I'll happily back Chris Goosman as well.Especially for your side projects, your home recordings, digital-only releases ”anything that's important to you but may not make sense to have mastered at CMS, by Saff, etc. ”let Chris handle it. Don't read this as a suggestion that Chris doesn't deal with real or pro stuff, since he absolutely does. But he's also done wonders for my broke, bottom-tier bands and our tinny recordings. They always come back beyond mint.

I haven't had any direct interaction with Carl Saff, but a record I recorded and mixed was mastered by him and turned out great. The artist did all the interfacing with him, and we went through 3 or 4 rounds of tweaks. He was very responsive and we were pleased with the result.Same artist also had Scott Craggs at Old Colony Mastering (aka FM morespaceecho) master a previous project for him and it turned out great. I wasn't directly involved in that project, but I heard the before and after and was impressed with what Scott did for it.

I just finished my third project with Carl Saff, approved the reference lacquer today. I can't imagine ever wanting to work with anyone else. He is professional, friendly, prompt at responding to your questions and comments and his prices are excellent, as is the finished product. He also now has the capability to cut lacquers in house. I used to go to Carl for mastering and have Paul Gold at Salt Mastering cut the lacquer. Paul does great work, but it's really nice to have Carl as a one-stop-shop. As I said, after working with him a few times, I won't be looking for a different mastering engineer.

Our own FM morespaceecho did a great job mastering our album. Great guy to work with, excellent results, reasonable prices, good beer selection, etc...

eliya wrote:I'm asking because I know the lacquer has to be plated ASAP because it deforms over time.FWIW I've heard conflicting opinions about lacquer 'deterioration'.Of course, it's simply smart practice to plate them ASAP and as local as possible.And yeah, there are no DMM places left in the US.

I believe he said that he's using a plant that does DMM so there will be no lacquers or plating. I'm assuming GZ is the plant as their relatively inexpensive and offer DMM but I could be wrong.

I only have personal experience with Bob at CMS and he did a stellar job. Everything else I've heard from the other mastering engineers who were mentioned here also sounds boss.Quick question, are you pressing in the US or in the UK/Europe? Is the record going to be plated in the US? I'm asking because I know the lacquer has to be plated ASAP because it deforms over time. If you press in the UK, I would think it makes more time to have a UK mastering engineer do the job. I could be wrong, though. This is something worth discussing with your mastering engineer.

Used both John Golden and Carl Saff in the past, but tend to use Joe Osborne nowadays http://www.joesmastering.co.uk/. He did the mastering for a lot of the Kill Yourself and That Fucking Tank stuff which always sounded great to me. Nice guy, quick turnaround and really reasonably priced. Had him and Saff both master one of our tracks to see who we'd go for a few years back and ended up choosing him. Wasn't too much in it though.

Yeah, it will be going through GZ in Czechia, with DMM so I'll just be having Carl do the mastering ready for that (plus a DDP for the small CD run). There's actually an extra surcharge if I send my own lacquers rather than have them just do it in its entirety. The last time I used them, they did cut rather quiet (despite each side only being 15 minutes long) so I'll be making a point this time about keeping it loud enough.I'm looking forward to hearing how much better things will sound with someone like Carl doing it properly for my stuff rather than my personal turd-polishing excuse for mastering!

Good luck sending anything to GZ