George Piazza

Lead Engineer: Fly Mastering

A Short Biography

George's engineering experience began when his band Tabula Rasa decided to handle their own live sound in 1987.  He recorded the first Tabula Rasa record at the Hickory Smoke House in 1989, using an Otari 8 Track and a DAT machine to sub-mix. By 1990, he was working at Festival Studio, one of the larger facilities in the New Orleans area. Between 1990 and 1994, George recorded numerous acts at Festival, including Down and many early N.O. Rap acts. He also spent the Summer of 1992 in Biloxi producing a record for the popular regional group Change To Eden, and handled live sound for many top acts, including The Fixx, The Byrds, Cyril Neville, Def Generation, Timbuk 3 and countless others.
In 1994, George left Festival to open one of the first all digital project studios in the city, using Digidesign's Session 8. According to George 'It was an invaluable learning experience, revealing both the promise and limitations of the digital medium.' Some stellar recording came from that 3 year experience, notably Banda Logun, Machine Screw and The Many Nation Singers.
After serveral other studio and live ventures, including a stint as stage manager and monitor engineer for the cable music show Louisiana Jukebox, George had the opportunity to open his own larger facility Fly Studio in 2008. That is when he became serious about the art of mastering. 'In between recording and composing, I would work with various mastering techniques, finding the best ways to improve a mix without doing damage or over-limiting. Digital has so many facets to it, I am often surprised by the lack of knowledge of many self professed studio owners. Digital is nothing to turn your back on, and there are just so many things to get right to achieve a quality result.'
When the studio building changed hands, George had the opportinity to build a new facility dedicated strictly to mastering, mixing and audio restoration. 'The new facility is designed to meet the workflow I developed over many years, with the tools that work best for me. I take a minimalist approach, so the tools have to be very high quality; that way, major improvements can be made with just a few adjustments.

Another thing I use that is not common in mastering is automation. With more low budget projects coming in, automation can provide much better results than the 'set it and forget it' approach.'

Fly Mastering also provides forensic restoration services.

'The good restoration packages are expensive, and the work is time consuming, but the results are worth it. The trick is knowing when to stop - when you are damaging the music just to remove another dB of noise.'

With a a background in theory, composition and performance, George also provides soundtrack services for video and film.