Stu Watts chats with Joe Carra, who is the chief mastering engineer and owner of Crystal Mastering. With over 3 decades of experience, Joe has mastered for cassette, vinyl, CD, and in recent times, embraced the immersive audio of Dolby Atmos. In 2020 Joe received a Grammy nomination for Best Engineered Album, for the Teskey Brothers ‘Run Home Slow’ album.

Joe has mastered various ARIA award winning albums and in 2023, was recognised with a nomination in the MPEG Awards for 'Mastering Engineer of the Year’.

Having mastered successful releases on the ARIA & American Billboard charts, Joe’s clients include Pond, The Slingers, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Courtney Barnett, Amyl & The Sniffers, Genesis Owusu, The Murlocs, San Cisco, Babe Rainbow, Bliss N Eso, The Waifs and many more.

In addition to his regular mastering duties, Joe shares his knowledge as a guest lecturer at colleges such as SAE, JMC, RMIT, and Box Hill Institute. Through these engagements, he imparts his deep understanding of the intricacies of mastering to aspiring students.

Chapters:

00:00:00 Intro
00:02:34 About Joe Carra
00:03:34 Attending university
00:04:56 Learning instruments
00:07:25 What music Joe grew up listening to
00:08:30 What university was like and learning synthesis
00:15:07 Searching for a job
00:18:01 First job at Dex Audio
00:22:41 Tape Op & Assistant work at Newmarket Studios
00:25:55 The early years of CD Mastering
00:30:21 Joe's early Mastering experience & why loudness was so important
00:39:24 Learning In-The-Box Mastering during COVID
00:44:36 Donate to the podcast!
00:45:00 The beginning of Crystal Mastering
00:51:43 Moving Crystal Mastering to Thornbury
00:56:03 High-calibre engineers & artists vs. Amateur engineers
01:00:02 The creative aspect of being a mastering engineer
01:04:41 The importance of great relationships & collaboration
01:07:54 Misinformation on Instagram Reels and TikTok
01:09:15 Continuing with in-person consulting & collaboration
01:14:45 Joe's best pieces of advice
01:23:27 Conclusion/Outro

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