“There’s still the myth floating around that it’s a ‘dark art’ when it really isn’t” — An interview with Mastering Engineer, Katie Tavini
The third in the 100% HER blog series, Charlie Croft spoke to Katie Tavini about her career and the role of a Mastering Engineer.
Mastering is where art meets science and offers a fresh perspective on the music. It’s making micro adjustments for maximal effect. It’s quality control and restoration — removing any unwanted noises, clicks and glitches etc. It’s ensuring sonic consistency between multiple tracks on an album to ultimately enhance the listening experience.
Brighton-based Katie Tavini is putting the ‘master’ in Mastering Engineer and continues to cultivate a career brimming with exciting music projects; from Punk Rock five-piece, Sonic Boom Six, to Indie Rock songstress, Nadine Shah. Katie’s work on the Electronica album, 100% Her, with Universal Production Music, proves there’s no need to confine yourself to just one genre, and to let the zest for your craft shine through, which Katie has in bucket loads. The 100% Her album stems from their mission with shesaid.so to bring more women to the forefront of production music.
CC: When did you first know you wanted to be a Mastering Engineer?
KT: Honestly, I never once even considered mastering as a career, it was purely an accident! And for a long time, I didn’t even really know what mastering was. I started out as a Recording Engineer, which I loved, but part of my job was to mix which is something I’ve just never got the hang of. I read tutorials and went to workshops, asked questions but I just still couldn’t get the hang of it. When someone told me that if I wanted to get better at mixing then I should learn how to master, I just sort of followed blindly. I used to practise mastering on tracks and then compare them to professional masters that had come back. I really practiced critical listening — what had the Mastering Engineers done and why. After a while, I really got into it and one day someone asked me to master an EP for them. After that, the ball got rolling and I stopped taking engineering sessions to focus on mastering!
CC: What are the top skills needed for the role?
KT: Critical listening is the main skill. You also have to be super organised because you’re sometimes working with massive amounts of audio files — for a ten track album, you can have the main mixes, instrumentals and radio edits, and then you have to create different formats for all these files. That can add up super quickly! File management is something I’m constantly working on; you never want to be the person who can’t find something!
CC: How important is the Mastering Engineer’s contribution to music production in general?
KT: Obviously, I’m biased here but I do think it’s a very important role. Quite often the Producers or Mix Engineers have been working on material for a while, so it’s really useful to have a Mastering Engineer as a second set of ears. Quite often it’s just spotting things that will make the mix function better, or little things like there’s a bit of talking on the vocal mic during the bridge because it’s not been cut out. Being able to spot these things and give feedback can really help a production.
CC: What are your career highlights?
KT: Well I would definitely say that working on 100% HER has been a big highlight! I’ve also mastered Nadine Shah’s new single ‘Ladies for Babies (Goats for Love)’ which got released in February. Working with her producer Ben Hillier was probably one of my favourite experiences so far and I’ve learnt so much from him.
CC: Which music style/genre do you master the most?
KT: This is such a hard question! There seems to be definite trends; some months it’ll be all punk, or all pop. Right now, I’m working on a pretty good mixture of projects. These months are always my favourites because I get to hear so many new and different things. At the moment, I’m working on a Math-Rock project, an Indie Pop project and an experimental project so it’s super mixed!
CC: What has it been like working on new project, 100% Her?
KT: It has been wonderful! I had no idea what to expect at the start as I don’t often master compilation records. However, the music is all so well-crafted and the mixes are absolutely solid, so everything already sat together really beautifully. What is really incredible is the diversity. Under the umbrella of electronic music, you’ve got so many great things happening and it really takes you on a journey. Each track is strong enough to work as a single but also compliments the surrounding tracks on this album. As well as the talent from the Producers, it’s been really beautifully curated and has been a real pleasure to work on.
CC: Why do you think there are fewer female Mastering Engineers?
KT: I think there are fewer mastering engineers because not many people actually know about mastering. It’s a very small (but important) part of the music production process, but it’s not really talked about. It’s a really hard area to get in to, and all the mastering engineers I know never originally set out to be Mastering Engineers. I started off as a Studio Engineer with hopes of being a Producer, so mastering was purely accidental. In fact, I didn’t really know what mastering was for a long time!
CC: What would you say to aspiring Mastering Engineers?
KT: Practise! Listen loads and ask lots of questions. The nature of mastering (is a lot faster paced than mixing and you end up working on a massive range of projects) means it’s really important to keep learning and developing new skills.
I actually run lots of workshops about mastering, for both Universities and Colleges, as well as events for women and gender minorities. I think it’s really important to talk about as there’s still the myth floating around that it’s a ‘dark art’ when it really isn’t.
CC: How do you spread the word about Mastering?
KT: It’s quite tricky with mastering, because it’s not really seen as being the ‘cool, sexy’ bit of music production, but my favourite way of spreading the word is doing workshops and masterclasses. This enables people to actually see what mastering is and hear the difference it can make. People are often surprised by how subtle the audio processing part of mastering can be, and also by how creative it can be!
So, next time you listen to your favourite album, dive deeper into the sonic sheen provided by mastering. Whether that’s through your headphones, iPhone speakers or a massive dance club sound system; mastering matters.
