Mike Wells
Company: Mike Wells Mastering
Clientele: Green Day, Prince, Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers
Contact: http://mikewellsmastering.com
As a musician, Mike Wells was signed once or twice. But after attending mastering sessions, he realized that he’d found his ideal career fit. He moved to his North Hollywood, CA, studio from San Francisco four years ago and has now been in the business for nearly 20 years. Wells has worked in a range of genres including electronic, rap and classic rock. Interestingly, he used to do shows with Green Day in the early ‘90s.
What are the top three ways to trim costs when beginning to master?
• Be happy with your mixes. If you’re not sure of them and then we have to re-mix half of the album, you’ve just added costs.
• I do something unique—and free––that I call a “groundwork session.” It’s a way to do one song and find a client’s overall goal. It lets me see how a client communicates and it shows them my process.
• If you’re doing any alternate versions, it’s cheaper to do them at the time of the main record because it’s common for people to want instrumental or vinyl versions of songs later.
What are the top three most valuable pieces of mastering advice?
• Understanding your gain target for your project is very important. You can achieve 6 to 8 dB gain in mastering without any compromise. Beyond that, it starts to cost you.
• Have a vision of the record flow and know what targets you’re aiming for––record, CD or digital distribution.
• Metadata. Most people at the indie level don’t know much about it. But it’s important because [having] it affects how a project is perceived by the public.
What are the top three things that are possible in mastering that weren’t possible a decade ago?
• Stems have become more popular. Typically I’ll work with four stereo stems. We can process each individually and create a mix from there. Usually I do stem processing, sum it and then do stereo mastering post-summing all in the analog domain.
• The amount of boutique mastering gear on the market today did not exist 10 years ago. Chris Muth and Bob Muller at Dangerous Music created that market. Their consoles are fantastic.
• DDP [Disc Description Protocol] as a CD manufacturing format is finally being used. It’s far superior to Red Book.
What are three ways a mastering engineer can enhance his relationship with the mixer?
• Respect what they do. They spend a lot more time with the artist than you do. They know what’s going on and are a crucial part of the project. Their work and opinion should be respected.
• Include the mix engineer in the mastering process. I’ve heard from many that once a record gets in our hands, they never hear it.
• Ask them for feedback at all parts of the mastering phase.
What are your top three favorite mastered records and why?
• Skinny Puppy’s Last Rights or Too Dark Park. [Producer] Dave Ogilvie is a genius.
• AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. I was nine years old when that came out. It was the moment I realized that I wanted to be in audio.
• The Pink Floyd catalog from Doug Sax. As the founder of the mastering industry, I have nothing but respect for his work.
What are the best/worst things about the relationship with mixers? Has it improved?
There are a lot more people in the marketplace and everyone wants to succeed. It’s the hardest it’s ever been for records to hit so everybody’s far more motivated to work together. That’s a great thing.
