As with all things Zevon, it's not quite that simple. Averse to doctors, Zevon, who famously admitted on the Late Show with David Letterman, "I might have made a tactical error not going…
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If music reflects the life of the person who created it—if, for example, we can hear Mozart's inner turmoil in his operas—then Warren Zevon's song catalog is uncommonly revealing. Headless mercenaries, killer rapists, and yes, impeccably dressed werewolves with a taste for pina coladas are all part of the colorful world of WZ's twisted imagination and especially of his masterpiece, 1978's Excitable Boy.
Photo: Peter Luehr
This is Part 1 of a two-part article. Click here for Part 2.
If album sales, longevity of career, position on the leading edge of audio technology, reputation in the music business, and involvement in many of the most important albums in history are the measurements, Bob Ludwig is the GOAT (footnote 1) of music mastering.
"I'm an old goat, anyway," he joked during our multiday, many-hours conversation, centered around his recent retirement announcement and his five-plus decades as a mastering engineer.
If Bob Ludwig is the Michael Jordan of music…
Bob's bedroom in South Salem, New York, in 1962, before he headed to the Eastman School of Music. You can see his sound system: A Thorens turntable, Ampex 960, Bell tape recorder, Lafayette Radio preamplifier, and an FM tuner; he doesn't remember the brand. "That blue panel with a meter on the left was a direct line my folks got from the phone company," Bob says. "It went to my best friend’s house about 2 miles from me on Lake Waccabuc. We could send or receive to each other, talk, playing tapes!" .
In high school, Ludwig got serious with his trumpet studies. He joined the…
Bob and Gail Ludwig in Bob's studio at Gateway Mastering, August 21, 2023. Photo by Brian Lee.
Although he's eloquent and detail-oriented, generous with hard-learned information from the world of professional audio and music mastering, Bob Ludwig is a private person. Over 9 hours of conversation, he mentioned Gail, his wife since 1984, many times, but mainly in her role as business manager for Gateway Mastering Studios since shortly after its founding in 1992.
At the end of our conversation, it felt OK to ask for a few personal details.
Ludwig's first wife is the…
Here are some of Bob Ludwig's favorite albums he mastered through the years, with his comments:
1960s: The Band: The Band, "an iconic recording." Also Led Zeppelin II, "made 54 years ago and played on radio every single day since!" For historical perspective, Ludwig notes that 54 years prior to LZII, the state of the art was "acoustical recording into a horn!"
1970s: Metal Machine Music, "the first time I worked with Lou Reed" and Sheik Yerbouti, "my glorious days with Frank Zappa."
1980s: Journey's Escape: "Don't Stop Believing!"; Donald Fagen's The Nightfly: "3M…
The wall of Gold and Platinum Disc Awards, as displayed at the Gateway Mastering website.
In Part 1 of this interview, which announced that famed mastering engineer Bob Ludwig was retiring, Ludwig discussed his early days as a music-loving student, as a trumpet player, his graduation from Eastman College with a Master's degree in music performance, and how working with legendary engineer and producer Phil Ramone at A&R Studio awakened his interest in how records are made. In this second part, Ludwig talks about how he moved to Sterling Sound, then to Masterdisk, and finally how and…
Ludwig with his LP-cutting lathes at Masterdisk
Another new company, another new job – Masterdisk
When Ludwig joined Sterling, the facility got off to a fast start and "was really, really hot," with a streak of high-profile hit records. The founders, Hulko and Paschek, sold it to a public company, OCG Technology, which manufactured medical devices on Long Island. The advantage was a large umbrella ownership, easy access to lines of credit, and a corporate structure to handle risk and liability. OCG had a money-making division that gave the stock some sex appeal via its connection to…
At Gateway, Bob Ludwig's room has long been known for its giant monitor speakers. At first, it featured Duntech Sovereign 2001 loudspeakers on concrete pedestals connected to bedrock below the building and isolated from the room's floating floor. Adam Ayan now uses those in his mastering studio.
Since 1997, Ludwig has used EgglestonWorks Ivy speakers. He consulted on their development. "It's Bill Eggleston's design, Serial numbers 1&2. Sometimes I said a couple of things, but it's Bill's design. ... I haven't personally heard anything I like better."
The Ivy's are…
Bob Ludwig first worked with a digital recording in 1978. Telarc Records brought a Soundstream machine to Masterdisk, and he cut one of their early classical recordings. From that time forward, Ludwig worked with almost every format and key piece of equipment in digital sound's evolution.
"Soundstream and the 3M Digital system sounded good, early on," he said, but then the Compact Disc was launched, and Sony came to rule the digital roost. "When I was starting out with digital mastering, we had the first Sony systems that were going to be used for CD production. ... I remember…
Sidebar 5: Bob's Trophy Case
Aside from the gold and platinum records decorating every wall of his Gateway Mastering Studios facility, Bob Ludwig has quite a trophy case. He has mastered countless Gold and Platinum singles and albums plus 15 RIAA Diamond Award records.
Ludwig is most proud of his Audio Engineering Society Gold Medal, presented in 2015. He is also an AES Fellow.
He won 13 of the original TEC Awards, which was presented to a mastering engineer representing a year's best mastering work, and 11 of the newer TEC Awards, which include the mastering…