John Greenham’s suite at Infrasonic Mastering, designed by Robert Maune of Sound and Structure
John Greenham, a Grammy Award–winning mastering engineer who is best known for his work on albums for Los Tigres del Norte (which won Grammy Awards for Best Norteño Albums), Mindless Behavior, The Stone Foxes, and Kimya Dawson, has officially joined the staff of Infrasonic Mastering in Los Angeles. Infrasonic Mastering was named one of the city’s “Top Temples of Sound” by The Hollywood Reporter and opened the doors to its new 1176 Sunset Blvd. location in July 2012, while the studio’s corresponding recording facility remained in its original East L.A. location.
Greenham, who previously operated out of San Francisco, brings 25 years of experience to Infrasonic, and a portfolio of current projects in the works, including Aesop Rock’s Skelethon.
“Starting the project up north and completing it in my new room at Infrasonic Mastering was quite interesting,” says Greenham. “Having used the same gear in each space, with the rooms set up correctly, there’s not a significant difference in sound, but the mastering suite at Infrasonic is certainly a lot more fun and dynamic to work in! My room sounded very correct right from the start—the imaging is great and the low frequency treatment is outstanding, which is always important, but especially so when working on hip-hop material like this.”
Skelethon is Aesop Rock’s first solo release since 2007. “In particular, and not surprisingly, Aesop Rock was very focused on the vocal sound,” says Greenham. “They needed to sound gritty with a lot of bite.”
The main pieces of gear Greenham used to master Skelethon were his Pacific Microsonics converters, the Elysia Alpha compressor in mid/side mode for a bit of extra width, and the Manley Mini Massive for a fast and clean sound.
Upon its release in July, Skelethon scored a Top 20 debut for Aesop Rock on the Hip-Hop Album Sales chart, reportedly the highest weekly sales of his career.
For more information on Infrasonic, visit www.infrasonicsound.com.
For Greenham’s discography and blog, visit www.johngreenham.com.
