Panic At The Disco - Mastering with Scott Hull
The Phoenix band Panic at the Disco sent their new album for Atlantic Records to Scott Hull for mastering in January. Produced by Rob Mathis, this record has a warmth and fullness that is missing from many modern rock records these days. Mixed to analog ½’ tape at Abbey Road in London, and mastered directly from tape with analog eq and compression, this record sounds great in all environments. There was a conscious decision to NOT try to make it the loudest record on the planet. The benefit of that was there are real dynamic on the record. Louds seem loud because the softs are soft. What a concept! The first single “ Nine in the Afternoon” has been getting some radio-play and charted on billboards hot 100. The album is due out in March.
Scott was also asked to prepare the Masters for Vinyl and the analog approach was taken there too. It would be much simpler and much faster to cut the master lacquers from the Digital CD master. But that wouldn’t be good enough for this record. So the analog masters came out again and the vinyl parts were cut directly from the tape as the eq changes were being made in real time. Because of this it’s a little different from the cd master. There is less limiting overall, but it still sounds loud and punchy. Scott went for a traditional approach. Andy Vandette and Tony Dawsey at Masterdisk helped with the cutting.
Future plans for Scott Hull Mastering include the installation of a disk cutting lathe.. Scott Says “it seems that the Hi Fi folks are rediscovering vinyl. They find an enjoyment with it that they have been missing with CD. I got into mastering before the CD even came to the market, so learning to cut records was part of my initial training and vinyl has always been an important part of the sound of my mastering. “
