It was like, OK, here it is! Come on in… After I graduated from tape copies, the company moved to a different space, and about four or five months in, a mastering room opened up, and lo and behold, here is my new mastering room. Bob Ludwig was like my boss and he would show me around. When I was 18 or 19, I left college and got a job at Masterdisk delivering packages, and I was just there watching everybody. One of my earliest memories-when Saturday Night Fever came out, I spent all night making tape copies for every country in the world that was going to release it.ĭid you go to school for mastering or audio engineering? Doing that I really got to start hearing what was out there in the world, and the music was great! I also spent much of my time making one-to-one dupes of the 1/4″, 15 ips Dolby master tapes from Mercury and Polygram. I started in 1977 and I was the company’s first messenger. You got your start at Masterdisk in New York… In the end, if it’s good music, I don’t care where it was done or who recorded it.

I like the indie stuff, because even though some of the recordings aren’t as good quality as some of the major-label stuff, it can often be more cutting edge. ĭo you get a lot of work from indie labels or bands?Ībout half and half.

That’s what I like I never get tired of hearing that. Like “Wow, that’s got a great vibe or feeling”, not just “Oh, it’s got more bass.” I thought it went really well. That’s very important, because in the end that’s why you hire them.Īfter I master something, I want people to put it on and have it do something to them. That’s OK, that’s what I do! Never be afraid to tell somebody you are hiring what you want. I know the band was a little nervous about getting back to you with some changes to track times and the overall bass level on one of the songs, because, well, you are Howie Weinberg! I like stuff that has a vibe already, where the basics are already there, rather than having to add or create something that doesn’t exist.

Howie Weinberg: It sounded good, really nice. You recently mastered ten tracks from the Chicago-based band Camera that I had the pleasure of mixing and recording.

Mastering rap songs