The biggest thing codecs do isn't what they take out. It's what they reveal. A master that's solid and cleanly processed survives encoding. A master that's over-limited or harshly EQ'd exposes all of those problems more clearly after encoding, not less.

The one topic guaranteed to clear the room at any party, explained properly. Apply it once, at the end, to the final bit depth. Everything else is downstream.

Mid-side processing splits a stereo signal into what's shared between channels and what differs between them. When something in the center of a mix needs attention and the sides don't, or the reverse, that separation is exactly what you need. Here's how it works in practice.

The sound quality of your vinyl varies greatly depending on who handles it. That single fact is the reason to care about every step between your pre-master and the pressing plant, and why vinyl brokers are almost never the right answer.

What most people heard was not cassette at its best. It was cassette at its most abused. A well-recorded cassette on a good deck with quality tape sounds genuinely great. Not great for cassette. Just great.

Transformer saturation in mastering isn't a fixed coloration. It's a conversation between the iron and the program material. Here's the physics behind why, and how to listen for it.

In mastering, transformers shape tone through subtle, level-dependent interaction rather than gain. My custom Big Crunch Transformer Box lets finished mixes pass directly through selected vintage iron, adding density and cohesion without sounding processed.

The Variable Mu is one of the last pieces of gear that touches a master before it leaves my room. Why I use it at 1dB of gain reduction, and why that is enough.

People ask which piece of gear makes the biggest difference. The honest answer is the room. If what's reaching your ears is colored, every decision you make is colored. It's that simple.

A stereo Pultec-style mastering EQ custom-built by Manley Labs in 1997 as a one-of-a-kind commission for mastering houses. Serial number MSPEQ013 is, as far as EveAnna Manley can confirm, the only unit of its kind in existence.

The MLA-4 is categorized as multiband, and so it gets passed over by engineers who have learned to be wary of that category. That is a mistake. Here is what the box does differently, and why Leif designed it that way.

A purpose-built mastering tape machine from The Hit Factory, with confirmed Otari delivery records, mystery modifications, and the philosophy behind when tape earns its place in a master.

The ITI MEP-130 is where parametric equalization began. This is the complete history of serial numbers 001 and 002, from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute to Hunt Valley, a knife in an office door, Baltimore Harbor, a Craigslist listing, and a phone call with Burgess Macneal at 86.