Emily Lazar + The Lodge // NYC

[stringbean01]

i don't know too much about these cats, but damn they do a great job. they also tend to master a lot of the new music i'm into.

i feel like emily gets a really beautiful, explosive quality out of all her masters. vampire weekend's contra sounds huge! she seems to be riding the cutting edge of these dangerous times quite tastefully and effectively. any insight, opinions, experiences, thoughts?

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by stringbean01

i don't know too much about these cats, but damn they do a great job. they also tend to master a lot of the new music i'm into.

i feel like emily gets a really beautiful, explosive quality out of all her masters. vampire weekend's contra sounds huge! she seems to be riding the cutting edge of these dangerous times quite tastefully and effectively. any insight, opinions, experiences, thoughts?

Maybe you can find more info here:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/searc...rchid=32214119

[Tarekith]

"Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

[Surbitone]

Is she related to Bob Lazar? (his name is Bob, but he's not an ME)

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by Tarekith

"Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

Tried my link from yesterday and got the same message but it worked yesterday! Did the same search today and got this:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/searc...rchid=32261049

If that doesn't work, maybe the moderators should be spot checking these things to see what's wrong or give us a tutorial in how to work the search function!

[stringbean01]

edit; yes, misunderstood you before!

[Lagerfeldt]

I think you got the wrong impression. Nobody was trying to be condescending.

Love your avatar, Guybrush ;-)

Originally Posted by Andy Krehm

If that doesn't work, maybe the moderators should be spot checking these things to see what's wrong or give us a tutorial in how to work the search function!

It's a cached search it seems.

http://www.google.com/search?q=emily....gearslutz.com

will do the trick.

[manman]

but damn they do a great job. they also tend to master a lot of the new music i'm into.

Yeah they are good, they mastered Tiesto albums, and i v personally been there and talked to her, but sadly she did not let me go inside the actual mastering room because she has some secrets there? she sounds very sleek and trying to get you to master there, without showing off her equipment etcc..

Basically they have nice studio setup Genelecs 1031A+ soffit mounted Dunlavy + nice outboard avalon etcc. + nice colleciton of plugins.

Iv seen their serious face when they were mastering track because door was open and i could see some equipment and they were listening at moderate level on Genelecs, and they charge around $500 per track, no wonder why they work hard to make it shine.

So if you want your records mastered on Genelecs for $500 a track go ahead, the road is open...

[Silvertone]

Originally Posted by manman

Yeah they are good, they mastered Tiesto albums, and i v personally been there and talked to her, but sadly she did not let me go inside the actual mastering room because she has some secrets there? she sounds very sleek and trying to get you to master there, without showing off her equipment etcc..

Basically they have nice studio setup Genelecs 1031A+ soffit mounted Dunlavy + nice outboard avalon etcc. + nice colleciton of plugins.

Iv seen their serious face when they were mastering track because door was open and i could see some equipment and they were listening at moderate level on Genelecs, and they charge around $500 per track, no wonder why they work hard to make it shine.

So if you want your records mastered on Genelecs for $500 a track go ahead, the road is open...

What a bunch of bull... secrets my ass... she trained under Calbi and uses a lot of Gregs techniques... secrets in mastering... ohhhhhh, nobody can see them... yeah right! Not letting you in the room is a load of crap IMHO.

There are no secrets to apply to every mix... every mix is different and needs to be treated as such. I wouldn't trust any mastering engineer or engineer for that matter that has preconceived ideas prior to just listening to the source they are about to record or master.

Wow she moved her self up the food chain pretty fast 500.00, is what Ludwig was getting only 5 years ago. There are plenty of ME's with much more experience that charge the same or less and do better work IMHO. Here I'm still charging what I did 10 years ago and have been doing the craft for 16 years! Guess I need to raise my rates... I was always told it cost me work that I charged so little, guess that might actually be the case.

I know several mastering engineers that started many years after me (like Emily) that charge way more than what I charge... my market up here could not bear those rates... but since the local (homegrown) market is dropping off anyway maybe it's time...

I'm not bashing Emily or the Lodge here, they do great work and power to her for getting that rate... we should all be so lucky.

Glenn Meadows always use to say... "double your rate, half your clients and enjoy the free time"... there's some wisdom to those words.

My apologies for the rant...

[Lagerfeldt]

Originally Posted by Silvertone

Glenn Meadows always use to say... "double your rate, half your clients and enjoy the free time"... there's some wisdom to those words.

I Can Make You Rich (Book and CD): Amazon.co.uk: Paul McKenna: Books

[Dave Davis]

I've never had a project mastered by Emily, but I have friends who have. While I'm sure the earlier poster wasn't making things up, his experiences don't quite align with what I know on a couple levels other than rates (which would accurately reflect demand for her/their work - you can't skate by without billables in her neighborhood after all!).

Most important I've never heard of Emily (or anyone on her staff) suggesting anything like a "one-size-fits-all" solution for things. I spoke with her for an AES panel we were scheduled to do together (she wound up cancelling due to last minute project stuff, since the convention was in LA that year); that notion contradicts her philosophy as she related it, as well as in articles/interviews freely available. Back then she was using Duntechs, alongside the Genes, not Dunlavys - the model in her soffits is not made by Dunlavy, nor do they make similar designs. On the other hand, The Lodge seems to be something of a "mastering community" and the staff seems pretty close, so I imagine there is a lot of cross-training and pollination going on. I'd not be surprised to find more than one hand on deck, if something interesting arises in such a setting.

Philosophically they seem approach things a little different too. They have mixing and recording facilities in a dedicated mastering house (many mastering outfits attached to studios have this, but it's rare the other way around), and I've heard of vocals being cut on-site, mid-mastering. Ms. Lazar seems to get many projects that span weeks or months and still manages to make cohesive sounding albums. It's hard to compare workflows and approach, when they differ so greatly, but all these factors might explain different experiences. They certainly connect to rates: The Lodge seems willing to spend plenty of time tweaking for that relatively high rate, so the hourly may not work out so differently, once you factor in work flow.

I'm personally closer to Larry's philosophy: I don't bar clients from seeing things or attending, and don't believe in magic. But maybe there are benefits that might explain her success and client-appeal. There's another side to this coin... for example I will confess that aside from extra chatter with attendees, my processing choices are influenced, at least indirectly. For example, I'm far more likely to use the Sontec EQ on occasion due to a strong suggestion or desire by the artist, in cases where it's not the best tool. At most I might explain why I'd use something else, but if the artist is really enamored of a particular piece in the rack I feel obligated to at least try it out. At ≥$100/hr with the client staring at the back of your head, I'm much less likely to experiment or try radical things. At very least this will cost $$, at worst you'll freak out the client well before you get the idea worked out and fully dialed in. Sometimes clients arrive with religious convictions that don't necessarily serve their project well, and it's hard to take on such big challenges on the clock. So it's easy to imagine scenarios where you may not be doing anything "secret", but full disclosure gets in the way of the work and ultimate goals (common to the ME and artist).

Along those lines, I've fixed things in unattended sessions that the client might not bother with. In these cases, attendance can tie your hands at the worst possible time, to the detriment of the music. The Lodge's approach could enable a client to attend, and by the poster's description even pop in with feedback, without debating every decision, or undermining their music.

Even when debate isn't likely, discussion takes time. I can master any record faster by myself , including revisions. Fewer billable hours sucks for me, but rocks for the client. We do all "track mastering" this way, and all packages are unattended by default - I email or call with questions when loading in, before I start working, so I'm not running blind. Clients seem to appreciate it when I move our conversation "off the clock", and only charge for actual work on their project (load in and out are work too, and I can email or call questions while things run down). Maybe some of this is happening at The Lodge?

Anyway, I'm mostly pointing out that it appears we're missing some details from this story, and at best we've gotten one side. I can see some benign and legitimate reasons for The Lodge to do things differently than me... I've certainly never managed their workload, or billed in her rate tier, even though I've been doing this for a living since 1996 (mastered my first record in 92). Sure, I'd like to have those problems, and try out my own solutions... But to paraphrase Captain Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie: "I could have been an astronaut. But I'm not."

[Fabmaster]

Originally Posted by manman

Yeah they are good, they mastered Tiesto albums, and i v personally been there and talked to her, but sadly she did not let me go inside the actual mastering room because she has some secrets there? she sounds very sleek and trying to get you to master there, without showing off her equipment etcc..

Basically they have nice studio setup Genelecs 1031A+ soffit mounted Dunlavy + nice outboard avalon etcc. + nice colleciton of plugins.

Iv seen their serious face when they were mastering track because door was open and i could see some equipment and they were listening at moderate level on Genelecs, and they charge around $500 per track, no wonder why they work hard to make it shine.

So if you want your records mastered on Genelecs for $500 a track go ahead, the road is open...

Maybe you smell bad.

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by Silvertone

What a bunch of bull... secrets my ass... she trained under Calbi and uses a lot of Gregs techniques... secrets in mastering... ohhhhhh, nobody can see them... yeah right! Not letting you in the room is a load of crap IMHO.

There are no secrets to apply to every mix... every mix is different and needs to be treated as such. I wouldn't trust any mastering engineer or engineer for that matter that has preconceived ideas prior to just listening to the source they are about to record or master.

Wow she moved her self up the food chain pretty fast 500.00, is what Ludwig was getting only 5 years ago. There are plenty of ME's with much more experience that charge the same or less and do better work IMHO. Here I'm still charging what I did 10 years ago and have been doing the craft for 16 years! Guess I need to raise my rates... I was always told it cost me work that I charged so little, guess that might actually be the case.

I know several mastering engineers that started many years after me (like Emily) that charge way more than what I charge... my market up here could not bear those rates... but since the local (homegrown) market is dropping off anyway maybe it's time...

I'm not bashing Emily or the Lodge here, they do great work and power to her for getting that rate... we should all be so lucky.

Glenn Meadows always use to say... "double your rate, half your clients and enjoy the free time"... there's some wisdom to those words.

My apologies for the rant...

500 large is probably for an attended session. If she trained under Calbi than it would make sense since attended sessions at Sterling for some of the ME's over there is $450 an hr.

An to the other poster the Duntechs at her place if i remember were Duntech's PCL-5's which were designed by John Dunlavy when he was still with Duntech.

[Table Of Tone]

Attended sessions nearly always cost more in most of the bigger mastering houses.
Probably for exactly the same reasons that Dave Davis mentioned?

[Billy Bush]

I've had the opportunity to have Emily, Joe and Sarah at the Lodge master quite a few of the records i've produced, engineered and/or mixed over the last 7 or 8 years. It's always been an awesome experience working with them whether it was an attended session or an unattended one. I love how the mastering turns out every time and it's always been a very easy process with little to no revisions to be made. The tracks always come back sounding better but without any unnecessary changes to the EQ, soundfield or dynamics.

I've had plenty of experience with a lot of other mastering engineers to varying degrees of success, but the lodge is always my first call if i have a say on the mastering.

Personally, I usually tend to prefer not to attend the session - I would rather be able to listen in my studio/home/car to really compare.

Billy Bush

[synthoid]

Emily was recommended to me by an engineer who has won quite a few awards. I've never had the good fortune to use them, but they sure do have a good reputation among people who have worked with them.

-synthoid

[Tube World]

Emily is also very attractive. She also knows her stuff. There was a great article on her in EQ magainze a while back and you see her console, reel to reel machine, etc. There is a photo of her and David Bowie together in her studio too. Regarding price, I know the rent in NYC is just crazy, and to pay for your expenses, crew, and yourself, you need to charge enough to pay for everything. I have talked to her in the past, she was very friendly, informative, and professional. I have a lot of respect for her as an mastering engineer.

[Cellotron]

There's been no secretiveness regarding their gear that I've ever seen from the Lodge - in fact if you are capable of a basic Google search it's easy enough to find out what they use in numerous articles that have been done in various trade mags. There's plenty of pics of the Lodge's mastering room (many of which show the gear being used very clearly) that are easy to find on the net as well.

Also - to clear up another minor piece of misinformation in this thread - they offer mixing and production at a separate facility in a different building handled by different engineers - so these functions are not really something that happen in the mastering room.

fwiw - 7 years ago I was quoted $1600 from the Lodge for an unattended package deal for a 10 track 55 minute album. I ended up going to Paul Zinman at SoundByte for this project instead as a little less than that budget allowed for an attended session with him - and ironically he told me then he had been one of Emily's instructors at NYU. It's likely the Lodge's rates have increased since that time - but also knowing that there is greater competition and generally lower budgets these days it's very possible they haven't. I'd say a phone call or email would determine this for yourself - as I'd say it seems some of the posts here regarding their rates are not necessarilly informed on this.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by Andy Krehm

Tried my link from yesterday and got the same message but it worked yesterday! Did the same search today and got this:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/searc...rchid=32261049

If that doesn't work, maybe the moderators should be spot checking these things to see what's wrong or give us a tutorial in how to work the search function!

Search link expired. Notice it links to a search number and not a list of terms. Many search engines are like this. If you go back after a certain time, it's expired. If you want to preserve them in a thread, you can always copy and paste the found links.

[stringbean01]

It's also worth mentioning that the lodge seems to be really great at networking and maintaining a reputation. Their prominence in the rock / indie rock genre is huge right now. It seems that so few bands, managers and labels know how to quantify what it is a talented mastering engineer DOES, so I think most of it boils down whatever albums they've done.