AMPM.Audio

Another entry in our occasional series about artists/labels we work with. This is another duo that need no introduction, the brilliant .

We were introduced through our friends when we mastered a remix for them. That was 6 years ago and since then we have worked on the masters for their original work and the music released on their imprint, including their last three albums and countless singles.

We've been fans for years and working with them has made us even bigger fans!

Cheers

Andy & Tim

Next up in our occasional series about artists and labels we work with.
This one is a recent favourite of ours, an absolute beast of a track by the inimitable

We've been working with them for a few years now, mastering much of the catalogue on their imprint (for which we'll do a separate post).

5AM at Bagleys really stood out for it's slick and unique production, euphoric, rushy breakdown and tough as nails bassline on the drop. We knew straight away when working on it that it was destined to be a big track and so it has turned out.

Cheers

Andy & Tim

Hello and welcome to the first post in an occasional series about labels and artists that we work with at AMPM.audio.

Kicking things off we start with a label that needs no introduction, the peerless .

Back in 2012 we signed a couple of tracks to the label and the team complimented the quality of the mastering. We tried our luck and offered our services. As a result we started providing masters and mixes for the main label and sub labels and it wasn't long before we were entrusted with the big releases.
Feel My Needs by Weiss was one of those big tracks we have mastered, an absolute house anthem by the legendary that has since gone gold and clocked up hundreds of millions of streams.
This is just one of hundreds of brilliant tracks we have mastered over the last 13 years and we are immensely proud of our small part in their huge success.

Cheers

Andy & Tim

We've been quiet on here for a while but we have been very busy in the background. We've got new branding and a new website on the way soon. We'll be sharing some of our favourite releases that we've worked on at AMPM on our socials, including on our Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ampm.audio/ plus tips and tricks that we've learnt in our mixing, mastering and production work.

(@ampm.audio) • Instagram photos and videos 16 Followers, 8 Following, 0 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from (.audio)

One of the issues artists encounter a lot when mixing tracks is how to properly mix the low end when using smaller monitors or headphones.

Over the years as producers and mastering engineers we have found workarounds that help give us a bit more insight into mixing low end on a restricted monitoring setup.

Here's some feedback we recently gave to one of our clients which they found helpful, so we're sharing it here too:

"Club toilet test", cut off everything above 80hz or so, listen on headphones. That way you can hear what's going on in the sub without everything else in the mix distracting you.

Metering. This is so useful, and also underutilised, as all those frequencies you can't hear so well, you can see them instead. The more you listen and look the more you learn how tracks should look.

For low end what I generally do is use the multiband compressor on Ozone. Set the low band to 20 - 120hz or so. Then pull the threshold down until the kick triggers the compressor, then pull it further down until the bass also starts triggering it.

If the bass triggers it before the kick, your bass is too loud. If you can't tell which is which, the bass is too loud.

There's no hard and fast rule but the kick peaking 3db above the bass works pretty well and gives me headroom to work with in the master.

The kick should be deeper than the bass, if it isn't then your low end could sound off balance on a big system, like the bass is the kick and vice versa.

You can see this on a decent spectrum analyser, the ones in Cubase are great and so are the ones in Ozone.

With the band on Ozone, you can move it up and down, so if you have a kick with a really strong transient in the low mids (120hz say) but you want to hear your sub, then adjust the band so it's 20 - 80hz. This will give you a better idea of what's happening.

Here's a playlist with a selection of some of the tracks we have mastered over the last couple of years:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6qg4NzuBGzxaeVCcdI0gEY?si=6d8cb08051f74832

AMPM.audio Selected Masters Playlist · Trilucid · 191 items · 25 saves

A project we particularly enjoyed working on recently was the album, Without U, by Biscits, on Sonny Fodera's label Solotoko. Quality music and production from one of the best artists and labels in house music:

https://open.spotify.com/album/4XGZu2GMoCpvUPUyXUodAq?si=ERjD8mI8RAuIv4JZIjjy8Q

Without U Biscits · Album · 2022 · 14 songs.

If you're interested to hear some of the tracks we've mastered you can find a playlist with a selection here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6qg4NzuBGzxaeVCcdI0gEY?si=eea7c6acbf6549b4

We have been very busy over the last few months so have been quiet here.
We work with a huge range of labels many of whom we've been working with since we, or they, first started out.

Here's a small selection of our regular clients:

Toolroom (and Toolroom Trax)
Sola
Thrive
Solotoko
Kaluki
Realm
Anjuna
All We Have Is Now
Enhanced
Saved
COCO
Arcane
Infrasonic
ZeroThree
Nothing Else Matters
Etiquette
Love & Other
FSOE
Adesso
Another Rhythm
High Contrast
Blaufield Music
HOMAGE
&Friends

The brilliant techno producer/DJ and all round top guy Will Clarke invited me on to his podcast to talk about music and mastering and all sorts of other things. We had a great chat but ran out of time way too quickly!
You can watch it here:

#83 Andy MacDougall Andy, music producer and world renowned mastering/mix engineer. He has mastered records for some of the biggest artists in the electronic music scene. I love...