Darcy Proper | Proper Prent Sound
Darcy began her career at Sony Music Studios in New York City in the Classical Department, later focusing her skills on mastering and broadening her musical scope to include in all genres from historical reissues to cutting-edge surround releases. In 2005, she moved to Europe serving as Senior Mastering Engineer at Galaxy Studios in Belgium for several years, moving on to Wisseloord Studios in Holland in 2011 where she served as Director of Mastering and Senior Mastering Engineer. Recently, together with her engineer husband Ronald Prent, she has formed Proper Prent Sound, a company specializing in professional audio services for music productions. As ever, Darcy’s focus remains on mastering – from reissue to front line releases, from vintage mono to immersive 3D formats, for virtually all genres of music.
Over the years, Darcy has been honoured with 4 Grammy awards and 10 nominations and has won several other awards for her work. She has had the pleasure of mastering historical reissue projects for such prestigious artists as Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck, Stephen Sondheim and Johnny Cash. She has also worked on stereo, surround, and immersive-audio front-line releases for many talented artists including Steely Dan, The Eagles, Ozark Henry, Donald Fagen, Porcupine Tree, Peter Maffay, Udo Lindenberg, Patricia Barber, Marcus Miller, Jeff Mills, The Common Linnets, Anouk, David Garrett, Blind Guardian, and Jane Ira Bloom.
Güenter Loibl CEO | Rebeat
Born and raised in Tulln, a small town near Vienna, Austria, Guenter Loibl is the CEO of Rebeat and founder of HD Vinyl.
Loibl founded Rebeat back in 2001. Originally, Rebeat was a distributor for CDs and DVDs in Germany and Austria. In 2006, Guenter started Rebeat Digital, a digital music distributor with a focus on artist accounting. Rebeat Digital recognized early that digital accounting would become a critical part of the music business, due to the sheer amount of reporting data generated by streaming platforms.
In 2012, Rebeat launched MES, the first integrated distribution and accounting software solution for labels and content owners. MES is currently the only integrated solution addressing all aspects of running a modern music label: distribution, digital accounting, mechanicals, physical accounting, analytics, etc.
In 2013, Guenter acquired Preiser Records, one of Austria’s most traditional music labels. The first release on Preiser under Rebeat was Seiler & Speer, the most successful Austrian production in decades.
Guenter has always been focused on technology and the possibilities it provides. Accordingly, his latest venture is HD Vinyl, a next general vinyl technology that offers a universal improvement to the industry’s most classic format.
David Bell BSc CEng MIoA MIET, Managing Director | White Mark Limited
After graduating from Birmingham University with an honours degree in Physics, David spent time at EMI working on the earliest digital audio projects. At the end of the 1970s, these projects culminated in the release of EMI’s first digitally mastered records for the LSO and John Williams’ band Sky.
David’s next move was to the BBC where he helped specify and design the Corporation’s first digital production facilities including the Neve-based mobile DCV. He then spent five years at Solid State Logic where he worked on algorithm development and control surface programming language creation. During this time the team created the first continuously variable digital equalisers in the world.
By the end of the 1980’s David was at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, working on the musician/engineer interface of music recording and performance systems. This sparked his interest in acoustics and technical systems integration and led to a period as technical director with Harris Grant Associates. In 1997 he left to form White Mark Limited with an aspiration to bring together all aspects of technical and environmental design from the very beginning of each project so that all influences are given the correct balance from the outset. This aspiration remains the company’s key philosophy and supports every project that it undertakes.
Mandy Parnell | Black Saloon Studios
Mandy Parnell became interested in recorded music at the age of 5, listening to records on a portable Dansette player . She studied music and music technology through her school, college and university years, training and working in recording studios until landing an internship at a mastering studio.Mandy worked her way up through the ranks, eventually becoming a world renowned mastering engineer in her own right. She finally decided to launch her own facility, Black Saloon Studios. Her 24 years of experience have allowed her to discover and develop her philosophies in analogue and digital audio, while working with an amazing array of artists.
She has been nominated and won numerous awards, Grammy, Tech Awards, MPG and various others. She is also an active member of the AES, Grammys, APRS and MPG, and lectures on mastering and the music industry across the globe.
Mike Cave | Loft Mastering
Our mastering operation draws on the considerable skills of a highly experienced engineer by the name of Mike Cave. Mike’s mastering career began at Parr Street Studios, Liverpool, in 1994 where he worked in-house. He went freelance in 2000 and has subsequently built a strong reputation throughout the industry.
His success with artists as diverse as The Coral, Elvis Costello, Noisettes, Rufus Wainwright, Tinchy Stryder, James Vincent McMorrow, JP Cooper, John Martyn, Professor Green, Riton, Yuksek, Bob Dylan, KRS-One, Fatboy Slim, The Charlatans, The Zutons, and Echo & The Bunnymen has earned him a string of top ten albums & singles and numerous multi-platinum, gold & silver sales awards.
Mike has a wealth of expertise to bring to your project. His enthusiasm for his work and skilful judgement keeps producers, A&Rs and engineers coming back for more!
Crispin Herrod Taylor | Crookwood
Crispin Herrod-Taylor, the technical partner at Crookwood has been inventing with audio since his school days, initially making guitar amps, then Hi-Fi. After getting a BSc in Physics, he went on to work for Hi-Fi pioneers, Meridian, and then jumped ship to SSL. He was with SSL for 5 incredible years, when they were at the peak of their power, and the world was their oyster. Crispin got to work on 4K’s, 5K’s (film and broadcast), and digi stuff. Finally before he co-founded Crookwood, he got to work for Focusrite, designing the last big format console, the Focusrite Studio Console, and spent a brief time consulting for DigiDesign.
Crookwood was founded in 1992, and is widely known for their modular mastering consoles. As each console can be slightly different, over the years he’s worked with over 1000 top mastering engineers across the world to understand their workflow, rooms and installations and has a wide knowledge on the challenges facing modern mastering, whether they’re working with vinyl, ITB or analogue heaven.
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