Paul "the" Fox, cheif mastering engineer and owner/manager of Indie Masters, talks about himself, which everybody likes doing, and why he started mastering for independent artists back in 1997:

What is your musical background?

"Becoming fascinated in sound and music, that was my survival in school. Then I was lucky enough to be accepted into the Batchelor of Arts in Contemporary Music Technology at La Trobe University (Bundoora) in 1993. So during that time and onwards I was also involved in many live and recording bands as the drummer, bass player, guitarist, brass player, and/or songwriter and engineer. There was a brass concert band, a New Orleans jazz band Miss Pitch and the Melodic Minors, an African drum ensemble, a blues/rock outfit Slack Mammoth, a sludge art-grunge arrangement Paintstripper, an indie rock gig Big Cat Safari, the metal blast-mungers Rogue Trader, and currently; the stoner "spirit-rock" fuzz festers El'garsonorogio, and the snooze-pop glory of Major Chord. My main instrument being traps (drums)."

What is your engineering background?

"I completed the batchelor degree in 1996 and jumped straight into mastering, as well as continuing with other fields of audio production, as its important to try and understand how every part of the production chain affects the end result. So there's been about thirteen years professional experience in mastering now and eighteen-plus years in other aspects of sound production for music, film and theatre.  And my chin is growing lighter in the whisker department."

What inspired you to do mastering?

"My interest has always been in supporting the 'real' music culture that exists beyond the pop culture radar. The bands and engineers around me when I started were in need of mastering that was at their level of production and expense. Available at the time was either ‘my mate with a computer' or the high end mastering suites that were out of reach unless you had good financial support - and even within that there was the old 'engineer-with-an-attitude' syndrome, which often happened to jeopardise what you had in mind for your project. So you sort of had to put up with whatever you got from them or, if you could, get some friend of a friend to do a botch job. Basically there was quality lacking at either end. There was a need for someone who could deliver the band's unique sound, polished and mastered, disregarding the default ‘clean American top end' and the bit-crunching ‘pop push' of popularised modern mastering philosophy.

So this facility was established with the essentials and run from a spare room in my house. Two years later I relocated to Bakehouse Lane in North Fitzroy, which is our current place of operation. A decade on and I have the pleasure of mastering consecutive releases from heaps of Australian artists. And each job still gives the opportunity to further refine the skills!"

What do you find enjoyable about mastering?

"I enjoy supplying the community with good and cost-effective mastering. People used to not bother because it was too expensive, so their recordings would suffer. And mastering itself is great in it's simplicity - you usually just work on the stereo mix and do what you can to make it sound it's best. The satisfaction is in the great benefit that can be given to the mixes.

Mastering is also a good, concentrated meditation. In between tracks I can chat to the clients and it is always a really relaxed atmosphere. I enjoy the company of the clients actually."

Artists impression by Andrew Wills..(Fox's snout is not quite that long..):