The Mastering Show

I'm seeing several different discussions online about what makes a "real" mastering engineer – and some of them are getting pretty heated !
So what really matters the most ? Expertise, experience, or credits ?
In this episode I talk about my own opinions and reasoning, talking about:
Why credits can be a complete red herring, especially online
The problem with credits even if they are reliable
How I got great results with (almost) zero experience
When years of experience might not be an advantage
The power (and problems) of trial and error
When expertise becomes a super-power

Links and more episodes here:
www.themasteringshow.com/episode-110
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

Audio repair and restoration has always been a huge part of mastering – and not only for re-mastering vintage material.
Even modern recordings can have problems like clicks, thumps, hiss, amp buzz, distortion and many more. Ideally they’d all be fixed in the mix, but sometimes it’s not possible or they get missed – or maybe the best tools for the task aren’t available.
In this episode I talk to Mike & Alexey from iZotope about my personal favourite piece of software for this kind of task, and many more - iZotope RX.
Version 12 of RX has just been released, with many new features and improvements. We talk about this and much more during the episode including:
Why I love RX and have been using it since 2011
My favourite features
Some “secret weapon” strategies
The toughest challenges for restoration
How using the “wrong” feature can sometimes be helpful

Links and more episodes here:
www.themasteringshow.com/episode-109
Mentioned in this episode:
Mastering
Click HERE to work with Ian
Learn to master !
Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources

I used to say that the Loudness Range (LRA) measurement wasn't really useful when mastering - but recently I changed my mind. In this episode I explain why, and how loudness range is actually something you might want to pay attention to, as well.
Topics include:
What is the Loudness Range ?
How is it different to Dynamic Range ?
What even IS Dynamic Range, anyway ?
Why did I say that LRA wasn't helpful ?
How I changed my mind, and why
How LRA could be useful for you

Links and more episodes here:
www.themasteringshow.com/episode-108
Mentioned in this episode:
Tools
For Ian's mastering plugins, click HERE
Learn to master !
Click HERE to see Ian's courses and mastering resources
Leapwing
Find out more about Leapwing's plugins

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:
The LUFS of the biggest recent releases
Why no-one hears it
Are mixes built too loud to be dynamic ?
Why music fans don’t care (which could be good news) - and who does
What do we do about it ?
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