John McCaig Mastering Engineer

I believe high quality mastering should be affordable to everybody because it is a very important and often misunderstood step in producing an album. Luckily, mastering is all I do.

A great mastering engineer must have a good set of ears plus plenty of experience listening to a wide variety of music. I listen for and correct the slightest deviation in tone, balance, or wavelength before exporting your finished product. My carefully curated set of tools also ensures I get the exact sound I want reliably and efficiently.

I am a musician too. I have been playing, making, sampling, mixing and synthesizing music all my life. I've released music as effacer on Asthmatic Kitty Records, audiobulb, Kikapu, and panicRecordings, and as fell on en:peg digital, Neo Ouija, and Papergoose records.

I received my BFA from the University of Washington in Digital Signal Processing and Music Composition in 1997. After becoming increasingly interested in Audio Mastering, PanicStudios began in 2001.

I was born and raised in Seattle Washington and after forty years in the Northwest, left to travel the country for a few years, and then relocated to the Blue Ridge Mountains, just outside of Asheville, NC. In addition to the beauty and quietness of the mountains, I enjoy riding my bicycle and helping my wife with her farm. I also still buy and sell gear on a regular basis.

The studio is located about 20 miles north of Asheville NC in a small town called Barnardsville. I encourage attended sessions and actually prefer them! However, if you’re not in the area, can easily work with you online.

Normal turn around time is 3-5 business days (monday-friday).
Need something sooner? Please contact me about your special deadlines.

1. Sample Rate -- I can accept sample rates up to 192kHz. Feel free to leave your sample rate at whatever native sample rate you are currently working at.
2. Bit Rate -- 16, 20, 24 or 32bit Format -- Wave, AIFF Digital Delivery - please WinRar or Zip your files to facilitate quicker and safer transfer.
3. CD-ROM -- I can accept either Data CDR (preferred) or Audio CDR.
4. Analog Tape -- Please include tones at 100hz, 1k and 10k

When preparing your music for release on a tangible medium (a CD), a proper master recording must be made. These days, this is either a Master CDR or a DDPi dataset which must be properly sequenced, coded, burned, and then listened to in real-time for errors.

If your music will only be delivered digitally (iTunes, Spotify, etc.), there is no need for a Master CDR or DDPi.

CD-Text and CDDB are two different types of meta data.

CD-Text is used to display artist and track names on compatible CD players, not on your computer, in iTunesTM or your media playing software.

To display artist and track titles on computer software, you would submit this information to either Gracenote CDDB or to AMG Allmusic database. Here’s how:

Submitting your music to the CDDB and the AMG AllMusic database
Using iTunes™ to submit your music to the Gracenote CDDB: Submit Your CD to the CDDB with iTunes.
Submitting your music to the AMG Allmusic database: Submission information.

It's always fun to see your name in print, and believe it or not, I like it too. Please use the following information when referring to us on your CD liner notes.
"Album mastered by John McCaig."
OR Mastering: John McCaig

Note: It's John McCaig (resist the temptation to put an "r" in McCaig and don't forget the "g" at the end!)
panicStudios (note that only the "S" in Studio is capitalized.)
Please do not refer to us as Panic Mastering.

To upload your music, please zip all the tracks into one zip file and upload using wetransfer.com: http://panicStudios.wetransfer.com