LOWLAND
MASTERS NEWS
09/01/10. LM on the move
We
moved just before Christmas, and all went well in spite of the snow. Please note our new phone number, (UK) 01799 586 835.
07/11/09. Mastering the future
Another packed year here at LM, one of many mastering highlights being Elaine Paige's 40th Anniversary live album.
Once again, warmest thanks and season's greetings to all our customers
and supporters! In the meantime, after ten years at the same location
we'll be on the move over the coming months - more updates soon.
12/03/09. Tech news - the River flows
First gear purchase of 2009 is an analogue mastering equaliser, the Great River MAQ-2NV.
The unit is making a significant difference to what goes on here: it's
entirely switched for repeatability, and has one of the better
interfaces around for fast and easy working including an unusual
channel link facility. And the sound... gorgeous old-school analogue,
anything from subtle correction to assertive toneshaping - as you may
have guessed, we like it!
22/12/08. Farewell 2008, here's to 2009
This
year has been another busy one here despite the economic gloom:
highlights included mastering music for Barack Obama's presidential
campaign, a single for Red Nose Day 2009, projects for artists like David Essex, Superhero, Mika Urbaniak, Jonathan Veira and Cara Winter
plus over a hundred production music albums. We'd like to say a big
thankyou and wish compliments of the season to LM's customers and
friends - please continue to watch this space, we're working on some
exciting plans for next year.
27/07/08. Tech news - Danish
invasion
It's only been here a few weeks, but the Mastering System 6000
from Denmark's TC Electronic is already contributing much to projects
passing through with its varied and pristine digital
processing. In addition to the standard algorithms ours also has TC's Unwrap
software and an Icon touchscreen controller.
02/03/08. Isis in Eurovision
LM customer Isis Gee is through to the first
semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest representing Poland. She will perform
her song, For Life, in Belgrade on 20th May,
and if she goes through to the final will do so again on the 24th along
with UK entrant Andy Abraham. More here.
13/10/07.
LM goes to the Vatican
Catholic outfit CJM Music have recently
been mastering
with us again. To publicise the release CJM enterprisingly put
the
album, Age To Age Volume 1, on an iPod and sent it to His Holiness Pope
Benedict XVI - full story here.
27/07/07.
Mastering update
It's
been a varied mastering year so
far: among the highlights have been albums for guitar legend Tim
Renwick, Pakistani star Najam
Sheraz, harpist/singer Katie
Targett Adams and Christian
music veteran Garth
Hewitt.
Also a new release for Ben Okafor of music from the play 'Child
Of
Biafra'
about his time as a child soldier, a single for the 25th
anniversary relaunch of Kajagoogoo
and
even an album of Gregorian chant in the style of Madonna.
28/04/07.
Site News - articles update
The articles
page of the website has been updated with
a selection of writings for Audio Media magazine from the last
few years.
More will be added as they become available.
15/03/07.
Tech News - Blue arrival
Delivery
of the Algorithmix
Classic PEQ Blue
plug-in was confirmed today. At
LM we've been living with a
demo version for a couple of weeks and have been knocked out by its
quality - it's the best all-round digital soft-
or hardware EQ
we've come across, and
customers who've heard it seem to like it too.
16/01/07.
Tech News -
New
workstation
Recently arrived is a second SADiE
5 PCM8
digital audio workstation to help absorb extra
workload. The new machine has similar facilities to our existing one,
and will
enable us to take advantage of SADiE's powerful networking.
Update, 01/02/08: this
machine has now been upgraded to H16
status with more processing power and I/O in advance of a planned
surround upgrade later in the year.
04/12/06.
Accelerating toward year's end
There's
a flurry of mastering activity at the moment, boding well for 2007. One
notable project has been a new album, Out Of The Ordinary, for
Christian singer/poet Graham
Kendrick,
produced by Julian Kindred
and mixed at three locations in the
UK and US.
12/10/06.
Mastering update
Paul
Bell,
Allan Ellingsgaard,
Mojo,
Ben
Okafor
(two CDs), Erin
Starnes,
Shade and Simeon
Wood are among the artists
who've had
albums mastered at LM since July. There's also been a
Star Wars show recorded for
Chessington World
of Adventures, live
albums and lots of compilations. Onward and upward!
01/05/06.
Tech News - CEDAR
and CD text
New additions to the audio
processing arsenal at Lowland Masters
include the CEDAR
Retouch, Denoise and Dethump noise removal tools which
integrate into the SADiE workstation. Also added recently is a
SADiE CD text update so
that album title, artist and track name will be
displayed on players allowing it.
01/02/06.
A flying start
January proved a busy
mastering month here, with a number of
production music albums - LM-mastered material is becoming increasingly
prevalent in TV and film music - along with further Vineyard
projects and an EP for Essex band The
Morenas.
Nigel also worked on an ongoing educational audio series, and recorded
and edited veteran actor Douglas
Blackwell reading a selection of
Mr
Men
stories
for forthcoming CDs.
11/01/06.
Mastering update
Amongst projects passing
through the mastering suite of late:
an album
reissue for UK bluesman Ian Siegal,
a
number of classic album
remasters and a new album, 'All From You', for Vineyard,
a
debut solo album for Sony BMG singer/songwriter Jill Jackson and an
album for Christian performer Alun Leppitt. Re-formed
eighties
rockers After
The Fire
have also recently used LM to
master
tracks for iTunes.
Last October Nigel
Palmer recorded children's
voices for Sony's
Christmas CD, the TV-advertised
Santa
Sings,
and recorded, produced and mastered the companion story
disc.
02/11/05.
Tech News - HEDD
converter upgrade
Recently added to the LM gear
inventory are new AD and DA
converter boards for our Crane Song HEDD
192.
These provide world-class digital conversion to and from
the
studio's
analogue equipment, and
complement the HEDD's
existing on-board processing.
25/10/05.
Boog EP
After mastering their
debut album with us in 2004,
quirky
popsters Boog
have returned to Lowland Masters with a four-song EP
recorded at Rimshot Studios in Kent. The band's
Dave
Seckleman commented via email: 'Fantastic job, even such a control
freak perfectionist as myself can't find a thing to alter. Ever thought
of doing this "mastering" thing professionally?'.
04/08/05.
Matt Schofield live and in the studio
Two new albums for blues
guitar prodigy Matt
Schofield
and his
Trio are currently in the mastering pipeline for Nugene
Records.
The
studio album 'Siftin' Thru Ashes' will be followed by a 'Live At The
Jazz Cafe' CD, and additional tracks featuring special guests
from
the Jazz Cafe set are being processed for use on the web.
04/07/05.
The Open University
Lowland Masters will be
collaborating with
The
Open University,
mastering audio course materials on behalf of the university's
Sound and Vision department.
The OU has more than 180,000 students, and was placed ahead of
Oxford University in a 2004 national survey of
teaching
quality.
17/06/05.
Multiple
releases for Vineyard
Lowland Masters has recently completed five new projects for Vineyard
Records UK, a Christian
record company with a
worldwide base and an LM customer since 2000. The CDs,
produced
by
Nigel Hemming
and engineered by
Paul Burton,
continue the successful Great Big God
series for
children and also provide backing tracks of all the songs to date as
an additional resource.
Nigel Hemming (via email): 'Thanks so much for the final masters.
They sound fantastic. The mastering you have done really spices
them up - I'm really excited to hear them sounding this good.'