After being led down behind the busy overpass that shadows Electric Mastering’s building, one would assume that its rooms would be dirty and industrial. However, once inside it is apparent that it’s a place where creativity rules – it’s an amazing vintage studio.

Owned and created by Pete Hutchison of Peacefrog Records, Electric Mastering began by accident. The studio’s EMI TF12410 mastering console was imported from a studio in Lagos complete with original compressors, eqs and hi/lo pass filters. The desk sat in Hutchison’s house until his wife told him to get rid of it. It was then moved to London’s Westbourne Studios and became the centrepiece for a mastering studio that he used to save money on Peacefrog’s releases.

The room at Westbourne soon became highly sought after by respected UK labels like XL and Domino that wanted their recordings run through Electric’s warm and old school signal path. Demand for Hutchinson’s services soon grew beyond that of his available time and Electric Mastering was officially born. A virtual time capsule of vintage equipment including a Neumann VMS 70, Fairchild 670, EAR 822 Q eq, Sontec MES 432C-9 and a Manley Mastering Slam Limiter, the studio soon attracted the talents of renowned engineer and former Exchange employee Guy Davies and recently added Chris Potter (pictured, right) to the ranks.

Potter is best known for his work with Duffy, Primal Scream, Fightstar and Sons and Daughters. Electric began its pursuit of Potter after losing one of Bernard Butler’s projects. Peacefrog’s Paul Ballard comments: “The This is Music record label booked time in our studio for a Findlay Brown record that Butler produced. We then found out that the session was cancelled because he always uses Potter. We thought, ‘that pesky Chris’,” he laughs. “We started asking a lot of our regular customers and Potter’s name kept coming up.”

At the time Potter was working freelance after the demise of London’s Alchemy Studios. “I had a pretty good deal after Alchemy closed down and I went freelance, which meant that I was at home in the garden as much as I was in the studio,” he jokes. “The thing that attracted me to the studio was the ability to do something different. The first time I walked in the studio I thought, ‘I have never used any of the gear in this room’.”

Both Potter and Hutchinson admit that mastering remains a highly misunderstood process. Hutchinson also suggests that most of the studio's clients are not so ‘geeky’ about the gear and just know that its engineers are mastering successful albums. “Guy mastered the new Little Boots album and that has reached the top five in the charts. When you hear it on Radio 1 it sounds amazing,” he says. “We have a lot of current successful projects coming out of the studio and most of the big independent and major label producer-led projects are coming our way. People know they are going to get something that sounds good from Electric and they want a piece of that.”

Potter furthers: “Most clients come in and say ‘make it loud’. Most other people treat it as a black art. They don’t understand it and want us to make their record as loud as anyone else’s. Even with that request I have to take into account what the client is asking me to do and if it is possible within what I am hearing. I will do what they want me to do while suggesting alternatives, in terms of not over-limiting or hitting it too hard. I try and find a middle ground, which is the creative element of finding somewhere between slamming and being too quiet.

The cleanest signal path
 The desire to maintain a clean signal path is top on the list of Electric’s agenda. As such, the music mastered at the studio is first processed through a Prism Sound ADA-8XR AD/DA converter, and then back through it again at the end of the process. Potter explains: “In terms of converters there are so many that give a character, but Prism gives the nicest one. I have used them in most mastering places because they are the best, quickest and cheapest route to good conversion.”

After hitting the converters the signal is passed through the studio’s EAR 660 limiter. He says: “The 660s are limiters/compressors, and I try not to do much with them. I then put it through the SPL eq and/or the EAR 822 Q eq. Desk-wise I tend to use the eq of the EMI more than other parts, although the desk’s stereo spread is very good and subtle. I have used some digital stereo enhancers that mess with the frequencies; they make the mids jump out and the bass gets very swimmy. That doesn’t seem to happen on the EMI because it doesn’t get bogged down in too much detail. You can do some big things on it very quickly and effectively, and it will shape out something quickly in a few moves.
“If I’m using the Fairchild 670, it will be before the desk eq. Finally, I put it through the Weiss eq 1 mkII to help match volumes and for use as a compressor with a good
de-esser that we use on some of the vinyl projects.”

The final step of the process ends in the studio’s Pyramix DAW. This is essentially the only digital equipment used. “There is the option to use more, and I might use certain bits of eq when cutting to vinyl, but I haven’t found the need for it. When it comes to technology, my son has left me behind in terms of what he and I can do, but that is what you choose to do and down to your outlook on life. Maybe it could improve my life, but I’m happy to continue using the things I know and work with physical knobs.”

Job Satisfaction
Although very modest about his past credits, Potter admits that working on material with Primal Scream and Bernard Butler has given him great job satisfaction. “I’m not impressed by whose album it is, or if someone has sold a lot of records, but there have been many projects I’ve enjoyed working on, such as Primal Scream’s album Evil Heat and young upstart bands like Johnny Foreigner and Danananakroyd.

“Duffy’s album with Bernard Butler was great because at the time she was an unknown artist, so there was no added pressure and we just had the pure enjoyment of working on a great record. I had grown up during the Brit Pop Suede days, so Butler was a marker in my musical development.
“At the same time it doesn’t matter who you are when you come in here, we treat everyone the same.”
www.electricmastering.com