{"id":803643,"date":"2020-01-30T12:23:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T19:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=945271"},"modified":"2020-01-30T12:23:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T19:23:49","slug":"at-work-with-emily-lazar-grammy-winning-mastering-engineer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/at-work-with-emily-lazar-grammy-winning-mastering-engineer\/","title":{"rendered":"At Work With Emily Lazar, Grammy-Winning Mastering Engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second installment of <\/em>Rolling Stone\u2019s series At Work<\/a><\/strong>, in which we explore the fast-changing music business from the perspective of a different industry leader each week. Read the first here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emily Lazar has mastered, without hyperbole, nearly 4,000 albums. The founder, president, and chief engineer of her own audio mastering facility The Lodge, the New York-based Lazar \u2014 who in 2019 became the first woman to ever win a Grammy for album engineering in the non-classical category, for Beck\u2019s Colors <\/em>\u2014 has notched over 20 years of experience in the business after starting out as an artist, producer, and graduate of NYU Steinhardt\u2019s prestigious Music Technology program. As one of the most sought-after engineers in music, she\u2019s received widespread praise for her work on albums like David Bowie\u2019s Heathen,<\/em> Maggie Rogers\u2019 Heard It in a Past Life, Vampire<\/em> Weekend\u2019s Father of the Bride<\/em>, Sia\u2019s 1000 Forms of Fear<\/em>, and Sleigh Bells\u2019 Treats, <\/em>but remains humbly committed to uplifting artists and championing female leaders in the industry. As the pace of the industry picks up, her job becomes increasingly difficult, but Lazar\u2019s self-described responsibility as a \u201cmidwife for delivering artists\u2019 music\u201d is no less rewarding.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How do you start work in the mornings?
<\/strong>If I\u2019m in the groove, I can work all night. So my next morning is kind of dependent on what happened the last night \u2014 I\u2019ve tried to get up at the same time every day but I just can\u2019t do it. I hate how alarm clocks sound; they\u2019re a horrible invention. As far as when my feet hit the floor, the first thing I do is get my son where he needs to go.<\/p>\n

Once he\u2019s out the door, I jump into my own \u201crecovery\u201d from whatever happened the night before. In my business I have clients all over the world talking from different time zones, texting while I\u2019m asleep. So I start a clean-up, responding to what happened while I was sleeping. It seems like as soon as I close my eyes there\u2019s a million emails.<\/p>\n

I work out, have breakfast, and then I go into the studio. As a mastering engineer, I spend a lot of time doing a lot of listening in my studio, usually with my assistant Chris, who\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

What do you do in the studio? How do you spend your time in there?
<\/strong>I listen to either whatever I\u2019m working on or things that my clients are digging \u2014 ideas, reference tracks, retro or new things they\u2019re feeling inspired by. Sometimes the things they send over will be like, \u201cI want my album to sound like the color yellow, as if Stevie Wonder was saying it, but it was recorded yesterday.\u201d These amalgams of things that are really cool. So I start to create this dialogue. It\u2019s important to me to have the ability to have the conversation with an artist, and it\u2019s easier if it\u2019s an attended session and they\u2019re here with me. I\u2019m vibing with them about what they want. If they\u2019ve emailed me because they\u2019re touring around the world, they\u2019ll give me really specific notes. \u201cI want this to sound like Fleetwood Mac but as if they\u2026\u201d and whatever.<\/p>\n

We find the creative direction together. Some people want to do multiple versions of a track; some people have very specific requests; others just want me to do what I think is right.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI want to be helpful and available to my artists. I\u2019m like that last-chance Texaco on their last stop to make it amazing before it goes out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How often do you work through the night?
<\/strong>It depends on people\u2019s deadlines and where they are. When I work with people in Los Angeles, since I\u2019m in New York, I\u2019ll be up late with them. When people are with me in the studio, it just takes as long as it needs to take and I keep going until we\u2019re happy. So it\u2019s happened quite a few times, because I want to be helpful and available to my artists. I\u2019m like that last-chance Texaco on their last stop to make it amazing before it goes out, and I\u2019m an important part of that chain because there are a lot of decisions that need to be made before a record\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

I read that you\u2019ve worked on more than 3,000 albums. Does it feel that way to you? And how long does it take to work on one album?
<\/strong>That is actually an old quote \u2014 I think it\u2019s actually closer to 4,000 now. It takes as long as somebody wants to take. Theoretically, I spend about an hour per track, if nobody is telling me what to do or, you know, to do it 52 times. It\u2019s EQ\u2019ing, compressing, editing, stem mastering. The technology has advanced us to a place where an artist can be mixing something in the studio, send it over to me, and I can master it and send it back, and we can tweak it together.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I feel like the tech is Pandora\u2019s box. But I\u2019m also a big fan of being able to give people what they want and work with them until they\u2019re happy. There is a lot of garbage out there. But I\u2019ve worked with incredible artists and the one thing that\u2019s similar is that they are all very particular with how they sound and how they want their songs to be. They are always fine-tuning themselves, working to preserve, protect, and amplify what they\u2019re trying to do. So I feel really blessed to play a part in helping them.<\/p>\n

How do you approach your relationship to artists? Especially if they are very particular with their requests?
<\/strong>I\u2019m kind of a midwife for delivering their music, bringing this thing to life. Psychologically, it\u2019s actually similar to the birth process \u2014 I think people can be very insecure about their work and there\u2019s this moment where they\u2019re in the room with me and we\u2019re holding the baby and I\u2019m like, \u201cLook at your baby!\u201d They look at me and say, \u201cIs my baby ugly?\u201d And I get to tell them, \u201cNo, this is beautiful.\u201d There are moments where you know you\u2019re in love but you\u2019re worried what everyone else will think. So it\u2019s an honor to be in that seat.<\/p>\n

As a career mastering engineer, do you feel like the role has changed due to the technological advancements in the industry? Is it a tougher job now?<\/strong>
Absolutely. It used to be that we were done and committed to tape and an album was completely mastered. There was no constant change. It was: \u201cThis is going to complete the creative picture.\u201d Now, if you\u2019re not 100% satisfied with where your mix is, you go back and rework it. It used to be that you mixed and then you mastered \u2014 mastering was the very end of the process.<\/p>\n

Now both can happen at the same time. So if suddenly the artist says \u201cI really wish my vocals sounded a little grittier here, a little edgier or sweeter or warmer,\u201d I have to adjust the frequency on the vocal, which also adjusts everything else that lives in that frequency range. So I might have to adjust the guitars, percussion, keys, as well. If a person says \u201cThe counterpart in the chorus is not loud enough\u201d or \u201cThe background vocals are not coming through with enough shimmer,\u201d I have to mess with the rest of the track.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the single best piece of advice you\u2019ve ever received about your career?
<\/strong>\u201cNever give up.\u201d It\u2019s the advice I give to everyone. There will always be naysayers, and this is a conversation I have with artists, too, who are feeling the pains of struggling through being an artist. It translates to people working in fields that are not traditionally open to them. I think if it\u2019s something important to you and you can\u2019t live without it and it makes your heart sing, then don\u2019t give up. That\u2019s your reason for being here.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt was horrible to be the only woman in the studio. I was really hungry to learn everything. I held myself to a much higher standard because I knew everyone else around me would. I never wanted to be knocked off my block by some asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Speaking of hurdles, what do you think was your biggest hurdle to overcome?
<\/strong>I know it\u2019s an obvious answer, but, being a woman. Everybody has to prove themselves, but when I started out \u2014 I didn\u2019t have any real technical prowess, I started out writing music and I got an education in engineering because I never wanted to be pushed around in that environment \u2014 it was horrible to be the only woman in the studio. I was really hungry to learn everything. I held myself to a much higher standard because I knew everyone else around me would. I never wanted to be knocked off my block by some asshole. Last year I was the first woman to win the engineering Grammy in non-classical. There are only maybe four awards a mastering engineer can actually win, so even being nominated was a gigantic honor.<\/p>\n

What do you think is the biggest threat to the music business?
<\/strong>Terrible audio quality. Streaming has been a really amazing and powerful way to get music into the hands of listeners with immediacy, but it\u2019s also been the bane of my existence. The audio is so degraded. The listeners aren\u2019t hearing what\u2019s happening in the studio and it\u2019s my mission to change that. It\u2019s like seeing Starry Night<\/em> on the wall \u2014 the incredible blues, deep yellows, and it\u2019s so gorgeous \u2014 and let\u2019s imagine we took a black-and-white photocopy and then photocopied that and then we shrunk it down to the size of a postage stamp. Would you pay to see that? Would it stir anything in you the way the real painting does? No, it\u2019s stir some other feelings, like, \u201cWhy the heck did I pay to see this garbage?\u201d Music is art. It makes people dance and feel things. It\u2019s really important to protect that.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your personal audio setup like, then?
<\/strong>I must have the biggest headphone collection of all time. My favorite pairs are probably the high-end audiophile pairs, the ones that cost thousands of dollars \u2014 Stax, Grado, Focal \u2014 but I also have AirPods because it\u2019s important for me to decode how normal people are going to experience the audio stream. I\u2019m really happy there are some companies trying to push the envelope as far as HD audio. I\u2019m certainly not a fan of how files sound on Spotify! They need to address that. If the tech companies are not respecting how the artists want their music to be listened to, we\u2019re all missing out.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second installment of Rolling Stone\u2019s series At Work, in which we explore the fast-changing music business from the perspective of a different industry leader each week. Read the first here. Emily Lazar has mastered, without hyperbole, nearly 4,000 albums. The founder, president, and chief engineer of her own audio mastering facility The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 05:43:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}