DAVID WEISS
Weiss Gear Keeps In Step With Final Stage Mastering
Final Stage Mastering and chief mastering engineer Randy LeRoy have been using Weiss Engineering tools for several years, starting with Weiss' EQ1
February 21, 2006
Surround Professional Item of the Day
Final Stage Selects GX9048 For Mastering/Playback Of DSD Recordings
Feb. 23, 2004
"Final Stage Mastering Adds New Gear"
April 1, 2002
"Ainlay Cuts Tape Ties With Lucid"
December 3, 2001
Interview with Randy LeRoy, Nashville mastering engineer
Bray Vista — Sing My Darling — the new album
Thisrecording and mixing process went on well into spring 2005, and to achieve the authentic country sound the completed article was then sent to Nashville, Tennessee for mastering by Randy LeRoy of Final Stage Mastering whose previous work includes the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Paul Brady, John Prine, Dave Alvin, etc...
Performing Songwriter
PREPARING YOUR RECORDING FOR MASTERING
December, 2004
Pro Audio News:
Sadie: Final Stage Mastering
FINAL STAGE MASTERING PREPARES FOR SACD HIGH-RESOLUTION
MULTI-CHANNEL AUDIO MASTERING WITH SADiE DSD8 SYSTEM
April 26, 2004
Final Stage Mastering Installs Genex Audio GX9048
Mix, March 3, 2004
Daily News: Genex Audio, a developer of multiformat digital recorders and converters, recently supplied a GX9048 48-track multiformat digital system to Final Stage Mastering
Cool Spins
Mix, Feb 1, 2002
Brought to you by:
The Mix Staff Members Pick Their Current Favorites
Ralph Stanley & Friends: Clinch Mountain Sweethearts (Rebel Records)
YIN-YANG
If you think it's not possible to make a professional quality, commercially releasable album on a portable digital audio workstation, think again. Bassist extraordinaire Victor Wooten's latest double CD release, Yin-Yang, is the proverbial exception to the rule. Recorded and mixed entirely with a pair of Roland VS-1680's operating at 20-bit/48 kHz, the only ancillary gear used was a few outboard mic preamps during basic tracking sessions at Nashville's Masterlink and Monkey Fingers studios.
Mastering, done by Randy LeRoy at Final Stage in Nashville, was equally interesting. Engineer Kurt Storey recounts the basic procedure. "I brought the VS-1680's into the mastering room and just played back the automated mixes right then and there, so it was first-generation real-time, going from the S/PDIF output straight into Randy's mastering system.
"Actually, we were tweaking the mixes even during mastering!" he laughingly recalls. "About a week before our mastering date we had pretty much everything done, but then Victor realized that we had ten instrumentals and nine vocal songs and said, 'Man we have to add one more track just to make it even, like Yin and Yang, right?' We had done this track with Bootsy Collins a couple of years back, and somehow the master got lost. Victor only had part of a drum track and a basic vocal track. So I had to recreate the bass loop and then Victor took that up to Bootsy's home studio and retracked the drums and added some more vocals. It was so last minute; I not only had to mix it over headphones in the lounge of the mastering room, but Victor was literally doing bass overdubs while I was mixing!"
LeRoy recalls the rather bizarre scene vividly: "They were actually mixing some songs in the room next to me while I was mastering other ones! And, at that point in time, I was thinking, 'Oh my God, what have I got myself into?' What I'd heard was sounding really good, but the thought of a mix that was going on in a room next to me — they had three 1680's locked together, mixing on headphones, with Victor plugged in and doing bass overdubs! It was something else; I was stunned and I was scared." (Laughs).
But when it came to sound quality, LeRoy says, "I was surprised. It was that particular project that really opened my eyes as to what the VS-1680 was like. I get a lot of projects in that are done on 02R's, ADAT's, Mackies, DA-88's, and things like that. Generally, those projects don't quite compare sonically to projects that come in that were tracked on [Sony] 3348's and mixed to 1/2-inch tape or stuff like that. But when you compare the 1680 to the mixes that I get in from 02R's and things like that — all those dedicated tape machines and dedicated midline consoles — they didn't have anything on that all-in-one box, not at all."
Another important advantage was that, because there was no two track media, there was no intermediate step or conversion process. LeRoy recounts his mastering signal chain: "We had one 1680 in the room that was playing automated mixes. I took its S/PDIF digital output into a Z-System router, which converted the signal into AES/EBU. From there it was routed to Apogee PSX-100 D/A converters. Processing was done in the analog domain, through a Manley Stereo Mastering Variable Mu compressor and a GML 9500 Mastering EQ. The signal was then routed to an Apogee PSX-100 A/D converter for conversion back to digital.To control peaks, I added a little bit of limiting with a Weiss DS1-MKII. I used a Sonic Solutions system for assembly." A/D conversion and digital limiting was done at 88.2k, 24-bit, which was then sample-rate-converted to 44.1/24-bit. The 24-bit words were then dithered down to 16 bits using UV-22 processing in another Apogee PSX-100.
LeRoy sums up his experience mastering "Yin-Yang" this way: "When they started playing back those mixes, I was like, damn! Effect-wise, tonality-wise, stereo definition, depth of field, everything — the VS-1680 totally surprised me." Proof that quality musicianship plus quality gear in the hands of a skilled engineer is the winning formula for professional results.
 Vintage Guitar Review
"Acousticville" CDs of the Month —
"This CD is sonically fantastic. I played it for J. Gordon Holt, founder of "Stereophile" magazine, and he marveled at how natural it sounds. Recording engineer Dave Sinko and mastering engineer Randy LeRoy show they're among a precious handful who know how to properly record acoustic music. If bluegrass with a large dollop of newgrass appeals to you, "Fair Weather" won't get far from your CD player."
"Again, Randy LeRoy did the mastering, and after spending some time with this CD, you'll find it harder to accept the mediocre sonic swill that passes for the average commercial release nowadays." —Steven Stone "Vintage Guitar" |
{Alison Brown "Fair Weather"}
{Judith Edelman "Drama Queen}