Recording - November 2014 - 62

Maor Appelbaum has a manyfaceted history in the industry. He's
been a club DJ, a live sound engineer,
a head engineer at a broadcasting
studio, and a mixing engineer working with Sylvia Massy at Radio Star
Studios, before settling into mastering
as his full-time gig. His clients include
Faith No More, Halford, Yngwie
Malmsteen, Tony MacAlpine, Walter
Trout, Armored Saint, Limp Bizkit,
Yes, Sepultura, Fates Warning,
William Shatner (!), and many others
on every continent on the planet.
His studio, Maor Appelbaum
Mastering in Los Angeles, has an evergrowing worldwide client list, supercharged by the Internet's ability to
move audio anywhere at light speed.
He shared his thoughts on what mastering engineers bring to the table in
the modern age, and why you might
want to work with one.-MM
62

RECORDING November 2014

Maor, thanks for joining us. You have quite the background in engineering...
Maor Appelbaum: Yeah, a little bit of everything. I find that it all contributes to giving me different perspectives; it helps me look at the process and understand more
about what goes into the finished product.
And from your client list, you cast a wide net!
Well, first of all, I'm a music lover. I grew up on music, I love listening to music, so
my clientele is like my preference-very eclectic! I listen to and master metal, alternative, progressive, industrial and avant-garde music, world music, folk music,
singer/songwriter tracks, jazz, blues, hip hop, R&B... I like working in so many styles.
And it's not just the styles, it's the territories! Rock from Sweden sounds different than
rock from the USA or England or France; Swedish metal doesn't sound like American
metal, Japanese and Korean pop are different, and the blues from here is different
from the blues in Europe. I work with lots of Canadian bands, with artists from all over
South America, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina. And in Europe, lots of
Scandinavian artists, from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, as well as Germany,
Italy and Spain. I have clients from Africa, from Australia... I just did something from
China as well, and have worked with bands in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan of course.
With all these clients from all over the world coming to you for mastering their projects, I'm assuming that most of them don't actually make the trip to Los Angeles?
I would say that over 90% of my clients have me work without them in attendance.
Once in a while, of course, I'll have an attended or partly-attended session; perhaps
the artist is present for the edits. On the other hand, I've had clients from outside the
country that have taken the opportunity to come to LA to sit with me.
What do you like to know about a client before you start in on a project?
Every style of music has its own aesthetics, and within every style there's flexibility and
subgenres, each with a sound the artist wants to achieve inside that. I mean, "rock" is
a big name for a lot of styles-alt rock, heavy rock, math rock, progressive rock... So I
ask them to communicate with me what specific style and aesthetic they feel it is.
Then I ask about the sound they're looking for. Are they looking for a more vintage
tone, or something more modern? Is the instrumentation very dense, sparse, or somewhere in between? Do they want a loud and edgy sound or something more dynamic

Recording - November 2014

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