Interesting one, this. Have known JJ for many many years…. I recorded her very first band Paligap when she was a teen, so it’s nice to work with her again, as I have off and on in the interim years.

Anyway, this is a gorgeous song written by JJ and produced and mixed by Ed Harcourt who’s worked with Paloma Faith, Sophie Ellis Bextor and many others. I provided the mastering on this, and like a few other recent projects I’ve been using AI for mastering: I supplied 3 masters to JJ and Ed: one was purely AI generated using Logic’s Mastering Assistant and 2 were me from scratch, just my ears and process choices…..I’ve done this a few times for clients, and am pleased to say the AI one wasn’t chosen as the final master for release.

What AI mastering offers to me is a perspective : I put it on and critique the results: I wonder why ‘it’ has applied certain EQ curves for example, and then it makes me question my choices when I complete my own mastering from scratch of the same material…..if I like the EQ curve or compression amount, I might keep as is, or just use my taste and tweak. It really is rare I’ll not swoop in and do at least something to the results, and so I just like to think of AI in this context as someone to kick an idea around with……and at the moment that someone isn’t as good as me (yet) and my USP is my taste.

JJ’s album follows next year…and it’s got a fascinating backstory.

Follow JJ her on her Substack….where she writes incredibly well about her activities as an artist and songwriter advocate. She puts her money where her mouth is.