Ken Scott met with John Webber who's mastering the Bowie catalogue, half speed vinyl etc, to chat about the complexities of the project and all manner of other mastering related issues in front of an audience of fellow producers and engineers.
Ken started at Abbey Road Studios. Back then, nearly 60 years ago, part of the transition to becoming an engineer was to spend time cutting discs. Most of these would have been for people such as George Martin to take home an acetate to listen to at home. Learning what you could get away with and what you couldn't get away with helped the fledgling engineer understand the limitations so once a full recording engineer only recordings that would cut it were sent for mastering.
With this in mind, it seemed like a great idea for Ken who spent a brief period cutting discs could chat with someone who masters for a living to discuss progress and much more.
Keen eyed people might spot a number of leading producers in the audience, a surprising number of questions were asked by the audience which caught us off guard as we hadn't put up a room mic to capture questions (rookie mistake!) so had to pull audio off the camera mic - sorry about the average quality!
A big thanks to everyone at Air Studios for making this possible and for providing a great venue to record a relaxed and informative chat with so many industry professionals. A very big thank you to Ken Scott and John Webber for taking time out to do this and to Nikki Affleck for making everything come together.
Just some of the artists that Ken has worked with: The Beatles • Elton John • Pink Floyd • Procol Harum • Mahavishnu Orchestra • Duran Duran • Jeff Beck
John Webber background
Official UK Top five albums recently mastered or vinyl cut by John include David Bowie’s posthumously completed studio album Toy, Duran Duran’s Mark Ronson & Erol Alkan produced Future Past and Hozier’s number one album Unreal Unearth. He is considered a go-to for indie artists and bands including new projects for Ash, Coach Party, Junodream, Band Of Skulls, Benjamin Clementine, Iraina Mancini and Divorce.
Further mastering work includes artists such as Matilda Mann, Clint Mansell, Clean Bandit, L7, MF DOOM, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Husky Loops, Echo & the Bunnymen, Tom Grennan, Yungblud, Alexis Ffrench, Tina Turner, David Arnold, We Three, Oscar Scheller, Josh Klinghoffer’s Pluralone and George Michael, including work on his final number one studio album Symphonica & the 2023 re-issue of Older. In 2019 John worked with Anna Meredith on her Mercury Music Prize-nominated album, Fibs.
Also known for his extensive mastering work with David Bowie, John has mastered half-speed vinyl releases of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars and Aladdin Sane. Further vinyl cutting includes work for Animé, Bugzy Malone, Ben Howard, Primal Scream, Bloc Party, Amy Winehouse, Jazmin Bean, Jon Murry, Burna Boy, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis.
Priding himself on being able to work with any currently available format, John has been involved with Dolby Atmos mastering projects, which includes work for Duran Duran, Husky Loops and Junodream.
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