Carl Saff Mastering is a facility providing CD and vinyl premastering services in northwest Chicago. I began tracking and mixing records in 1995, but mastering has been the focus of my engineering work since 2000. My goal is to make sure the mixes you've worked hard to perfect receive the best possible presentation for your listeners, and I won't accept payment unless you are completely satisfied with my work.

Select Project Reviews

Julian Lynch Terra (Underwater Peoples)	"Terra, his third full-length, demonstrates an attention to nuance and the subtleties of composition that are often overlooked by the artists of his time. Its sounds are crisp and clean, with loads of negative space in between. But they twine into something that verges on maximalist through a combination of deft recording techniques and Carl Saff's ever-lush mastering." -- alteredzones.com
The Kingsbury Manx Ascenseur Ouvert! (Odessa)	"The rich mellotron and banjo passages in “Black and Tan” play like thoughtful rejoinders to the verses, the wordless vocals and strings on “Minos Maze” stand in perfect counterpoint to the skeletal guitars that precede them, and Taylor’s elegant solo on “Galloping Ghosts” serves as the perfect emotional climax to what is perhaps the album’s loveliest track. The band’s run through a wide array of different keyboards and bass and guitar tones attests not to a distracted preoccupation with equipment or need for constant novelty, but rather an intent focus on achieving just the right texture, and Ascenseur Ouvert is indeed, sonically speaking, one of the best-sounding rock albums in recent memory." -- dustedmagazine.com
Pauline Oliveros Accordion & Voice and The Wanderer Reissues (Important)	"Important has given loving attention to detail in these reissues, reproducing in CD-size the LP jackets, retaining the original liner notes and adding new notes by the composer. Best of all, the CD mastering has preserved the dynamic range of the recordings, especially evident in the close-up warmth of Accordion & Voice and the amazing rising energy of “The Wanderer.” Taken together, these two CDs present a wide-ranging and integral sampling from a true American original." -- dustedmagazine.com
Grails Take Refuge in Clean Living (Important)	"Take Refuge offers a haunted cover of the Ventures' "11th Hour" that transforms cool surf-rock into windswept desert-rock via a cavern of reverb and an imperial harpsichord; the result could pass off as incidental music for David Lynch's Inland Empire. That air of dark mystery, which pervades the album, is partly due to the skillful arrangements, but also comes from the immaculate mastering and production, which makes heavy use of contrast and lends the appropriate air of otherworldliness." -- pitchfork.com