Matthew Wolk Mastering

Matthew Wolk Mastering My goal is to make your music the best it can be. I use state-of-the-art mastering equipment to ret

is on the rise with her debut single “Bringing Home a Cowboy”! 100,000 monthly listeners and just about 200,000 streams...
06/19/2025

is on the rise with her debut single “Bringing Home a Cowboy”! 100,000 monthly listeners and just about 200,000 streams in less than a month. I honestly haven’t seen this kind of momentum in quite some time with a new artist! She’s just getting started too... More on the way 🤫

On a personal note, this one’s special for me because I’m nearly 11 years into this and I can count on two hands the total number of country projects I have mastered. I want to work on more but it’s such an established genre that there’s often some bigger players involved on the mastering side. There’s always the go to engineers, but once in a while people take a chance on someone they don’t know and it works out just as well. That is the case with this song!

I still get a bit nervous whenever I do get a project like this because I honestly don’t have the most experience with this genre. Imposter syndrome kicks in but then I remember genre doesn’t matter, just do what I do best and make it sound the best I can. No overthinking needed. That’s what I did and here we are now with the results. 📈

It’s amazing to see her establishing such a big fan base on her first song!

Produced by
Mixed by
Mastered by
MGMT:

Time flies! It’s been just over a year since this was released and it’s still going strong. We were so close to a #1 on...
05/18/2025

Time flies! It’s been just over a year since this was released and it’s still going strong. We were so close to a #1 on billboard. I’ll humbly accept a #2 when running against Kendrick Lamar “Not Like Us” in the same week…😮‍💨 Coincidentally, Kendrick Lamar was in town tonight for his tour barely a year after all of this began. I love looking back on some of the powerful moments in modern music! Things move quickly in this industry but the impact lingers!

Are you guys liking the behind the scenes content and more technical insights? I hope so because I’m back with 5 more pl...
02/25/2025

Are you guys liking the behind the scenes content and more technical insights? I hope so because I’m back with 5 more plugins that I have been reaching for on several projects this month!

I’m still figuring out what I want to say/do with this sort of content. For now it’s kind of a brain dump about how/why I am choosing to use certain processing. Mastering is a mystery for most artists and even some producers/engineers. You certainly don’t need to know 100% of what is happening, but I think some of my insights will help unveil the mystery behind it all.

The biggest takeaway is there are no rules with mastering. I do whatever I feel is necessary for each and every project, even if that means using unconventional tools and techniques not typically associated with mastering.

No “mastering chains” here, just a curated and custom order of operations that works best for your individual project. You can think of my mastering approach as a boutique made-to-measure suit or dress crafted specifically to fit your music. 😁

Sometimes I get late night thoughts and good ideas… I usually ramble them out in my notes app. Some see the light of day...
02/08/2025

Sometimes I get late night thoughts and good ideas… I usually ramble them out in my notes app. Some see the light of day, and others don’t. This deserves a permanent spotlight. I posted it to my story but I think it’s worthy of living longer than 24hrs.

If you don’t want to read the above rant the takeaway is no more deadlines in 2025. Just more quality time spent on getting things right.👌🏻

I’m still pretty quick to deliver but speed isn’t always what matters. If I can come back to something a day or two later with fresh ears I almost always know if it’s hitting just right, over pushed, or too safe. Fresh perspective is the best mastering tool!

Everyone seems to dig it when I nerd out on tech stuff on my stories, so I’m starting a monthly series this year where I...
01/22/2025

Everyone seems to dig it when I nerd out on tech stuff on my stories, so I’m starting a monthly series this year where I show you the top plugins in my rotation and some reasons why I am using them!

If you’ve followed me for a while you know I went from a 100% analog workflow to fully digital. A drastic switch, but it’s the best thing I did because the results I get with the software flexibility is better than what I was able to do with my previous desk setup. The desk setup was great, but was lacking the flexibility to choose from a vast amount of processing options. I could have spent 100k expanding the hardware options… Instead, I embraced digital and have all of the options I wanted at the click of a mouse!

Anyway, I hope you guys like this! It’s a great behind the scenes insight into how I work and think about approaching processing on my mastering projects. I will never have a set mastering chain. I pick and choose what processing will work for the project at hand, and its specific needs based on my first impressions. Sometimes it’s clean and minimal, other times I’m getting experimental, heavy-handed, and colored. That is how mastering should be. Serve the music!

It’s been a really challenging week seeing everything that is happening in LA…and it’s not even over yet. I just saw som...
01/13/2025

It’s been a really challenging week seeing everything that is happening in LA…and it’s not even over yet. I just saw something today that mentioned recovery efforts have been estimated to take 10 years to rebuild and that most small businesses affected will likely be permanently closed. 🥹

I know I’m not a big part of the local community being Seattle based, but to my LA connections, you are a big chunk of my life and personal community even though most of us have never met in person.

The LA music scene made up 20% of my business last year which has been an area I’ve been growing remotely for the past few years. Last year was a big milestone of growth, and I had planned to do a showcase of many of the LA artists I worked, but right now is no longer the time for that. I’m going to leave space for the local posts/resources that people in the are need to see in these tough times.

I know there is not a lot I can do several states away, but to my LA peeps just know I’m here for you from afar, and if I can assist in any way please let me know.

It’s numbers week across the music industry! I’m enjoying seeing everyone’s Spotify wrapped and the progress they’ve mad...
12/05/2024

It’s numbers week across the music industry! I’m enjoying seeing everyone’s Spotify wrapped and the progress they’ve made over the past few years, as well as people sharing their stories of challenges and struggles. Just remember that you are in your own lane on your own journey. Don’t get wrapped up (pun intended 😉) comparing yourself to other artist’s numbers/progress.

If you have seen momentum and continued growth over the years, great! If things pulled back or slowed down, no big deal! Consistency is what keeps things progressing over the long term.

I’m excited to share some of my numbers! I joined .ai last year and have been loving the metrics/tracking. They help me keep track of credits, total streams across every release, and more. It’s crazy to see I’m at nearly 400M streams across everything I have worked on, especially considering that number was 300M less than 6 months ago. None of that really matters, but as that number increases, it means the artists that trust me with their music are doing better each day. 👌🏻

I’ve been testing a new process of payments upfront for the past month and there has not been any issues with it, so I’m...
11/21/2024

I’ve been testing a new process of payments upfront for the past month and there has not been any issues with it, so I’m making the official announcement that this will be a permanent change moving forward.

This is purely a business decision to lower my risk, maintain accurate monthly accounting, and eliminate unnecessary communication/follow up for payments after projects have been completed.

How it will work: Reach out as usual with the project info/send me mix files. Once the mix files are reviewed I will send you a Filepass link with the total project balance. Once payment is received mastering will be scheduled. I will then let you know when master files are uploaded to that same Filepass link, and provide the usual written breakdown of my approach.

That’s it! Business as usual for the most part. Thank you for your understanding!

I’ve shared so much music the past few weeks that the ‘algorithm’ thinks I am a robot 🤖 so I need to break up that consi...
11/19/2024

I’ve shared so much music the past few weeks that the ‘algorithm’ thinks I am a robot 🤖 so I need to break up that consistency with something about me I guess…

I never got around to sharing this and have been a bit hesitant because I try to keep my account free of any politics or polarizing current events. Kinda hard to avoid it in this situation having been the mastering engineer behind it, and to no surprise, I lost a lot of followers sharing the song when it was first released earlier this year..

Truthfully none of that matters at the end of the day. What matters is that this song landed with huge impact and a message that is still echoing across the world today, and will continue to echo tomorrow, next week, next month, and until the tragedies come to an end.

No matter where you stand or how you feel about what has been happening, I am proud and will always be proud to be apart of this song!

In the 10 years I’ve been mastering I’ve never had a project submitted for Grammy consideration. I knew it would happen ...
10/01/2024

In the 10 years I’ve been mastering I’ve never had a project submitted for Grammy consideration. I knew it would happen eventually and it’s pretty amazing to see this song checking that off the list!

The whole team pushed the boundaries with this one to deliver something that is different, special, and just an all around vibe!

peeps tap it during the upcoming voting period.


Produced by
Mixed by
Mastered by

10 years in business! It’s pretty hard to summarize 10 years into a paragraph so I’m not really going to try. If you’ve ...
09/06/2024

10 years in business! It’s pretty hard to summarize 10 years into a paragraph so I’m not really going to try. If you’ve been here a while you already know how much this means to me.

I still have the new kid on the block mentality, and I’m still working towards bigger goals for the 20 year milestone…

Happy 10 years of making your music sound the best it can be!

I don’t know why I put this off for so long but I’m happy to say that I have officially joined the as a voting member! ...
07/01/2024

I don’t know why I put this off for so long but I’m happy to say that I have officially joined the as a voting member! I have no idea what will come of this, or how it will shape my future plans but It feels like the perfect way to transition into the next chapter of this journey I have been on.

I’m fast approaching my 10 year anniversary of working as a professional mastering engineer, and I’m excited to use that experience to help shape the music industry any way I can!

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111 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA
98104

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+12082776987

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