Robert C. Ludwig (born c. 1945) is an American mastering engineer. He mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists, including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, [1] Metallica, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen and Daft Punk, [2] [ unreliable source? ] with more than 3,000 credits. [3] He is the recipient of numerous Grammy and other awards. Ludwig retired in 2023.
At the age of eight in South Salem, New York, Ludwig was so fascinated with his first tape recorder, that he used to make recordings of whatever was on the radio. Ludwig is a classical musician by training, having obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in New York. He was also involved in the sound department at Eastman, as well as being principal trumpet of the Utica Symphony Orchestra. [4] Inspired by Phil Ramone when he came to Eastman to teach a summer recording workshop, Ludwig ended up working as his assistant. Afterwards, he was contacted and offered work with Ramone at A&R Recording. [5]
After a few years at A&R, Ludwig received an offer from Sterling Sound, where he eventually became a vice president. After seven years at Sterling, he moved to its competitor, Masterdisk, where he was vice president and chief engineer. In December 1992, Ludwig left Masterdisk to start his own record mastering facility, Gateway Mastering Studios, in Portland, Maine. [5]
Ludwig's mastering credits include albums for classical artists such as the Kronos Quartet, and rock acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Phish, Rush, Mötley Crüe, Megadeth, Metallica, Gloria Estefan, Nirvana, the Strokes, Queen, U2, Sting, the Police, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Beck, [6] Guns N' Roses, Richie Sambora, Tool, Simple Minds, Bryan Ferry, Tori Amos, Bonnie Raitt, Mark Knopfler, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, the Bee Gees, Madonna, Richard Wood, [7] Supertramp, Will Ackerman, Pet Shop Boys, Radiohead, Elton John, Daft Punk [2] and Alabama Shakes. [6] Ludwig occasionally undertook larger projects, such as remastering the back catalogues of Rush, Dire Straits, Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Rolling Stones. [8]
As a judge for the 8th and 10th-14th annual Independent Music Awards, Ludwig's contributions helped assist the careers of upcoming independent artists. [9] Ludwig is active in the Audio Engineering Society and is a past chairman of the New York AES section. He was co-chair of the Producers and Engineers Wing for 5 years and is presently on the Advisory Council of the P&E Wing of National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. [10]
On July 2, 2023, Ludwig announced that he had retired and had closed Gateway Mastering: "Music has always been my love. I’ll miss you and the whole music community with whom I’ve worked. I wake up every day enjoying what I do, which has been such a blessing. It’s been an extraordinary experience to work with you all these years." [11]
| Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | The Rising | Album Of The Year | Nominated |
| 2005 | Avalon | Best Surround Sound Album | Nominated |
| 2006 | Brothers In Arms - 20th Anniversary Edition | Won | |
| In Your Honor | Nominated | ||
| 2008 | Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs | Best Classical Album | Nominated |
| 2009 | In Rainbows | Album of the Year | Nominated |
| Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends | Nominated | ||
| 2012 | Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (Super Deluxe Edition) | Best Surround Sound Album | Won |
| Music Is Better Than Words | Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical | Nominated | |
| 2013 | Ashes & Fire | Nominated | |
| Love Is a Four Letter Word | Nominated | ||
| Babel | Album of the Year | Won | |
| Blunderbuss | Nominated | ||
| 2014 | Random Access Memories | Won | |
| Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical | Won | ||
| Annie Up | Nominated | ||
| "Get Lucky" | Record of the Year | Won | |
| Charlie Is My Darling - Ireland 1965 | Best Historical Album | Won | |
| 2015 | G I R L | Album of the Year | Nominated |
| Morning Phase | Won | ||
| Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical | Won | ||
| Bass & Mandolin | Nominated | ||
| Beyoncé | Best Surround Sound Album | Won | |
| 2016 | Sound & Color | Album of the Year | Nominated |
| Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical | Won | ||
| 2017 | Are You Serious | Nominated | |
| 2018 | Is This the Life We Really Want? | Nominated | |
| 2020 | Scenery | Nominated | |
| Riley: Sun Rings | Best Engineered Album, Classical | Won | |
| Kverndokk: Symphonic Dances | Best Immersive Audio Album | Nominated | |
| The Savior | Nominated | ||
| 2021 | Black Hole Rainbow | Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical | Nominated |
| 2022 | Clique | Best Immersive Audio Album | Nominated |
| The Future Bites | Nominated | ||
| 2023 | Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2022 Remaster) | Best Historical Album | Won |
2012: Association of Professional Recording Services Sound Fellowship - received 27 October 2012 [13]
2015: AES Gold Medal [14]
Philip Rabinowitz, better known as Phil Ramone, was a South African-born American recording engineer, record producer, violinist and composer, who in 1958 co-founded A & R Recording, Inc., a recording studio with business partner Jack Arnold at 112 West 48th Street, New York, upstairs from the famous musicians' watering hole, Jim & Andy's, and several doors east of Manny's Music. The success of the original A & R Recording allowed it to expand into several studios and a record production company. He was described by Billboard as "legendary", and the BBC as a "CD pioneer".
Edwin H. Kramer is a South African-born recording producer and engineer. He has collaborated with several artists now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, the Kinks, Kiss, John Mellencamp, and Carlos Santana, as well as records for other well-known artists in various genres.
Masterdisk is an American multimedia company in New York, located at 8 John Walsh Boulevard in Peekskill. They provide production services such as audio mastering, vinyl cutting and enhanced CD and DVD production.
Electric Lady Studios is a recording studio in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was commissioned by rock musician Jimi Hendrix in 1968 and designed by architect John Storyk and audio engineer Eddie Kramer by 1970. Hendrix spent only ten weeks recording in Electric Lady before his death that year, but it quickly became a famed studio used by many top-selling recording artists from the 1970s onwards, including Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, and David Bowie.
Home recording is the practice of recording sound in a private home instead of a professional recording studio. A studio set up for home recording is called a home studio or project studio. Home recording is widely practiced by voice actors, narrators, singers, musicians, podcast hosts, and documentary makers at all levels of success. The cost of professional audio equipment has dropped steadily as technology advances during the 21st century, while information about recording techniques has become easily available online. These trends have resulted in an increase in the popularity of home recording and a shift in the recording industry toward recording in the home studio. The COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in a dramatic global increase in the number of remote workers in 2020, which is anticipated by experts to remain a permanent shift in the field of sound recording when the pandemic ends.
Anthony Carmine Bongiovi Jr is an American record producer and recording engineer. He is the cousin of musician Jon Bon Jovi.
The loudness war is a trend of increasing audio levels in recorded music, which reduces audio fidelity and—according to many critics—listener enjoyment. Increasing loudness was first reported as early as the 1940s, with respect to mastering practices for 7-inch singles. The maximum peak level of analog recordings such as these is limited by varying specifications of electronic equipment along the chain from source to listener, including vinyl and Compact Cassette players. The issue garnered renewed attention starting in the 1990s with the introduction of digital signal processing capable of producing further loudness increases.
Bob Clearmountain is an American record producer.
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine Rolling Stone. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in a special issue of the magazine, issue number 963, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2010, Rolling Stone published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of songs released up until the early 2000s.
Howie Weinberg is an American audio mastering engineer. Over the course of his career, he has received over 2,257 mastering credits, three TEC Awards, 21 Grammy Awards, two Juno Awards, and one Mercury Prize.
John Storyk is a registered architect and acoustician who, together with wife and business partner Beth Walters, co-founded Walters-Storyk Design Group (WSDG). Beginning in 1968 with Electric Lady Studios for Jimi Hendrix in New York City, and founding partner of Walters-Storyk Design Group. Soon to celebrate his 50th anniversary as an innovative recording studio designer, he began his career in 1968 with Electric Lady Studios for Jimi Hendrix in New York City, Storyk and WSDG have produced the provided design, system integration, and construction supervision services for nearly 4000 professional audio recording and video production/post-production studios, performance venues, sports venues, houses of worship and educational facilities. His work includes private studios for Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, Whitney Houston, Bob Marley, Aerosmith, Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls and R. Kelly.
Robert Musso is a New York City-based guitarist, composer, engineer, and producer. He is the founder of the independent record label MuWorks as well as the record label - MussoMusic.com. Over the course of a 40 - year career, Musso has produced, mixed, remixed, played on, written, or contributed to over 2000 records, CDs, movie soundtracks, on every continent in the world except Antarctica.
Seven Ages of Rock is a BBC Two series, co-produced by BBC Worldwide and VH1 Classic in 2007 about the history of rock music.
Roy Joel Cicala was an American producer, engineer, songwriter and musician. His body of work includes over 10 Platinum Records for producing, writing, engineering and management for talent from the 1970s through to 2014.
Scott E. Hull is a mastering engineer based in New York City, and the owner of Masterdisk.
James Kelly Robinson II was an American recording engineer, record producer and musician. He was best known for his engineering techniques with both analogue and digital audio recordings with prominent popular pop and rock records in American music from the late 1960s to the present. In addition to his recording expertise, Robinson was also an accomplished musician in his own right and had been awarded gold records as both a saxophonist and bass guitarist.
Gregory Calbi is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, New Jersey.
George Marino was an American mastering engineer known for working on albums by rock bands starting in the late 1960s.
Bobby Owsinski is an American audio engineer, producer, musician, and author based in Los Angeles.
Peter Doell is an American recording and mastering engineer known for his work with Miles Davis, Toto, Céline Dion and The Beach Boys. Doell has been a staff engineer at Capitol Studios, Sunset Sound Recorders and Universal Mastering Studios West. His film and TV work includes Road To Perdition, Black Hawk Down and Monsters, Inc., American Idol, The Voice and Empire.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
