Hollywood, CA (April 21, 2022)—King’s X took its latest album, the band’s first for 14 years, to Bernie Grundman Mastering after completing the project with producer, engineer and mixer Michael Parnin at his Blacksound Studios in Pasadena, CA.
Bernie Grundman Mastering engineer and Pueblo Audio gear designer Scott Sedillo mastered the album and cut lacquers for vinyl. The release date is fall 2022.
Michael Parnin commented on the mastering of the album, “Covid-related delays were unavoidable, but it’s great to be finished with this extensive analog project with fully-realized dynamics intact, not slammed and over-compressed. At Scott Sedillo’s suggestion, we printed to 1/2″ analog tape at 30 ips to keep the entire mix down in the analog domain, all the way to mastering.”
Sue Moreno Masters Memphis Sessions with Grundman
Parnin elaborates, “The approach for this record is old school with a retro-’70s sound captured by a pure analog signal chain. We did analog summing with the Pueblo Audio Sidewinder for the rhythm section and the main mix buss summing. For automation on the vocals and overdubs, we used the SSL Sigma.”
“Early in the production phase, Michael had brought his mixes to me for a check in the mastering studio,” Sedillo reports. “His ‘in-the-box’ work sounded terrific. Nevertheless, he had an instinct that an analog approach would be even more fitting for the band’s music. This started a journey to build up a hybrid studio with the multitrack being digital and the mixdown system entirely analog.
“This project was very interesting for me because as a mastering engineer at BGM, I usually only work at the very end of the production chain, but as president of Pueblo Audio, I was also able to contribute to the other production phases by supplying preamps, DIs and the final summing amp. It was intriguing to experience how Michael’s new hybrid mixes succeeded in forming a stronger connection to the band and their music. We were also fortunate that the label supported our request to release the vinyl album on four sides at 45 rpm, thus removing any physical restrictions for optimizing the cut.”
