Surpassed my high expectations

[Jesper]

I'd read quite a bit about Xarc - all of it good. And the before/after-samples online are very impressive. So when I'd finally gotten to the point where I knew I couldn't make things sound better on my own, it was with great hopes that I sent my final mixes to Lorenz.

Well, all I can say is: he's really *that* good. When I got the approval master, I was fully prepared not to like what I heard. I mean after all, I'd been listening to these tracks again and again and again for almost exactly a year - anything that sounded even remotely different or new was bound to feel "wrong" at first. Or so I thought. But the initial reaction was: this sounds really good. The first quick playthrough (you know the drill; at work but unable to wait until I got home) I got halfway through until it dawned on me that all the little "glitches" that stood out and irritated me about some of the final mixes were... just gone. It wasn't until I started listening really hard when I got home to the home studio that I started hearing bits of the real difference.

The first real surprise was just how much the tracks seemed to belong together. I knew going into this project that it was a fairly "wide" selection (after all, the songs were written during a period of twenty years), and it was very difficult for me to come up with a good, strong track order. That is, it was very difficult - until after the mastering. Suddenly there were all kinds of possibilities that previously weren't there - I could pretty much do anything! He took a collection of songs and turned it into an "album" sound.

I could go on and on about the incredible differences between the final mixes I uploaded and the masters I got back (the warmth, clarity, cohesiveness etc), but they're really just words. You need to spend some time listening to the demos here, and believe me when I say: it really makes all the difference in the world to have your music properly mastered.

I listened to the mastered version on 11 different systems in a week. All the way from a high-end, ridiculously expensive system - to a bargain basement mono piece of cr*p In itself, this is where the attention to detail really stood out in Lorenz' work - I could easily hear the music clearly on all the different setups. Didn't matter if the volume was high or low - the music was still clear, concise, cohesive and smooth. Perfectly balanced, in a way that the final mixes absolutely was not. When I brought my final mixes to play on other setups than my own, more often than not I found myself thinking "gosh, their stereo must really be bad because this doesn't sound anything like what it's supposed to"

The greatest musical experience of my life this far was listening to Lorenz' masters on the high-end stereo system a few weeks back. It was amazing. Every nuance, every shade was crystal clear. I'm very self-critical by nature, but it was impossible for me not to be proud of my work after that!

The communication process throughout was equally impressive. I had tons of suggestions and questions; Lorenz answered promptly and was very clear about his opinions and reasons for different mastering decisions. From beginning to end, he was very determined to make sure that my master was just the way I wanted it - and it really really is.

Now stop reading, get yourself over to iTunes and purchase my CD "Talk of the weather" (or better yet, get it at www.talkoftheweather.com) so I can afford to start working on my next album. I see absolutely no reason to even consider having my work mastered by anyone else.

Lorenz - thank you. You are a wizard.

All the best from Sweden,
/Jesper