How do you set up a turntable properly? Piper explained the best way to get started with vinyl, analog vs digital mastering, why you need pro mastering for vinyl, and how you might be avoiding finishing your own record by attending the mastering session!

My guest today is Piper Payne a mastering engineer based out of Nashville, TN, where she works on albums for independent artists and major labels. In Spring of 2019 Piper joined the famed Infrasonic Mastering team, merging her successful Oakland studio, Neato Mastering, with the Nashville based company, owned by Pete Lyman.

Piper is a Trustee of the Recording Academy and she is Co-Chair of the P&E Wing Steering Committee. She is a Governor of the Audio Engineering Society and she is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the AES’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee as well as an active member of Women's Audio Mission and she serves on the Board of SoundGirls.org.

In addition, Piper is a keeper of Vinyl Quality Control and a consultant for vinyl record pressing plants and is opening her own vinyl manufacturing plant in Nashville in mid-2021. She has been an audio professor and guest lectures often about mastering and recording.

 Piper began her career with a BFA in Audio from The University of Michigan, continuing her graduate education in Audio at the University of Stavanger in Norway.

Piper has a diverse background in musical styles. As a drummer, she knows that the best outcome of every project is that it has to feel good. As an engineer, Piper is focused on technical quality and correctness. But, at the end of the day, mastering is about format conversion and quality control so the project gets just what it needs.

Piper has mastered a wide variety of music including nationally renowned artists Third Eye Blind, LeAnn Rimes, The Go-Go’s, Madame Gandhi, Geographer, The Steven Universe Soundtrack composers Aivi and Steven, Basement, Hundredth, Elettrodomestico (Jane Wiedlin/Go-Go’s), Blithe, ANIIML, Shamir, Betsy, Between You & Me, and Fritz Montana to name a few. 

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Website Links:
Sf_mastering (instagram)
Sfmastering (twitter)
Infrasonicsound.com/piper
Piperpayne.com

Additional podcast editing and production by:
Brayden Stremming
Hugh Macdonald
Vlad Vasilcenko