Customer CloseUp

Gavin Lurssen— Owner, Lurssen Mastering

Gavin Lurssen is the owner and chief engineer at Lurssen Mastering in Hollywood, CA. Gavin recently won his third Grammy for mastering “Raising Sand,” with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, which won for “Album of the Year” at this year’s Grammy’s. Gavin has routinely worked on albums that were either nominated for or have won Grammy awards, as well as numerous albums that made their way onto the Billboard Charts (many reaching #1). In 2002, the first year mastering engineers were included in the "Album Of the Year" category at The Grammys, Gavin was honored in the category for his work on the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.

For the full review please visit: Lurssen Mastering

Sonic Studio:

What’s your production workflow at Lurssen Mastering?

Gaving Lurssen:

The way we work at Lurssen Mastering is that we use analog processing equipment no matter what the source material is. After we process the audio for optimal sound by today's mastering standards we convert back to digital and then into the work station. The raw unedited files then get taken to an editing suite to be cleaned up an and having the spacing and cross-fades set and whatever edits are needed. This work is either done by the mastering engineer or a production engineer familiar with the project. As a result we have two to three editing systems running simultaneously all day long, and that includes the system to which the files are recorded in the mastering room.

Sonic Studio:

What were your requirements when you specified your gear for this new facility? What led to the overall choice of Sonic Studio components?

Gaving Lurssen:

There are several elements to the decision. The first priority is being that it has to sound good. I have been a Sonic Classic user since the early 1990's and once we found the right cables and clocks and other little things that made that system sound good it became my benchmark. I found some other systems based on PC that sounded pretty good but I am comfortable on the Mac so that was another consideration. It was the first professional mastering system that worked for Mac OSX that we found that fit into the way we integrate things.

Sonic Studio:

What role did our unique technology play in the decision?

Gaving Lurssen:

Four point editing was comfortable because we are already comfortable with Sonic Classic which has that feature. NoNOISE is unrivaled and very useful, especially in some of the catalog work we do. The 302 is a very good sounding interface, everything that goes through it sounds 100% right every time. When something goes into the program using the 302 it just sounds right.

This interview was conducted in Dec of 2007. For information on how Sonic Studio can help your business grow while coping with the often conflicting demands of commercial audio production, please contact our sales professionals at 1-460-1201 or you local Sonic Studio representative.