More and more people are choosing to get vinyl copies of their music made one at a time, rather than having hundreds of copies pressed at once. Or in very small batches, or allowing fans to order copies on demand.

So how does this work, and what does it mean ? How do you get the best quality results, and minimise the risk of getting something back that you're not happy with ?

Mastering for vinyl is a whole different ball-game, as I discussed in detail with Scott Hull in Episode 94. So in this show, Joe Caithness and I dig into the topic in detail, discussing:

• What is a "lathe cut" or "dubplate"
• How are they made, and how are they different to traditionally pressed vinyl ?
• Do you always need to have your music mastered by a dedicated vinyl cutting engineer ?
• How do you get the specs for the audio you should supply ? And
• Why this can be trickier than it sounds
• Do you really need to mono the bass on vinyl ? And what about phase ?

Links and more episodes here:

www.themasteringshow.com/episode-107

Mentioned in this episode:

Mastering

Click HERE to work with Ian

Tools

For Ian's mastering plugins, click HERE

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

I see it every day: “The Loudness Wars are over - loud won. Get over it”

And it’s easy to see why. The average mainstream release hits -8 LUFS integrated or more; club releases regularly hit -6 or even -4 LUFS and are peaking well above zero; every other post you see on social media is about a new limiter or clipping strategy…

As the creator of Dynamic Range Day and Loudness Penalty, I should probably just give up and get my hat, right ?

Maybe….

But maybe not.

In this episode I dig into the evidence in 2026, and try to decide whether dynamics really are dead or not, looking at:

1. The LUFS of the biggest recent releases
2. Why no-one hears it
3. Are mixes built too loud to be dynamic ?
4. Why music fans don’t care (which could be good news) - and who does
5. What do we do about it ?
6. Reasons to be optimistic about dynamics in 2026

Links and more episodes here:

www.themasteringshow.com/episode-106

Mentioned in this episode:

Mastering

Click HERE to work with Ian

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

Learn to master !

Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources

It was the Grammys this week - you can't have missed it !

And somewhere along the way I saw an article by Ian Vargo assessing the loudness and dynamics of the nominees for Best Song.

In this episode I talk about what he discovered, and what my reaction is – and along the way, I talk about:

1. The highest (and lowest !) LUFS measurements of the Best Song nominees
2. How I feel about that
3. What these songs sound like with more dynamics
4. What difference does it make ?
5. Is loudness really "part of the aesthetic" ?
6. And what really does make a difference ?

Links and more episodes here:

www.themasteringshow.com/episode-105

Mentioned in this episode:

Mastering

Click HERE to work with Ian

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

Tools

For Ian's mastering plugins, click HERE

Getting your music "synced" for licensing in TV, movies or ads can be an amazing opportunity for indie musicians to make money and gain exposure. But is it just a pipe dream, and is mastering a necessary part of the process ?

Chris SD from Sync Songwriter is an expert in this topic – just in the last year they've had artists get songs placed in the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning movie "Anora", for example! And this episode I talk to him about this whole topic, including:

1. What sync licensing is
2. Why song supervisors might be interested in hearing your music
3. How people normally submit their music for possible sync opportunities
4. A better way that you can connect with them to improve the odds of getting your music taken on for use in film, TV and adverts
5. Which types of songs and artists are most likely to be taken on and
6. The role mastering and audio production play in this process

And lastly we talk about the free Sync Songwriter Music Supervisor Panel that he's put together to help you find out more about all this - which is taking place this January. For more details, click here – if you decide to give it a try, you'll be helping support The Mastering Show at the same time.

Mentioned in this episode:

Learn to master !

Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources

Mastering

Click HERE to work with Ian

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

This started out as a Q&A episode, but one way or another there turned out to be a real theme to many of the questions, namely - how do you choose between technical and creative considerations, when mastering ?

Questions like:

1. When the client wants songs to sound different
2. When to use mid-side processing (or not)
3. Transient shaping - hardware or software ?
4. How much distortion ?
5. When is unbalanced EQ am artistic choice ?
6. What to do when the "correct" thing to do goes against the emotion of the song

Take a listen and find out how these questions all connect !

Full links on our website:

www.themasteringshow.com/episode-103

Mentioned in this episode:

Mastering

Click HERE to work with Ian

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

Learn to master !

Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources

Translation is one of the main goals of mastering - make the music sound great on any platform, and any delivery format.

But how is that possible ? How can we optimise the audio to sound great on both a huge PA and crappy earbuds, or via any data-encoded stream, when we don't have any control over those playback systems or streaming platforms ?

The answer to this paradox is deceptively simple - and powerful. In this episode I explain the common misconception of what 'translation' is; what the term really means to me, and share three simple suggestions to help you get your music to translate - on any playback system.

Full links on our website:

www.themasteringshow.com/episode-102

Mentioned in this episode:

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

Learn to master !

Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources

Mastering

Click HERE to work with Ian

Brian Eno is probably the musician, producer and artist who has had the single biggest influence on my music taste and enjoyment over the years. His work speaks for itself and needs no introduction !

So when I heard Emre Ramazanoglu talking on the Working Class Audio podcast about re-mixing and mastering many of Brian's classic albums for Dolby Atmos, my ears immediately pricked up. I just couldn't miss the chance to talk to him in more detail about working with Brian - and the amazing detective work that it involved.

So in this episode Emre and I take a deep dive into this fascinating subject, talking about things like:

• "Audio archeology" – the challenges of mixing Eno's older material, and the unexpected solutions Emre found
• How mixing for Eno is different from Emre's usual workflow, even with brand new releases
• The lessons Emre learned - and why this might be what makes Eno such a great producer
• New immersive strategies Emre developed specifically for these albums...
• ...and how they're helping his stereo mixing as well !

Full links on our website:

www.themasteringshow.com/episode-101

Mentioned in this episode:

Learn to master !

Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

Tools

For Ian's mastering plugins, click HERE

I wanted to do something a little different to mark the 100th episode, but wasn't sure what. I was wondering about interviewing myself but that seemed a little weird...

And then Matt Boudreau from the excellent Working Class Audio podcast invited me back onto his show, and it occurred to me - I could get Matt to interview me, which would be way more fun and get some much more interesting questions !

So here it is. Matt and I talk about all kinds of things including:

• My background in music, production and music technology
• How I got my start as a mastering engineer
• The responsibilities of the mastering engineer (and the mistake that nearly cost me my job)
• My first mastering chain, and how it inspired my Perception AB plugin
• How I feel about being 'The Loudness Guy'
• Hardware versus 'in-the-box' mastering
• Why mastering matters

And loads more !

Full links on our website:

www.themasteringshow.com/episode-100

Mentioned in this episode:

Learn to master !

Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources

Tools

For Ian's mastering plugins, click HERE

Leapwing

Find out more about Leapwing's plugins