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Engineers
Jason Ward and Bob Weston. Contact us at info@chicagomasteringservice.com.
Jason Ward:
Beginning with trumpet at age 11, guitar at 13 and bass guitar at 15 (and even fits and starts of adult piano lessons), music has been a lifelong interest for Jason. He began his career as an audio engineer learning live sound mixing at Emo's Alternative Lounge in 1991, a live music mainstay in Austin, TX. In 1992 Jason began a career in touring sound that took him around the country and abroad for 6-9 months per year with acts such as Seaweed, The Offspring, Social Distortion, Braniac, Barkmarket, Superchunk, The Spinanes, Elliot Smith and many others. During breaks in this touring schedule he pieced together his first home studio setup around a Tascam 1/2" 8-track machine and began recording local bands on a shoestring budget. Eventually he moved into Austin's 'Sweatbox' studio, a local focal point of independent music recording. He worked through the mid-90s with bands such as Paul Newman, Drums and Tuba and Monroe Mustang. A few years later, he moved on to freelance recording at a variety of local studios with artists such as Rhythm Of Black Lines and Sixteen Deluxe, as well as playing bass and keyboards for the noise-rock outfit switchHitter.
In the spring of 1999, Jason relocated to Chicago to pursue new recording experience. He also continued touring with Sleater-Kinney, whom he had begun working with the previous year. He worked on the construction of John McEntire's Soma Electronic Music Studios, afterwards taking a staff position at the newly built Engine Music Studios. There he worked on the installation and wiring of the three studio spaces, then as a staff engineer for a year and a half with artists such as The Gaza Strippers, Del Rey and the puta-pons. Eventually, freelance work lured him away again and he began working in studios such as Kingsize, Semaphore Recording, and Key Club (in Benton Harbor, MI). Eventually, he compiled the equipment used to create Prole Arts Studio in half of his two-flat home, where he could afford to give the luxury of affordable time and quality equipment to artists without the budget to camp out in more expensive digs. Prole Arts has hosted Del Rey, L'Altra, Taking Pictures, Rhythm Of Black Lines, AM Syndicate, Replica Republic, Ken Vandermark, The Dials and many more.
Additionally, Jason has engineered sound mixes for film including short features by writer/director Michelle Mahoney ("The Undergrad") as well as the independent feature film "Somebodies," which screened at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Jason also records and mixes audio for live concert films by director Lance Bangs featuring artists such as The Arcade Fire and Slint. He has also worked extensively for Full Aperture Systems, which specializes in high-end 35mm motion picture and video exhibition. Focusing on the installation and calibration of film sound playback systems, projects include installations for Northwestern University's Block Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago's Siskel Film Center, and REDCAT Theater in L.A.'s Walt Disney Concert Hall among others. In addition to installation work, he works on specialty events such as the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival and other film festivals as well as numerous feature film premieres.
Most of Jason's time is spent these days mastering records at Chicago Mastering Service where he can often be found at the neumann lathe, observing the CMS motto of "ABC" or "always be cutting!" In the name of variety though, he also tries to keep a hand in other facets of the audio field, through occasional recording and touring work. Recent projects of note include the broadcast mix for the November 08 Austin City Limits appearance of Arcade Fire, as well as live monitor mixing for The Shins and FOH mixing for Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks. He is currently at work on a new album for longtime recording clients del rey.
Jason. Photo by Jason Ward.
Bob Weston:
Bob's lifelong interests in both the artistic and the technical sides of music began at an early age. His elementary school memories are of an aching desire to operate the filmstrip projector, movie projector, or cassette player for any A/V requirement. It was an irresistible and unexplainable urge. He felt the same urge in the fifth grade when music lessons were offered and he was immediately drawn to the trumpet.
He went on to play trumpet in every possible school ensemble through college, including a few summers with the world champion Garfield Cadets Drum & Bugle Corps. At the same time, he expanded his technical audio/visual abilities by: learning black & white photography and darkroom skills; working in the high school's closed-circuit TV studio; learning about theatrical lighting and becoming the master-electrician for a local summer theater; and becoming active at his college radio station. He DJed at the station for four years, and also held the positions of General Manager and Chief Engineer. During his time at WJUL, he co-founded a weekly show, "Live from the Fallout Shelter", which featured bands playing live in the studio. Bob handled the audio mixing duties for this show and it is where his musical and technical abilities began to intertwine. It's still on the air more than 20 years later.
Bob graduated from the University of Lowell (Massachusetts) in 1988 with a BS in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Sound Recording Technology. During college, he spent most of his free time learning about tape recorders, transmitters, and audio electronics from upper-classmen at the radio station. He also taught himself how to play electric bass and started playing in bands with friends from the radio station. The station also exposed Bob to the underground / independent rock music community that he's been a part of ever since. He started going to see bands play in Boston and befriended some of them. He convinced many to let him engineer their live sound at shows. Eventually he joined a band (Volcano Suns) and went on to play on four records with them, making many friends and contacts while touring the US multiple times; and even touring Europe once before the band broke up.
While playing in bands has been Bob's main hobby since then (his current band, Shellac, has released four albums and regularly tours around the world), it has never been his profession. After college, he worked for a few years as an RF Engineer, designing broadcast antennas. Then he worked for an acoustician, Bob Alach, doing studio-wiring and installation. (Bob Alach did the design work for Chicago Mastering) He also worked for a few years as a studio maintenance technician for WHDH-AM, a 50,000 Watt station in Boston, doing audio installation and maintenance, as well as some transmitter and tower work.
In the fall of 1991, Bob hopped in his Saab 99 with his cat and moved from Boston to Chicago for a job as a maintenance technician at the studio of his friend, engineer Steve Albini. There was the understanding that when the studio wasn't in use by Steve, Bob could use it for recording sessions. And so, very slowly, Bob started recording albums for bands that he had met on tour and become friends with. He gained clients and after two years had to quit his position as full-time studio tech in order to concentrate on recording. Work as a freelance recording engineer has been Bob's main source of income ever since. He has worked at different studios in Chicago, as well as studios all over the US and the world.
To supplement his recording income Bob has worked as a freelance broadcast engineer for NPR's Chicago News Bureau, and does freelance studio consulting. He's designed and installed audio wiring systems and electrical systems for a few studios in the Chicago area.
Bob has found a niche in the underground music community that keeps him busy and happy. He's recorded music by bands whose music he loves and whose members are friends from the music community. He works with area studio owners on studio design and construction. He mixes live sound for select bands and plays music in a band that he loves with two of his best friends. He still does occasional technical, maintenance, and repair work for friends; and he still works in radio as well, as an engineer for NPR.
Over the years as a recording engineer, Bob attended a smattering of mastering sessions for records that he had worked on and has always gotten that same instinctive urge that he's had since childhood to pursue this next step in his musical / audio / tech career. This drive, coupled with the obvious and somewhat mysterious lack of professional mastering studios in Chicago put him on the path toward opening Chicago Mastering. After being approached in the fall of 2005 by neighbor and fellow recording engineer Jason Ward, who had been thinking similar thoughts about Chicago's lack of mastering options, the two partnered-up and got to work. The doors opened in April of 2007 after much hard work and Tremco.
Bob. Photo by Liz Clayton.