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Welcome to my mastering service page, let's dive right in. I have 17yrs experience and a professionally sound abated studio specifically designed for intensive listening, running a Pro Tools HDX system and all the highest regarded software/plugins in hybrid with tons of top tier analog outboard (Neve, Dangerous, Summit, UA, API etc.)

 

For monitoring I rely most heavily on my Focal Twin 6's w/sub but I check every master on Event 20/20's, a Bose speaker, Sennheiser & Avantone headphones, and finally apple ear buds. Unlike most mastering engineers I do a car check as well, before sending to clients. 

Types of music that I master include Pop, Rock, Metal, Orchestral, R&B, Hip Hop, EDM, Punk, Funk, Indie etc...

Some cool things I've done most recently would be mastering a full length album for the band Swift Technique, mixed by grammy winning Phil Nicolo. My work led the band Deep Tissue to their first full length record deal this summer. One other project I did recently included members of CKY, Municipal Waste, Obituary and other popular heavy bands.

It's important to choose a mastering engineer who's fully aware and always considerate of the extremely diverse period of time we're living in, as pertaining to audio. To explain this, I would suggest we all think about the drastic difference in EQ and Loudness (for starters) when we listen to professional recordings of each decade. We're only just beginning to arrive at a moment when streaming platforms are adjusting loudness to make all sorts of music more fluidly enjoyable. That's a great win for the audio industry in my view, but we still have vast differences in EQ and also dynamic range from decade to decade, even year to year, many times depending on the genre of music and other variables. 

What I can guarantee is a solid communication and understanding of the clients intention for their masters. It's not wrong to want the loudest possible version of your recording, should your music have to be heard in sequence with other loud material. It's also OK if you want your master to "pop" sonically with all the metaphoric bells and whistles that shimmer and sparkle in some of the most popular recordings. Last and not least, there's certainly something to be said for the master recording that can be listened to on repeat, non-stop and will never cause your ears to fatigue. 

If it's starting to sound like your recordings are in good hands, that's because they are. Feel free to contact me directly to talk about your project. 

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OTHER SERVICES

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Stems & Versions

Contact me for pricing on stem mastering and for versioning of your masters (i.e. loudest, brightest, punchiest, listenable). We can negotiate a fair price for multiple versions of your master as well as manageable mastered high resolution stems of your music for future proofing your work. 

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Session Work

I'm able to provide session playing for drums, bass & guitar at your request. I've done session work for films, as well as for internationally touring acts. More than 20yrs experience and of course, your instrumentation will be recorded in the most professional setting and format. Use the contact form for pricing & samples of my playing.

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Editing

Another service I offer is audio editing. Over the years I've become a specialist in tightening performances. If you have a live drum kit that isn't quite in time but still needs to maintain all the feel, or you're having trouble getting rid of cymbal bleed without losing all the tone, please reach out. Or if your entire mix needs tightening, contact me and we can discuss pricing. 

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Mixing

I'm not currently accepting budget mixing work. If you have a significant budget, please feel free to reach out. My mixing work has led to some successes but is extremely intensive and therefore not cost effective at a limited budget. If you'd like to discuss further I can provide some sound advice or refer a mixer that I know and trust but I can't guarantee a cheap price. 

Mastered by Aaron Van Allen

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GEAR LIST

Equipment including but not limited to:

Outboard/Mic Pre/Channel Strip:

 

Aphex 204 Stereo Aural Exciter

API 550

Avalon 737 

Black Lion Audio Seventeen dual parallel compressors

Dangerous Bax EQ

Dangerous Compressor

Dangerous Dbox

Kush Clariphonic Mid-Side Equalizer

Neve 1073 

SPL Tube Vitalizer MK2-T

Summit Audio EQF-100 Full Range EQ

Urei 535 Dual Equalizer

Lindell Audio 7X Compressor

Midas Venice F32

Moog Analog Delay

Moog Ladder

SSL VHD 

UAD Top Box

Universal Audio LA610

Warm EQP-WA x 2 (modded)

BBE Stereo 422A

Mics: 

 

Shure SM7

Shure SM57 x4

Audix D2

Audix D4

Audix i5

AKG D12 x2

Sennheiser 421 x 2

Sennheiser e965

Oktava MK012 x 2

Avantone BV12

Avantone CR14

Neumann U87

 

Guitars: 

 

Fender Custom Shop Strat Alder w/ Rosewood neck, 50’s humbucker w/ 69’ single coils

Fender Custom Shop Strat Alder w/ Maple neck, Pearly Gates humbucker w/ noiseless single coils

Fender 69 Reissue Telecaster

Gibson Les Paul Special

Fender 62 Reissue P Bass

Fender 60s Jazz Bass

Takamine Pro Series 6 acoustic

Taylor Dreadnaught acoustic

Baby Taylor acoustic

 

Amps:

 

1970’s Fender Bassman 50 Watt

Bickle 50 watt Custom Built Alexander Howard Dumble Clone

Vox AC4

Vox Brian May Deacy Amp

Marshall OG20

Orange TT15

EVH 5150

 

Drums: 

 

Yamaha Rock Tour Kit(mahogany shells)

Ludwig Supraphonic

Tama Studio Maple Snare w/ wood hoops 6x14

Tama Studio Brass Snare 6.5x14 w/ 42 strand wires

Zildjian A custom cymbal set

 

Keys:

 

Yamaha P115 88 key midi keyboard

Microkorg

Monitoring:

 

Focal Twin 6 w/sub

Avantone Mixcube

Event Tuned Reference 

Bose Soundlink II

 

Interfaces:

 

Avid i/o 16x16 analog x2

Digidesign 192 16x8x8 analog x2

 

Computer Hardware:

Mac Pro 12 Core 3.46GHz Processors w/128gb RAM

Mac Pro 8 Core 3GHz Processors w/ 32gb RAM

Pro Tools HDX

Universal Audio OCTO PCIe card

Universal Audio Satellite OCTO

Universal Audio Satellite Quad

Software:

 

Pro Tools HD 12, 2018, Ultimate

over 100 UAD plugins

Plug-in Bundles from:

Izotope (latest Ozone, Neutron, RX)

Waves 

Sonnox 

SPL

FabFilter 

Sound Toys

Antares

Vienna Symphonic 

Splice Sample membership

Ableton Live Suite

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CONTACT

PRICING:

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100$ per hr of service. A piece of music at an average of 4mins takes approx. 1hr of mastering. Please contact me to discuss budgets per albums/compilations. For clients with limited budgets, check out my express mastering offer below. 

Express mastering:

For abridged mastering services within 48hrs, send 40$ per song to the email below via paypal. Not as much time will be allocated as with regular rates but the work is done by AVA and is a significant improvement/alternative to robot services such as LANDR.

Send your files in the highest resolution possible to aaron.j.vanallen@gmail.com via fileshare such as dropbox, sendspace, googledrive etc.

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