Ian Shepherd is a British mastering engineer and MD at Mastering Media Ltd. Over the course of his career he has worked on thousands of CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays for all of the major record labels, TV stations and independents, including several number one singles and award-winning albums. He also runs the popular Production Advice website, and hosts The Mastering Show podcast.

He is a fierce critic of the so-called Loudness Wars, and in 2010 founded Dynamic Range Day, an online event intended to raise awareness of the issue.

He has developed several acclaimed mastering plugins with MeterPlugs: Perception AB, which received an AudioMedia Gear Of The Year Award; Dynameter which helps users achieve optimal audio dynamics for their music and the Loudness Penalty website, plugin and Studio desktop application.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

Common mastering mistakes
Why a “one size fits all” method doesn’t work in mastering
Simplifying your mastering chain
Should you factor in loudness during the mixing stage?
How to find a good balance of loudness and volume
What to focus on in order to create consistency between tracks on an album
Keeping perspective and objectivity when mastering your own music
What does “translation” really mean? What you need to be listening for
Making “one master to rule them all”: How does this account for various listening scenarios (eg. non-normalized streaming and/or clubs)?
Dynamics vs. loudness
How to know if your tracks have a good dynamic range
The problem with aiming for “target levels”