AIR Mastering Opens At AIR Studios

AIR Studios have announced a new division of the company, AIR Mastering, in conjunction with this year's MPG award winner of the Best Mastering Engineer category - Ray Staff and former Alchemy engineer Matt Colton.
Richard Boote, owner of AIR Lyndhurst Group, explained: "Offering a mastering service is something I've always considered and I seized the opportunity to work together with Ray and Matt to make this a reality. I am proud to now associate the AIR name and its reputation for high quality recording with a newly built mastering studio that offers the same high standard of results.
Ray and Matt together with Tim Vine-Lott, Technical Director of AIR, have designed the new mastering studio from the ground up working closely with Dave Bell of Whitemark and Guy Wilson of AKA Design.
Ray explained the set-up of the new room: "A custom console has been built around the new Manley Backbone. We have a mix of great sounding classic analogue and modern kit, including Chandler and API EG's, Neve, Avalon and Cranesong Compressors, complimented by TC, Algorithmixs and Brainworx digital processing.
"The reasoning behind this choice of equipment is that it gives us a range of different characters and flavours. This mix of equipment also means that our mastering offering is unique in many ways as we have moved away from what you would normally find in most other studios.
"Our choice of monitoring is of particular interest. Instead of using the standard large studio monitors we have adopted an audiophile approach, which gives us a more detailed high fidelity reproduction. We chose TAD Reference 1 monitors, the mid and the high end are time aligned dual concentric which brings much more realism to the mix. All driven by customised Trichord Research D300 mono-block amplifiers.
"Whitemark, taking into consideration our equipment choices, designed the acoustics of the room. This combination provides a clean, even soundstage with superb imaging, detail and dynamic range.
"The studio also features a Neumann VMS80 cutting lathe, Studer A80 Preview 1/2" and 1/4" with custom ultra low noise DAV electronics. All in immaculate condition for pure analogue cutting and CD mastering."
(KMcA/BMcC)