Dave McNair: Reinventing His Career, Again and Again

Dave McNair is a mastering engineer, producer, and recording engineer with over four decades in the music industry and more than 900 credits spanning rock, blues, country, pop, and world music. Originally from Corpus Christi, Texas, he came up through the working-studio world of New York City, including a stint at The Hit Factory, before spending years producing and engineering in Los Angeles and Austin. He's now based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he operates Dave McNair Mastering from a studio in his own home, monitored on a high-end audiophile playback system.

What sets McNair apart is the breadth of his pre-mastering career. He toured as a drummer with indie/alt-country band The Silos, engineered and mixed landmark sessions with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Cyndi Lauper, and produced artists like Buddy Guy and Kelly Willis in the Austin music scene. That lived-in understanding of how records are made from the ground up, tracking, arranging, mixing, deeply informs his mastering philosophy. His approach emphasizes what he calls "mastering with mixing in mind," treating the bass and vocals as the true anchors of any record.

McNair's audiophile background is equally distinctive. He spent time working the sales floor at high-end audio retailers Innovative Audio and Sound By Singer in NYC, and that world of critical listening hardware never left him, he credits it with transforming his approach to monitoring and sound judgment. His 2024 Grammy nomination for Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical) for Bokanté's History represents recent recognition, but his catalog, which includes David Bowie's The Next Day, Shovels & Rope's Little Seeds, and mixed credits on SRV's In Step, reflects decades of work at the highest level.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:

• The moment he realized a mentor's "amazing room sound" was actually a tiny dead room and a heavily compressed mic
• Why losing head-to-head comparisons to another engineer became one of his biggest learning tools
• What changed in his approach after sitting in on a session with one of the most respected mixers in the business
• The exact moment Dave knew he needed to change direction, and what tipped him off
• Why he didn't tell any of his old clients he was getting into mastering until he felt ready
• How 20 years of sitting in on other people's mastering sessions became the foundation for his new career
• Why he says the chasing and reinventing never really stops, even now

To learn more about Dave McNair, visit: https://www.davemcnairmastering.com/

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