Ian Shepherd | |
|---|---|
 Ian Shepherd, Mastering Engineer | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 1971 (age 51–52) |
| Occupation(s) | Mastering Engineer, DVD and Blu-ray author |
| Years active | 1994–present |
Ian Shepherd (born 1971) is a British mastering engineer, Blu-ray and DVD author. He runs the Production Advice website and is the founder of Dynamic Range Day, an annual event raising awareness of the Loudness War. [1] [2]
Shepherd first trained and worked at Sound Recording Technology, near Cambridge in the UK, from 1994 to 2010. He started by copying tapes but was working as a mastering engineer by the end of the first year. He later developed SRT's Enhanced CD and DVD services, including mixing and mastering in surround-sound. Shepherd left SRT in 2010 to form Mastering Media, Ltd. [1] His recording, mastering, re-mastering and authoring credits include Keane, Tricky, Deep Purple, Tina May, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Culture Club, Christine Tobin and King Crimson amongst others. [3] [4]
In 2010 Shepherd founded Dynamic Range Day to raise awareness of the negative impact that the so-called Loudness Wars have had on audio quality. The event was a success and has grown in popularity each year, with industry support from Solid State Logic, Bowers and Wilkins, and TC Electronic. [5] [6]
Shepherd has been interviewed in Music Tech magazine [1] and has been quoted by the media for his commentary on music production issues in the news.
In 2008 he was the first person to provide detailed analysis of the production and mastering of Metallica's Death Magnetic album, the sound of which was widely criticised. Shepherd argued that the music was excessively compressed and distorted, and suffered as a result. His opinions of the album's sound were widely reported, and his comments were echoed and amplified by the band's fans. Over 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the album to be remixed and remastered. [7] [8] [9] [10]
Shepherd also contributed to the intense debate following allegations that Beyoncé mimed the American national anthem at President Obama's second inauguration. He assessed her performance and concluded that Knowles had in fact sung alongside a pre-recorded "safety" version, citing a video where her live performance can be heard at the same time as the backing. [11] [12] His findings were confirmed several days later at Knowles' press conference prior to the 2013 Super Bowl. [13]
Shepherd runs an online course called the Home Mastering Masterclass. [14] He has written for Future Music magazine [15] [16] and also regularly writes on the Production Advice website covering issues related to audio quality, mastering and the loudness wars. [17] [18]
In April 2013 Shepherd spoke at the AES Convention in Mexico City, giving a talk called "Lust for Level - Audio perception and the battle for great sound". [19] The presentation focused on the crucial role that audio levels play at every stage of music performance, recording, production and mastering. Shepherd went on to speak about the use of levels to measure "loudness", and demonstrated a beta version of his 'Perception' plugin. The talk was well-received, with many members of the broadcast industry attending.[ citation needed ]
In 2014, Shepherd announced the release of a new audio plugin, 'Perception', developed by MeterPlugs.
Described as a 'one click reality check' for mastering and mixing, Perception allows synchronised, realtime "before and after" comparisons of any audio processing chain, loudness-matched using the new EBU R128 standard. The intent is to allow users to objectively assess the effects of mastering processing without changes in loudness biasing their opinion. [20] (This kind of bias is widely accepted as the driving factor behind the Loudness War.)
Perception was well-received, with Music Tech magazine giving it a 10/10 review and an Excellence Award, commenting that "Perception won't suddenly make your mixes or masters sound better, but it might make you a better engineer, and that has far more value. If this plug-in helps point the way towards more dynamic mixes, then... we all will benefit." [21] Hugh Robjohns, writing in Sound on Sound magazine, said the plug-in was "a very clever idea, and works extremely well in practice – so well, in fact, that I found myself wondering how I coped beforehand!", and concluding that "Perception is recommended without reservation for anyone involved in mastering at any level". [22]
Master of Puppets is the third studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica, released on March 3, 1986, by Elektra Records. Recorded in Copenhagen, Denmark at Sweet Silence Studios with producer Flemming Rasmussen, it was the band's last album to feature bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident in Sweden during the album's promotional tour.
Dynamic range is the ratio between the largest and smallest values that a certain quantity can assume. It is often used in the context of signals, like sound and light. It is measured either as a ratio or as a base-10 (decibel) or base-2 logarithmic value of the difference between the smallest and largest signal values.
A record producer is a music recording project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions: ensuring artists deliver acceptable performances, supervising the technical engineering of the recording, and coordinating the production team and process. The producer's involvement in a musical project can vary in depth and scope. Sometimes in popular genres the producer may create the recording's entire sound and structure. However, in classical music recording, for example, the producer serves as more of a liaison between the conductor and the engineering team. The role is often likened to that of a film director though there are important differences. It is distinct from the role of an executive producer, who is mostly involved in the recording project on an administrative level, and from the audio engineer who operates the recording technology.
Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device, the source from which all copies will be produced. In recent years, digital masters have become usual, although analog masters—such as audio tapes—are still being used by the manufacturing industry, particularly by a few engineers who specialize in analog mastering.
Dynamic range compression (DRC) or simply compression is an audio signal processing operation that reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds, thus reducing or compressing an audio signal's dynamic range. Compression is commonly used in sound recording and reproduction, broadcasting, live sound reinforcement and in some instrument amplifiers.
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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.
Death Magnetic is the ninth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on September 12, 2008, through Warner Bros. Records. The album was produced by Rick Rubin, marking the band's first album since ...And Justice for All (1988) not to be produced by longtime collaborator Bob Rock and co-produced by Hetfield and Ulrich. It is also the first Metallica album with bassist Robert Trujillo, and the second to share writing credit to all of the band's members.
iZotope, Inc. is an audio technology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. iZotope develops professional audio software for audio recording, mixing, broadcast, sound design, and mastering which can be used in wide range of digital audio workstation (DAW) programs. In addition, iZotope creates and licenses audio DSP technology including noise reduction, sample rate conversion, dithering, time stretching, and audio enhancement to hardware and software companies in the consumer and pro audio industries.
A mastering engineer is a person skilled in the practice of taking audio that has been previously mixed in either the analogue or digital domain as mono, stereo, or multichannel formats and preparing it for use in distribution, whether by physical media such as a CD, vinyl record, or as some method of streaming audio.
Tony Maserati is an American record producer and audio engineer specializing in mixing. He was involved in the development of the New York R&B and hip-hop scene in the 1990s, working with Mary J. Blige, Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy, and Queen Latifah. Since then he has worked on Grammy nominated projects with The Black Eyed Peas, Beyoncé, Jason Mraz, Robin Thicke, and Usher. Maserati won a Latin Grammy in 2006 for his work on Sérgio Mendes’s Timeless. He has been nominated for a total of 10 Grammys, with four for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
"Cyanide" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica, the first promotional single taken from their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic. On September 1, 2008, it was made available for streaming on the band's official website, as well as a download from the Death Magnetic website Mission: Metallica. It has since been made available for purchase as a digital single in the iTunes Store.
"My Apocalypse" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica, and the second single from their studio album Death Magnetic. On August 26, 2008, it was made available for streaming on the band's official website, as well as a download on the Death Magnetic website Mission: Metallica. The song was later released as a digital single in the iTunes Store.
An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts."
David Richardson is an English music producer, audio engineer and musician. He founded Sky Studios with rock band Jethro Tull, the studio later became leading facilities house, Sound Recording Technology (SRT).
EBU R 128 is a recommendation for loudness normalisation and maximum level of audio signals. It is primarily followed during audio mixing of television and radio programmes and adopted by broadcasters to measure and control programme loudness. It was first issued by the European Broadcasting Union in August 2010 and most recently revised in August 2020.
Acoustica is a digital audio editor from Acon Digital. Acoustica is available in two editions:
Beyond Magnetic is the second extended play by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released to coincide with the band's 30th anniversary shows, in which they released a new song for all four days of the shows. It was originally released as a digital download exclusively on iTunes on December 13, 2011. All four songs featured on Beyond Magnetic were recorded for the group's Death Magnetic sessions but had not been released. Beyond Magnetic was released on CD on January 30, 2012 internationally and on the following day in the United States. As of September 2016, it has sold over 210,000 copies in the U.S.
Andrew Scheps is an American mix engineer, recording engineer, record producer, and record label owner, based in Los Angeles and the United Kingdom. He received Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album for his work on Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium, Album of the Year for Adele's 21, and Best Reggae Album for Ziggy Marley's Fly Rasta.
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