Mastering the art

The Power House recording studios in Chiswick are a sound enthusiasts wet dream. Rooms dedicated to great sound filled with equipment that's capable of reproducing it. The studios I visited recently were those used by mastering engineers, the men who make records - and I use that term in the broadest possible sense - sound the way they do. They can only change the tonal balance, phase and degree of compression or otherwise but they are the final link in the production of recorded music and thus can make a big difference to the end result.

The mastering engineer is one of the few people in the chain who always works in the same room with the same equipment - the guys at the Power House use Bryston amps and PMC loudspeakers, really big PMC loudspeakers. So they have a better point of reference than the producers and engineers who go from one studio to the next and have to translate what comes through the monitors and how the room affects that into what the music will sound like when it's played at home or on an iPod.