With over 25 years of professional audio experience recording, mixing, and mastering both international and regional artists, Tom Volpicelli (chief engineer/owner) founded The Mastering House in 2001. As engineer for The King Biscuit Flower Hour his work has included mixing and/or mastering live concerts for artists such as The Who, Iggy Pop, Pat Benatar, Jerry Lee Lewis, along with the production of nationally syndicated radio shows for The Kinks, U2, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and many other top artists. Since 2001 The Mastering House has helped thousands of artists worldwide bring out the full potential of their music.
In addition to mastering, Tom has taught audio production at both Lebanon Valley College, PA and Albright College, PA and is an active member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES).
Personal attention and service to each individual artist and project is what makes our studio stand out among the rest. Our mastering process starts by collecting background information about the artist. Tell us about your individual style of music and approach, as well as what, if any, bands influence the sound; how the project was recorded, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the mix.
With this perspective we critically listen to the recording and compare your music to any references you may feel appropriate. After listening to the complete project, we will apply a customized chain of audio processing to enhance the overall frequency balance and dynamics of the album as well as bring out the parts of the mix that contribute most to the song and style of music. This is a cyclical process; working together with the artist to create the intended goal.
- Overall equalization for clarity and consistency
- Making volume levels appropriate to maintain consistency across the album
- Editing of content
- Provide proper spacing and fades
- Noise removal
- Sequencing of the songs or audio material
- Help to ensure that the audio will “translate” well between different playback systems
- Mastering for iTunes
- Stem Mastering
- MP3 tagging
- Vinyl premastering
- DDP assembly
- Audio Restoration
| Room Acoustics | Jim Maher of Sound House Design and Sterling Modular |
| Analog Processing | Custom Built Barry Porter “Net EQ” D.W. Fearn VT-4 Tube EQ (2) D.W. Fearn VT-7 Tube Compressor RJR Baxandall Mastering EQ Crane Song Ibis EQ Chandler LTD-2 Compressor (with mastering modificatons) Alta Moda Unicomp Fredenstein F660 Valve Limiting Amplifier (2) |
| Digital Processing | Weiss DS1 Weiss EQ1 Software: Plug-ins from: |
| Analog Playback | Otari MTR-12 1/2″ tape machine |
| Digital Converters and Playback |
Merging Technologies HAPI Lavry Engineering “LavryBlue” Conversion System Pro Tools HD-2 192K Sony PCM-R500 DAT |
| Monitoring | Dunlavy SC-IV Quested SB10 subs (pair) Bryston 4B³ Amplifier Quested UD1 monitors Quested AP-700 amplification Dangerous Monitor ST-SR Monitor Controller |