Michael Romanowski
Michael Romanowski is the owner and chief mastering engineer at Michael Romanowski Mastering in San Francisco, California. He started his audio career as a live sound engineer in Nashville, Tennessee, and quickly went from that to recording, mixing and producing. In 1994, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area and started his mastering career at Rocket Lab, with Mastering Engineers Paul Stubblebine and Ken Lee. Learning from two of the best in the business was invaluable to him as his career moved forward. Michael helped start the mastering room at Sausalito’s Plant Studios in 1999, where he was the chief mastering engineer. In 2001, Michael reunited with Paul Stubblebine in Paul’s mastering room at Hyde Street Studios – the famed Studio C. In 2003, Michael and Paul built two state of the art 5.1 mastering rooms at the former Coast Recorders building, now known as 1340 Mission, where he continues to work today.
Michael is President of the NARAS Board of Governors, and is the Chairman of the chapter’s Producers & Engineers wing. In addition to his service in music community, Michael teaches at San Francisco State University, and is an active panelist at conferences such as TapeOp, AES, CES, VSAC and NAMM . He is a co-owner of a music label, with Paul Stubblebine and Dan Schmalle, The Tape Project, which only releases direct copies of original analog masters on ¼” and now ½” analog tape. And, he continues to record, mix, produce and perform..
(415) 500-2539 (studio)
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Paul Stubblebine
Paul began his mastering career in San Francisco in 1973. For eleven years he worked at a recording and mastering facility on Folsom Street which, originally owned by CBS, was later bought by David Rubinson and became known as The Automatt.
During the CBS period, in addition to the CBS catalog, the studio also brought in outside work from the Record Plant and Wally Heider’s including records by The Grateful Dead, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, Sly Stone, Santana, Joan Baez, Bill Evans, Tony Bennett and Jane Fonda’s phenomenally successful workout record engineered by Leslie Ann Jones.
This is also where the mastering was done for the US releases of Rough Trade and Factory Records including Joy Division, and New Order. During this period, records mastered at the Automatt were on the charts continuously.
Paul then went on to become chief engineer at Rocket Lab, also in San Francisco, where he worked until starting his own company, Paul Stubblebine Mastering, in 1997.
Paul Stubblebine
(415) 522-0108
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Piper Payne
Piper holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Performing Arts Technology–Media/Sonic Arts Concentration from the University of Michigan, where she worked as a resident Student Engineer for the U of M recording studios. Piper supplemented her experiences in Michigan with a Graduate Studies Certificate in Music Production and Recording from the University of Stavanger, Norway. There, she had the opportunity to work with MemNor Sound Archival Service, and she also worked as an Apprentice to Thor Legvold at Sonovo Mastering. In 2009, Piper worked as the mixing engineer and mastering assistant to Bob Katz at Digital Domain in Orlando, Florida. In 2010, Piper served as the Senior Audio Associate at The Banff Centre in Alberta. Piper began operating her own location recording business in Michigan, and this business has traveled the world along with her. Piper is also an active member of the Audio Engineering Society. Piper hopes to use her experiences in recording, mixing, and mastering as she embraces the San Francisco soundscape.
Piper Payne
(313) 580.6660
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