Vinyl Revival: Paul Gold’s Salt Mastering

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN: Most New Yorkers involved in releasing 12″ records have likely heard of Salt Mastering‘s Paul Gold, a go-to-guy who’s arguably become Brooklyn’s first name in mastering for vinyl.

Paul has carved a distinct niche in the otherwise crowded, mid-price mastering market by building a reputation for reliably cutting great lacquers for local artists and vinyl-heavy labels including Thrill Jockey, Secretly Canadian, DFA, Social Registry, Sub Pop, Domino and Mexican Summer.

Paul Gold at the Neumann VMS 66 lathe inside Salt Mastering

When we approached him for an interview, Gold invited us to catch up with him during a rare scheduled break between projects. I quickly learned that dropping by during his weeklong “vacation” would mean finding him elbow-deep in mid-century Neumann parts, flanked by his tenacious twin terriers Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt as he tweaked Salt’s prized Columbia mastering console.

In the early 2000s, as digital downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing continued to transform the music industry, Gold saw a future for himself in a more tangible medium: the vinyl disc. This vision seems to have paid off, as the allure of superior sound quality, collector’s value and sheer style continues to attract new converts and repeat clients.

Gold says that many artists see a pragmatic draw as well: “A lot of bands tell me that their fans only really want to buy vinyl at shows. They have trouble selling CDs, so it’s been a better bet at the merch table; at least in the indie circles I travel.”

Read all about Paul Gold’s rise to the top of the vinyl revival here:

From what I understand, you weren’t always “the vinyl guy.” How did that come about?

When I first got started, I was mastering for a CD broker. You know, a thousand CDs for $999 or whatever it was. I could see that there was no future in that for me.

I always kind of thought that ‘real mastering engineers cut lacquers’. When I first realized I had to get out on my own, I only had a certain amount of money to get started. I figured I could either buy a quarter of a mastering studio, maybe a really good EQ and a really good compressor, or I could buy a lathe. I thought ‘Well, that’s a pretty unique thing, and it’s not something everybody does’. I thought that initially my limited funds were better spent [on the lathe] than on a fancy pair of speakers.

From here, that choice seems to have panned out pretty well.

Gold recently mastered Washed Out's debut 12", "Life of Leisure" for Brooklyn-based label Mexican Summer.

Sure. I’m pretty busy now, but it took a long time. There’s definitely a learning curve. For the first 2-3 years it felt like every time I cut a lacquer I lost money. It’s a pretty high-stakes game because the parts are very expensive; the physical media is very expensive. So, if you start blowing lacquers, all of a sudden you’re not making any money.

I’m curious to hear what that learning curve was like. Some compare running a lathe to playing an instrument.

Well, before I got my first lathe I really wanted to get into disc cutting, so I called around [to other mastering studios] and nobody wanted to give me the time of day. And then, when I finally went out and got my very first lathe, it didn’t work! I had never had experience on it, so I had to first figure out how to make it work, and then figure out how to operate it!

So you do a lot of restoration and maintenance yourself to this day?

Yeah, I do all the work on it myself. I was also lucky to have spent a lot of time with Al Grundy, who imported the first Neumann lathe to the U.S. back in 1957. He knows everything there is to know about these things. He deals in lathes: buys them, sells, restores, all that. I’ve spent a lot of time with him, just hanging out, helping fix them and learning about them. I do all the work myself, but I’ve had a lot of intellectual help.

Eventually, I got it up and running, but really it took years to get it really suped up. When I upgraded to my next lathe it was a bit easier to get it together. Now it’s really tight, and I can basically fix it before it breaks. You can sort of feel when something’s not right, like on an instrument. I just know before even pulling up a meter.

So once that expertise crystallized, things started to pick up more?

Yeah, basically as soon as I was ready and started Salt, I got busy really quick. It was more sudden than gradual. This is the first time I’ve had my own place. Having a home base where I can be the boss made a big, big difference.

I’ve been mastering for over 15 years now. When I moved in I had the lathe for over 6 years, and I accumulated enough experience on that that I was really ready to have things run smoothly. It was a combination of having enough experience and also being able to do things the way I wanted to them.

These days are you doing more mastering or more cutting lacquers?

Salt's Neumann SP75 vinyl transfer console

My business is just about in thirds: A third of it is mastering only, a third is mastering and cutting lacquers and another third is just lacquers.

Is your role any different when you’re mastering for a digital format as opposed to mastering for vinyl?

No. Whenever I quote a job, I say the mastering is good for both. If they’re unsure of whether they want to do vinyl, it doesn’t matter. The master is always good for both, unless there’s something very strange like a weird stereo bass that will not cut well. In those cases I might do two versions, but it’s very rare.

No mastering interview is ever complete without at least briefly touching on the “volume wars.” Do you have a stance there?

I’m not one of the vocal ones. Sure, it’s not the best thing in the world for audio quality, but people like things loud! People have always liked things loud. Generally, when clients ask me about it, I tell them I’ll make it as loud as I can make it without making it sound bad, and then if you really want it louder, let me know and I’ll do it! (Laughs) That’s my standpoint. At the end of the day, it’s their record, not mine, and the final choice is theirs.

Do you ever get things that are too loud to cut well?

The level per-se doesn’t prevent cutting. Distortion does. If it’s loud and peak-limited but sounds clean, it’ll cut fine. No problem. A bigger problem would be something that’s low in level but sounds distorted. That won’t cut well.

That may be surprising to some: A loud digital master doesn’t necessarily mean a loud vinyl disc.

The level on the disc is set by how long the program is. Assuming we’re trying to get it as loud as possible, there are technical aspects that can prevent that: extreme sibilance or sharp hi-hats could prevent it from being cut as loud as it could be. The digital volume has no effect on the output level of the disc, when you take all that into account. If a 50-minute CD is converted to 25 minutes a side, it’s going to be low in level no matter how hot the mastering was.

Salt’s “shaker” logo is a pretty memorable one. Can you tell us something about where the name came from?

The first name I wanted was “Master Supply,” but of course a plumbing company already had that one (laughs). Then I thought: Intercontinental Ballistic Mastering! But, I couldn’t get ICBM-dot-anything on the web. Sticking with the nuclear theme, I thought of the SALT II treaty during the Carter administration, and then I realizedit was a great analogy for mastering, you know? Salt: it makes everything taste better but you’re not supposed to notice it.

For more on Paul Gold and Salt Mastering, visit http://www.saltmastering.com.

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