About Our Guest
Idania Valencia is a mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, where she has worked for 11 years, starting as a production engineer for Tom Coyne. Originally from Mexico City, she studied music composition at Academia de Música Fermatta before Full Sail University's recording arts program, and now works out of Sterling's Los Angeles location. Her mastering credits include Sam Smith, Shawn Mendes, Charli XCX, Ariana Grande, Coldplay, and Of Monsters and Men.

Topics We Covered

  • The backup plan that wasn't. Growing up around music through her non-musician, bohemian father, choosing composition for college, and her parents' insistence on a backup plan that happened to sound like "an engineering" degree
  • Finding mastering on purpose. Trying recording and a physically demanding, male-dominated live-sound gig first, and being drawn to mastering specifically because it was the mysterious, unexplained part of the process
  • The resume that got the callback. Applying to every studio in New York, getting turned down by Sterling for an internship, and going in person anyway with a resume in a nice folder
  • Trained by QC, not theory. Years assisting Tom Coyne, mentored by Aya Merrill and Will Quinnell, learning to tell the difference between a mix problem and a mastering problem one distortion at a time
  • The moves nobody else can hear. EQ changes so small other engineers insist they're inaudible, but they're the difference between a master getting approved or rejected. Feel and instinct over pure technical process
  • Stacking limiters. Why she sometimes runs two or three limiters instead of one, same type or different, for more control than any single limiter gives her
  • LUFS, true peak, and the loud-ref epidemic. Her real-world targets (around -8 to -6 LUFS depending on genre), rarely applying true peak limiting herself, and her nuanced take on loud references: it depends entirely on who the mixer is
  • Burnout, fibromyalgia, and finding balance. The insanely paced years assisting Coyne and then Randy Merrill, the chronic pain that followed, and the therapy and boundary-setting that got her to a healthier place
  • NYC vs. LA. Sterling's self-contained East Coast culture versus the more open, curious engineering community she's found since moving, and why Mexico City always felt more like LA than New York ever did

Links

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