Bernie Grundman

When you drive it near its limits, it compresses and adds subtle harmonics that color the sound, softening transients just enough to raise perceived loudness without obvious distortion.

Producers like Bob Ludwig and Bernie Grundman mastered that sweet spot long before digital plugins could simulate it.

They'd run a mix through a Studer A820, set the bias, push the level until hiss vanished, and let the tape do the math for them.

But saturation wasn't the only way to boost volume.

And so then people start gravitating towards those people to master their records.

And you hear names like, you know, Bernie Grundman, Bob Ludwig, Doug Sachs.

Like those are the people that really developed what we call mastering today.

Now that gets a little confusing in the digital age because now we call a mastering engineer, somebody that masters in the digital realm.