About Us
JP Braddock
John Paul ‘JP’ Braddock is a highly experienced audio engineer focused in both analogue and digital domain mastering. With over thirty years experience in the music industry starting as Head Engineer at Rubber Biscuit Studio where he discovered his passion for restoration mastering. This was the spark of creation for the ‘British Music Archive’ [BMA] heritage restoration project.
Delivering hundreds of albums over the last three decades spanning a wide range of genres from Drum & Bass to Metal. This led to JP’s development of ‘Full Dynamic Range High Definition’ [FDRHD] audiophile mastering grade delivery format, at his latest facility Formation Audio Ltd.
His career also features a wide range of commercial educational experience, delivering lectures and seminars for industry events and universities across the UK. This includes the continued design and delivery of the UK’s first degree level mastering module at Nottingham Trent University and at De Montfort University. Recent industry seminars include Huddersfield, Northampton, Coventry and York St John Universities.
His other active interests include membership of the Audio Engineering Society being one of the instigators, and co-chair of the AES Mastering Group [AES:MG].
Publication and contributions include ‘Audio Mastering: The Artists (Perspectives on Music Production) and ‘Mastering In Music’.
Russ Hepworth-Sawyer
Russ experienced many areas of audio before settling on audio mastering forming MOTTOsound in 2003. Russ is an active member of the Audio Engineering Society and is the co-chair of the AES UK's Mastering Group.
Russ is a former director and now a lifetime honorary member of the Music Producers Guild where he helped form their Mastering Group alongside legendary mastering engineers Ray Staff & Barry Grint.
Russ' regular clients include Warner Brothers, Universal, as well as countless artists across many genres, but those into acoustic performed music appear to like what he does!
Russ also spends his time writing and researching all things audio mastering and has written several books on the subject with Routledge, including a new series of books for Make It Sound Right in the making (more soon).
Russ has also contributed to several magazine articles for the likes of Sound On Sound, Music Tech Magazine and Pro Sound News Europe.
Many will however know Russ as a teacher of audio mastering either through his popular weekend courses, or through the university modules he teaches, mostly at York St John, Huddersfield and Chester Universities. This blend of expertise at education at higher education level is valuable to Make It Sound Right as it has permitted Russ to understand how mastering SHOULD be taught, and that’s what JP and he offer here! Russ is also undertaking his PhD research at the University of Leeds in Mastering Education.
Our approach
More than anything, as your tutors, we want to help you significantly improve your critical listening skills. Fundamentally if you can't hear it, you can't know what you're changing. It doesn't matter how much equipment you have, or practical 'know-how' in using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) - If you can listen effectively, all your doing is moving sound around and not make critical judgements sonically.
Our tuition will arm you with the correct approach to critical listening alongside comprehension of processing tools to start to make the important link between what you can hear and how to change the sonics in an effective way.
These skill will be learnt by exploring commercial examples, your own music and audio referencing, starting the process of effective analysis in self-directed study and by peer analysis and discussion.
In reading this, you'll already have the audio bug, but maybe trying to find your area focus in the creative sphere. Let us learn together using listening as our portal to new knowledge.
As mastering engineers, Russ and JP have always found mentoring a positive process. It is very telling about your own practice having to describe in detail your rationale to others. Not talking around the subject holistically, but practically delivering outcomes.