54 l January 2014
www.psneurope.com
industrytalk
Master and
HE WAS employee 001 when he joined the studio in 1965. Nearly half a century later, Abbey Road Studios senior mastering engineer Peter Mew – who also spent a good 20 years as a recording engineer – is ready to retire, even if the studios still wants him there at least one day a week for the next year. A man who wore many hats,
he’s also written the studio’s database software from scratch, and needs to update it as much as possible before he’s gone for good. At his retirement party, Mew gave a speech during which he said “My wife thinks all I do all day is listen to music and drink coffee, and I’ve got away with that for 48 years!” We’re sure there was much more to it than that, but Mew’s not giving many secrets away…
To so many people Abbey Road is the Holy Grail, but to you it’s been your work place. Absolutely, and that’s difficult to get your head around, the fact that people would give their right arms to come here, and I just walk in – and have done for years and years. It’s one of the few places were you might say “Oh bloody McCartney, he’s put his car in my space!” and
commander
After 48 years of working at Abbey Road Studios, Peter Mew has retired, taking with him a priceless collection of memories – and the nameplate from his mastering room, writes Erica Basnicki
anybody else would just gasp: [mimics deep reverence] “Paul McCartney!” and that just the way it is [laughs].
When you think about your career here, what stands out? I started here after three years as a studio engineer. So I’ve done that, I’ve done this (mastering) and I’ve done pretty much everything. Over those 40-odd years, you see everything, you’ve done everything and you pretty much work with everybody, so nothing really stands out as a highlight. There are things I would like to have done: work with Frank Sinatra, for example, one of the greats. I never really worked with The Beatles but pretty much anybody else who has been through Abbey Road’s doors I’ve worked with, and they just become a string of nice people you talk to. They sit in that chair and tell me stories, and it’s fantastic.
But you’re not sharing them with me… [Laughs] They’re telling me about their experiences, and in a lot of ways it’s a bit like a confession. You have to keep some of this stuff to yourself.
What kit are you using for your mastering work? The workstation is Sonic Solutions; it’s bigger in America than what it is here. It’s a Mac- based DAW that’s been around, well, since 1988. I had the second one in the country and it’s developed from there. I’m different to everybody else
here in as much as I work completely digitally. All my EQs, everything. I get it from analogue into the [DAW] as flat and as transparently as possible.
That is different. I’ve worked on analogue equipment for 20 years in the studios. I find that the problem with most modern mastering engineers is that they never knew what it was like to record with analogue. At the time – not just me but all my contemporaries – hated the way that the analogue equipment changed the sound. Nowadays it’s, “Oh yeah,
we’ve got to have that, because that’s the analogue sound.” No, it isn’t. We would have loved to have had digital recording, where it didn’t colour the sound. Loved it. But we didn’t have the option.
I don’t know of many mastering engineers who share your
“We would have loved to have had digital recording, where it didn’t colour the sound. Lovedit. But we didn’t have the option”
philosophy, but I’ve not met anyone who’s had 40+ years experience... Exactly. You’ll mostly be talking to people who have had 15-20 years if you’re lucky. And they’re all into the modern kind of technology rather than the technology that was then, what we were fighting against, basically. You hear things like, “Hiss is our friend, hiss is good.” No it isn’t! Why did we get Dolby if hiss is our friend? Hiss is something we tried to get rid of. The important thing for me is
that (when it comes to audio) everything is your opinion, and not a fact. As long as people remember that, then we’ll all get along. I’m lucky that the stuff that I’ve mastered for myself other people have liked. I don’t know what I’d have done if they hadn’t.
I guess you wouldn’t have been here so long, would you… I guess not! [Laughs] Getting a good grounding in the studios, you get to understand
Peter Mew
about sound. People just don’t get that opportunity anymore, they don’t record live musicians in the studio playing together. I think that’s partly why
there’s such a surge in live music; people are actually hearing that vibe when people play live, and they’re not hearing it on their AAC file from iTunes.
When your one-year contract is up and you’re not coming in to Abbey Road anymore, what will you miss? The people. The major thing about Abbey Road is the people. The work, well I could take it or leave it now. I’ve done most stuff and for the past few years all I’ve been doing is taking remasters that were done 15 years ago, putting them in a different order and sending them out again. There’s not a lot of creative work involved there. That’s really what it’s all about: the creative stuff.
www.abbeyroad.com
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