The Butler Mastering - CD Mastering & Music Mastering Studio serving Pro Masters
Internationally from Sydney, Australia. - 172 b Norton Street, Leichhardt
3. Your Studio
We’re a hybrid of digital and analogue gear, and I have many favourite pieces on both sides of the converters. Our new Gyraf G14 valve EQ [a Pultec on steroids] is astounding, along with our Mullard version Thermionic Phoenix, and the API 2500. The Crane Song HEDD pulls it all together and throws us into our much loved Magix Sequoia DAW. In the world of 1’s & 0’s, we’re fans of PSP & Algorithmix and a new favourite, the Sonalksis DQ1 dynamic EQ. I’m delving deeply into M/S in the analogue domain, and finally our Lipinski monitors bring it all back to the most important thing in our studio, my ears.
4. Music, Right Here, Right Now
I’m loving where the music industry is at the moment, the quality of home recording and mixing blows me away on a daily basis.
Musicians are in such a great place to self promote and this is only going to expand as digital distribution develops. It’s an exciting time to be a part of and I’m honoured to be putting a hand to so much great music.
Who: The Butler Mastering
Where: Norton Street, Leichhardt
Contact: www.the-butler.com / 0403 435 686
Studio name:
The Butler Mastering
Answered by:
Paul Butler Tayar
1.Getting Started
My audio career began in the live arena back in 1998, my first gig being Richie & The Creeps [of Tumbleweed fame]. From here I started recording and mixing in the indie scene and quickly progressed to mastering for a growing list of musicians, mainly Hip-Hop and Metal in the beginning. Whilst on the journey to full-time mastering I worked in many other areas from System Design & Support with Jands, to a Broadcast Engineer role with Austereo, to Live Production for everyone from Kylie, to Battles, to The Presets, to the Big Day Out festivals, all whilst mastering from a small but growing studio in my living room.
2. Name Dropping
The last 2 years in our new studio has been nuts, in a good way... on top of the hundreds of talented indie musicians, we’ve been working with FAKER, Melody Black [of Mass Appeal & Jerk fame], some ex Idol finalists, some So You Think You Can Dance crew, international indie label Liquid Music, New York studio Nylon Music and even a couple of big names from Nepal, Cuba and New Zealand.
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Studio name:
The Butler Mastering
Answered by:
Paul Butler Tayar
What’s the studio set up you have there equipment-wise?
The studio focus is squarely set on the monitoring environment and the signal chain. Based around equipment from Lipinski Sound, Dangerous Music, Crane Song and local legend Peach Audio, the room has been painstakingly “tuned” to achieve a world class listening environment. As far as processing, there are products from Crane Song, API Audio, Millennia Media and Shadow Hills on the analogue side and Magix Sequoia with PSP Audio and Algorithmix plugs in DAW land. I am a real gearslut though so the processing side [away from my staples] does change quite frequently.
Any tips for artists entering a studio for the first time?
I see a lot of work coming through that is clipped in an attempt to make it louder. I really encourage all my clients to really watch out for this. In tracking, use 24 bit recording and stay well away from those red lights. In mixing, leave some space at the louder side of things and mix to how you want it to sound, not to make it loud. A 24 bit recording has over 40dB of headroom compared to 16 bit, so you have plenty of room to play with. If you’re throwing a compressor over the mix bus just for the sake of loudness, leave it off, turn your monitors up and let your mastering engineer make the decisions at a later stage. Saying that, if you really do like the sound of a dynamic processor over your mix, then by all means throw it on, but only if it is for the sound in a creative sense. If you’re not sure, print a mix with the processor, and then without and bring both to your mastering session.
Which notable artists have worked at the studio?
I’ve personally worked with plenty of “big names” in the past, in many different areas of the audio industry. In the current studio as it stands, we’ve had a massive group of Indie bands coming through. Lots of online work from the US, Italy, Belgium and even Cuba, through to DVD audio work for some of the “So You Think You Can Dance” crew and some of the ex Idol guys. We’ve also been working with a great little studio in Pyrmont [Suite 110] that have some amazing artists coming through, they are well worth checking out.
Studio name:
The Butler Mastering
Answered by:
Paul Butler Tayar
What’s the studio set up you have there equipment-wise?
The studio focus is squarely set on the monitoring environment and the signal chain. Based around equipment from Lipinski Sound, Dangerous Music, Crane Song and local legend Peach Audio, the room has been painstakingly “tuned” to achieve a world class listening environment. As far as processing, there are products from Crane Song, API Audio, Millennia Media and Shadow Hills on the analogue side and Magix Sequoia with PSP Audio and Algorithmix plugs in DAW land. I am a real gearslut though so the processing side [away from my staples] does change quite frequently.
Any tips for artists entering a studio for the first time?
I see a lot of work coming through that is clipped in an attempt to make it louder. I really encourage all my clients to really watch out for this. In tracking, use 24 bit recording and stay well away from those red lights. In mixing, leave some space at the louder side of things and mix to how you want it to sound, not to make it loud. A 24 bit recording has over 40dB of headroom compared to 16 bit, so you have plenty of room to play with. If you’re throwing a compressor over the mix bus just for the sake of loudness, leave it off, turn your monitors up and let your mastering engineer make the decisions at a later stage. Saying that, if you really do like the sound of a dynamic processor over your mix, then by all means throw it on, but only if it is for the sound in a creative sense. If you’re not sure, print a mix with the processor, and then without and bring both to your mastering session.
Which notable artists have worked at the studio?
I’ve personally worked with plenty of “big names” in the past, in many different areas of the audio industry. In the current studio as it stands, we’ve had a massive group of Indie bands coming through. Lots of online work from the US, Italy and even Cuba, through to DVD audio work for some of the “So You Think You Can Dance” crew and some of the ex Idol guys. We’ve also been working with a great little studio in Pyrmont [Suite 110] that have some amazing artists coming through, they are well worth checking out.
Who do you have on staff and what’s their background in the industry?
The studio is mostly me, but we have a couple assistants that come in through the week. I’ve always been involved in mastering but to pay the bills in the earlier years I worked training audio and designing systems for Jands [and still do on a consulting basis], listening to and testing the Event Opals for Rode and for Austereo as a Broadcast Engineer for a couple years up in Brisvegas. They’ve all given me great experience in other spaces of audio that ultimately relate to mastering and all have some wonderful [and very talented] people working for them.
Analogue vs digital – discuss.
There is a plethora of equally bad analogue and digital equipment out there, and concurrently there is also some great equipment in each domain. It’s not so much of an issue today as to how the product is achieving the process, everything should be judged on the final result... the sound of course, but also the ergonomics of use. Having a device that has great controls can make a big difference in your personal results, who wants to worry about sub-par controls [or menus] when you need to be expressive. Saying that I guess there is still a slight disparency between the 2, in my experience digital gear can be better for the transparent side of things whilst having a nice analogue pallet of colours is always nice.
Can bands bring in their own engineer or do they have to solely use a house engineer?
We welcome other engineers to be a part of the mastering process, we will have someone overseeing the operation but this can be strictly a system support role if you so choose.
We’re an impoverished indie band – do you offer any deals for acts in our situation?
Definitely! We always have time for indie bands, I’ve worked hard to keep a fixed pricing structure for the indie crew so everyone knows where they stand. We also offer a free listening session so you can bring in your music, listen to it on our systems and discuss what could be done to improve the project.
What’s the access to the studio like with regards to parking, flat load, etc?
There’s ample parking in the adjacent side streets, we also have a visitor parking pass to keep those parking cops off your back.
Working in the studio can be arduous and we’ll need a break – what are the amenities in the local area?
There are a few too many distractions far too close to the studio, some pretty cool pubs, bars and cafes. We also have a nice courtyard to chill out in away from it all, with a barbeque and pool table on order it’ll be a nice place to spend some time.
What are your contact details?
Best contact is through our website, the-butler.com, or you can call me directly on 0403 435 686 if you want to have a chat about your next project.
