Greg Calbi

If you love music, you have loved recordings mastered by Greg Calbi. Ever hear that Bruce Springsteen album Born To Run? He mastered that and has thoughts about how it turned out. He also tells of working with, among others, John Lennon, David Bowie, Harry Nilsson and Todd Rundgren. This legendary engineer has mastered classic albums by Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Talking Heads, Supertramp, R.E.M., Paul Simon and the Strokes. More recently he won a Grammy for his work with Kacey Musgraves and mastered new albums by the Smile and MGMT. He shares decades’ worth of insights into how he makes great music sound even better. What’s his mastering philosophy? How does he give digital recordings the warmth of analog? And when did he get chills upon realizing he was one of the first people to hear a classic album? (Photo by Andrew Lipovsky.)