Welcome to Stephen Marsh Mastering

Stephen Marsh Mastering provides sought after custom mastering services to the production communities of Los Angeles and the world-at-large.

Having mastered Grammy® winners and with multiple gold and platinum albums to his credit, Principal Stephen Marsh opened his boutique mastering operation to better service his client’s needs amidst an ever-evolving music industry.  Joining Marsh at the facility is mastering engineer Stephanie Villa.

Understanding that the independent nature of modern music production has left corporate facilities generally slow to react and poorly equipped to deal with the increased demands of the marketplace as formerly ‘institutional’ production models have given way to a less structured way of working; modern clients are demanding flexibilities in both scheduling and pricing that an agile, personal company like SMM is uniquely suited to accommodate.  Today’s artists need an uncommon, highly specialized Mastering Engineer that can meet their needs when, how and as required; welcome to Stephen Marsh Mastering.

Our Philosophy

At SMM, our goal is to make you happy and our mastering philosophy is simple; we always try to keep in mind that your name goes in big letters on the front of the album and ours goes in little tiny print inside.  We apply the experience of thousands of prior releases, we use the best equipment available and we achieve dynamic results.  When you call, you’ll talk to a mastering engineer, not a booker, that will take the time to answer any and all questions you may have, guaranteed.

Studio Equipment

SMM’s primary mastering console was built in house with custom tube and discrete electronics by Steve Firlotte of Inward Connections.  It features EAR, GML, Maselec, Avalon, Weiss, Waves, Dangerous and Inward Connections processing, modified Apogee clocking and conversion and proprietary wiring feeding a custom monitor chain with Bryston powered PMC mains.  Our systems compliment includes a full-blown HD-Accel Pro Tools system for source playback and a Sonic Studio Soundblade mastering platform with Full No-Noise and DDP.  In addition, analog decks of all descriptions are available for playback as are all standard digital formats.


You can also visit the Stephen Marsh myspace page at www.myspace.com/MasterMarsh