Lacquer Channel Mastering

Phil Demetro

In 1996, Phil attended Toronto’s Harris Institute for the Arts. After graduating, Phil went on to intern at The Lacquer Channel as Chief Mastering Engineer, George Graves’ assistant for the next two years.

Phil soon went into full-time operation in November of 2000. Since then, Phil has mastered thousands of projects, won several project related Junos, taught at the Trebas Institute in Toronto, had numerous mastering articles published, secured boutique equipment endorsements and attended sessions in other major mastering facilities.

Phil continues to push the boundaries of mastering in Canada.

Both Lacquer Channel Mastering studios are built from a tried and true design from popular acoustician Terry Medwedyck of Group One Acoustics. Phil’s studio is a perfect balance of critical features: musical, revealing, accurate, translatable and comfortable. Electronically and electrically, all equipment is highly specialized, high-voltage, modified and – in some cases – rare. High resolution 64 bit and 80 bit digital processing is also used when required. A truly customized (and also expensive to implement) approach to any project allows several distinct audio paths to best suit any given song. Even with the entire signal path switched in the length of very high quality cabling is still extremely short. All unused equipment is switched out via hard-bypass relays.

Not simply a hap hazard collection of generic recording gear – The net musical and synergistic result of this particular mastering system – based on years of research and ongoing refinement – is as good as it gets anywhere.

The centre-piece and backbone of the analog system is designed by Muth Audio/Dangerous Music. Equalization is Sontec, Focusrite, Neve, Api and Muth. Compression/limiting is Smart Research, Focusrite, TubeTech, Chandler and Neumann. Digital processing is Z-Sys, Waves, Cubetec VPIs, and Algorithmix. A/D and D/A conversion is a comprehensive path of Lavry Engineering and Prism Sound.

Analog playback (1/2”) is a pristine JRF Magnetics restored Ampex ATR-102 and Studer A-80 (1/4″)

Digital recording and editing is accomplished on a customized Music XPC Sequoia Digital Audio Workstation

Monitoring now currently in place are full-range Energy Veritas 2.8’s, and Velodyne DD-12 subs with JBL amplification.

A huge fan of all types of music, Phil will take your music to a whole new level.

Phil’s discography is as diverse as it is lengthy. His clients include, among others: Justin Nozuka, The Midway State, Broken Social Scene, Drake, Do Make Say Think, The Happiness Project, Sebastien Lefebvre, Major Maker, Danko Jones, Danny Fernandes, Amos The Transparent, Abdominal, Hey Rosetta!, Zaki Ibrahim, Jully Black, Great Lake Swimmers, The Waking Eyes, Eva Avila, Serena Ryder, Ill Scarlett, Shawn Desman, Canadian Idol, Our Lady Peace, Jeremy Fisher, Keshia Chante, Hawksley Workman, Canadian Brass, Kardinal Offishall, Vice Magazine, Massari, Belly, Beenie Man, K-OS, Holly Cole, Paul Anka, Point Blank, Choclair, etc…