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Benedict Roff-Marsh

Benedict Roff-Marsh, contributor at Higher Hz

Benedict is a mix engineer, record producer, and composer with over 30 years of experience, 100+ albums, and awards for film (and game) scores.

Benedict grew up in a musical house. His father (Guildhall London, cathedral organist, choirmaster, harpsichord) was playing Bach, Scarlatti, Palestrina, Handel, and Mahler on his valve hi-fi, harpsichords, and clavichords he built for sale, while Benedict was trying to listen to Deep Purple and Duran Duran with those terrible orange foam headphones we all had in the 80s. All that music soaked in.

He left school wanting to be a record producer, like Alan Parsons. He trained for a while in a small commercial recording studio, making jingles for a regional AM radio station. Not as sexy as the people he knew in Indie band studios, but Benedict learned the value of working quickly, finishing, and publishing.

Benedict trained himself with synths, seeing others in the studio were afraid of them. It was only a matter of time before he started writing his own material to give purpose to his activity. A couple of years and cassette releases later, Benedict had calls from several Indie record labels (with distribution to Majors).

VST became the thing, and it wasn't long before Benedict started making his own VST synths and effects. For some years, he ran his line called SynthStudio Pack, which became reasonably well-known.

Mostly these days, he focuses on mixing and artist development. He has a very strong belief in getting the basics right, as no building stands well on poor foundations.

difference between mixing vs mastering

The difference between mixing vs. mastering and how to master properly

Mastering has become this strange sort of urban legend, like alligators talking with aliens in the subway, whilst Ozzy Osborne kisses Gene Simmons under the Ferris wheel in “The Lost Boys”. It just isn’t that way.

In the 90’s I saw the rise of the idea that mastering was some sort of black magic. Suddenly with YouTube everyone is showing how it is done and much of it is crazier than an Alice Cooper show.

Read on