KATIE TAVINI

A ubiquitous name in the world of mastering, Katie Tavini’s intuitive senses and aptitude for bringing out the best in a huge array of music has been rightly praised. We were keen to catch up with Katie – fresh from moving her studio into a new setup in Liverpool – to find out more about her acclaimed approach

While we naturally focus a great deal on writing, arranging, sound design and mixing here at Computer Music, the world of mastering can sometimes get overlooked. Central to why this is could be down to both the numerous variables that each project presents – and the reliance on the ears and toolset of the mastering engineer in question. So much of how a final master sounds is down to creative decisions based on determining what a track ‘could’ become.

A key figure in the mastering arena for over a decade, Katie Tavini understands all too well that the process of finalising a track for the ears of listeners relies heavily on bringing out the best from the mix. Around 11 years ago, we published the very first print interview with Katie, and since then, she has gone on to work on records for the likes of Bloc Party, Rudimental, Ash, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Nadine Shah and Arlo Parks, gaining a slew of nominations at the MPG Awards along the way. She’s also founded her own mastering collective, dubbed Weird Jungle.

After such a productive decade, we were keen to catch up with Tavini. We start with the obvious – why mastering? “I don’t think I ever really decided,” Katie says. “I think it just happened. I was working as a recording engineer and that was sort of my world. I just really accidentally fell into mastering, but realised that I really enjoyed the process and listening deeply. I knew I had a lot to learn, though. It’s been a decade of lots of learning, lots of growing and building my career in a direction I never even considered when I was younger.”

The master plan