Bob Ludwig remasters 'Gish'

Acclaimed mastering engineer Bob Ludwig of Gateway Mastering has finished work on an impending reissue of the Smashing Pumpkins album Gish, part of that band’s archives project. Ludwig has previously worked with, well, uh, everyone.

Here’s a bit of an interview from 2003 in which Ludwig talks shop:

MusicTAP: What is the usual process from when Gateway is contacted for a project to the final release?

Bob Ludwig: Someone calls us and schedules a day I can work on their record. Either I do it alone, or the producer and sometimes, artists attend. The day arrives, I listen to their raw tape and hear in my head how I think it could sound. I turn the knobs on the right gear to make it sound like I hear it in my head. I master it, discuss if any remixing needs to be done and do any further editing that needs to be done. When the artist, producer, A&R person and the manager all agree I have gotten as much musicality out of their original master tape as possible, the approved master is copied to the appropriate medium desired by the plant (PCM 1630, exabyte DDP tape, Pre-master CD-R, or Yellow Book CD-ROM). The actual parts going to the plant are quality controlled from top to bottom by one of my engineers, usually with headphones to catch problems one can’t hear in speakers, and notes are made of any abnormal sounds that are in fact approved.