Episode #292 – Rush Seating, Rosewood Rules Relaxed, And Mastering Engineer Jonathan Wyner

My guest this week is Jonathan Wyner is the chief mastering engineer and president of M Works Mastering in Cambridge, MA. Jonathan began his career as a mastering engineer in 1985 as the compact disc was becoming a reality, and he studied digital mastering with one of the pioneers in the field for 5 years prior to establishing M Works Mastering. Like most mastering engineers, he has thousands of credits over a wide range of genres, including James Taylor, David Bowie, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk just to name a few, and he has mastered what is believed to be the longest CD ever at 80 minutes and 32 seconds. He is currently also serving as president of the Audio Engineering Society and as Education Director at iZotope, as well as a professor at Berklee College Of Music. During the interview we spoke about the time it takes to develop mastering engineer ears, identifying audio and musical trends, his mission as president of AES, and much more. On the intro I’ll take a look at the latest twist on concert ticketing known as rush seating, and at how the music industry managed to get the restrictions on rosewood relaxed.