| Chapel Hill News November 1999 |
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Kitchen's sounds are music to their ears By Tom Acitelli In a nondescript white building alongside a gravel parking lo off a side street in Carrboro thrives an internationally known business with client both famous and not-so-famous. And it all began in a room off a kitchen more than seven years ago. That's where Brent and Kirsten Lambert started their record mastering company, The Kitchen Mastering. "It all started back in 1991 or '92 in a room off our kitchen, and yo had to walk throughout he kitchen to get to the room," Brent Lambert, 37, said. "My wife and I also used to cook for our clients. That's probably our biggest hobby, cooking. But clients would fly in from out of town and have to walk through the kitchen and see we were working out of the house, and that would kind of put them off, so we moved." In October 1998, the couple moved the growing company from their Chapel Hill house to the cozy, high-tech offices at 109 Brewer Lane. The Kitchen Mastering's clientele includes out-of-towners as well as locals, all converge on the Carrboro offices to have Lambert work his magic on their music. Lambert said mastering a mix - the final product of a recording studio that mastering will eventually make into an album - involves a two-fold approach. First, he evaluates the mix, or studio recording, and polishes the sound, making it more focuses musically. Then he puts it into a format that can be sent to a plant for mass production, making sure the songs are in the right order, the CD stops and starts at the right time, and the songs end when the musicians want them to end. Basically, mastering is the essential, but often forgotten, link between musicians recording in a studio and a plant mass producing CDs for music store shelves. "Generally, my job ranges from taking a mix that's really bad and saving it to just polishing it if the mix is pretty good,: Lambert said. "Pop, for instance, should be punchier and loud, but not so for classical or jazz." Lambert uses an array of high-tech equipment that includes a mastering console, compressors, a high-definition digital converter and a set of extremely accurate mastering speakers to master mixes in a warm sound-proof studio next to the Kitchen Mastering's reception area. Computer screens show the progression of a song, and unwanted parts can be deleted, sort of like erasing a sentence in a word processor. the Kitchen Mastering offers analog and digital mastering in five different formats: quarter-inch analog, half-inch analog, DAT, ADAT - both types of digital recordings - and the newest Exabyte/DDP. If such technology is Greek to most folk, it isn't to Lambert, who said he has the trust of many of his clients when it comes to mastering their hard-won musical labors. "A lot of producers come here because they want my input," Lambert said. "Sometimes they push me in a certain direction. For the most part though, people come to me because they like what I do. They are my repeat customers. Bands in general don't really give me too much input. They're generally not knowledgeable enough to convey what they want technically." the more than 200- 300 records per year the Kitchen Mastering masters are diverse. The majority are independent pop, but there have also been gospel, jazz, country, and a few classical projects. The producers of these mixes have ranged from Grammy nominees to those working out of their house. More than one-fifth of the Kitchen Mastering's clientele come from major recording labels, Lambert said, such as Carrboro's own Mammoth Records. Other major labels The Kitchen Mastering has worked with include Mercury, Sony, Rykodisc. Some famous clients include Athenaeum, Cravin' Melon, Superchunk, Whiskeytown, The Connels, Far Too Jones and The Squirrel Nut Zippers, whose gold record for at least 500,000 sales of its album "Perennial favorites" shines from The Kitchen Mastering's reception area wall. Clients have also come from outside the United States, Lambert said, especially from Latin America recently, because some acts from that region have burned up the U.S. charts this year. "I've worked with some of the top guys - the A-list guys in London and New York - and I think Brent's great," said chapel Hill-based producer Chris Stamey, who said he has worked with Lambert on more that 100 records. "I guess he's got the gear, the know-how, and he's a great musician on top of that, and that's pretty rare. His gear is as good as places you pay $400 an hour for. It's really just exceptional to have such capability in this area. Normally it's in a place where there's millions of people around you." This "exceptional" business is booming because of work-of-mouth, Lambert said. He said the price of mastering varies, adding that he tries to give discounts to local clients but not to the major labels. It usually takes 15 minutes to an hour to master one song, he added, depending on the quality of the initial mix. Our biggest advertising is having people see our name on the back of a CD they like," he said. The business boom will eventually allow Lambert to expand the business into a second mastering studio. Lambert already has a CD replicating business on the side called K-Disc. CD replicating involves duplicating - CDs from the fully mastered CD. Lambert said he started K-disc to protect the masters he has made from inferior duplication somewhere else. Lambert also has a second office at 205 Weaver Street in Carrboro to handle his Kitchen Media, a growing Internet-related business. The Weaver Street office was actually suppose to be the site of the Kitchen Mastering, he said, but the town would not let him build the proper facilities fro a mastering studio there. For instance, a very high ceiling is needed for the type of mastering studio now on Brewer Lane, he said, and Carrboro has height restrictions on buildings along Weaver Street. Therefore, Lambert leased the office on Brewer Lane from some friends, and left one of his three associates to tend to the other Carrboro office. "It worked out well," Lambert, a said of the Brewer Lane offices, "I really do think this area's here to stay as a music town.This is a very diverse area musically. There's a huge pool of talent with very diverse creativity, and not necessarily just rock either." "Mastering studios have longevity,: added Lambert, a jingle-writer and touring musician after he left Miami and before he found satisfaction and stability in mastering. "Mastering has allowed me to stay in one place. I love it." |
