AES Los Angeles 2016 Presenter or Author
Emily Lazar
Primary Affiliation: The Lodge - New York, NY, USA
Emily Lazar, Chief Mastering Engineer and Founder of The Lodge, recognizes the integral role mastering plays in the creative musical process. Combining a decisive old-school style with an intuitive and youthful knowledge of both music and technology, Emily and her team capture the magic that can only be created in the right studio by the right people. Born and raised in New York, Emily spent her formative years surrounded by music. Coinciding with years of playing in bands, Emily attended Skidmore College and graduated with a BA in Creative Writing and Music. After working in a few legendary New York City recording studios, Emily then went on to NYU to earn her Masters Degree in Music Technology. While there, she was awarded a Graduate Fellowship and completed her Master’s Thesis on the Sonic Solutions Digital Audio Workstation. In 1996, she was invited to join the faculty at NYU, teaching graduate level coursework in the Music Technology program. In 1997 Lazar founded The Lodge, a world-renowned mastering, mixing and specialized recording facility located in the heart of NYC’s Greenwich Village.
Equipped with state-of-the art equipment and a dedicated team of studio personnel, The Lodge attracts both the industry’s most esteemed artists as well as its’ most prominent newcomers. As Chief Mastering Engineer, Emily’s passion for integrating music with technology has been the driving force behind her success, and has enabled her to create some of the most distinctive sounding albums released in recent years. Emily has mastered thousands of albums with musical luminaries such as: Foo Fighters, Beck, Coldplay, David Bowie, Sia, Garbage, Sonic Youth, Natalie Merchant, Lou Reed, Morrissey, Depeche Mode, Tiësto, Vampire Weekend, Björk, BT, Sonic Youth, Jeff Buckley, Third Eye Blind, Haim, Wu Tang Clan, Beyoncé, Say Anything, All American Rejects, Simple Plan, The Shins, Brand New, Vanessa Carlton, Destiny’s Child, Santana, Julian Casablancas and The Voidz, The Walkmen, The Prodigy, Sinéad O’Connor, Alanis Morrisette, Angel Olsen and many more.
Her mastering work can also be heard on original soundtracks for many feature films: This Is The End, (Dave Grohl’s) Sound City: Real to Reel, Get Him to The Greek, Hedwig and the Angry Inch Original Cast Album, The Punisher, Training Day, American Psycho, Lucky Number Slevin, Pokemon: The First Movie and Boys Don’t Cry. She has also mastered the broadcast audio for NBC’s Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special, as well as soundtracks for hit TV series Heroes (NBC), and Six Feet Under (HBO).
In addition to Emily’s mastering credits she has mixed stereo tracks for the likes of Vampire Weekend, Tiësto and Hamilton Leithauser as well as most recently Emily co-mixed the 5.1 Surround Sound Album of Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams.
The Lodge is furnished with specially hand picked pieces that lure analog aficionados and digital audiophiles alike. From the studio’s unique collection of outboard gear to its sophisticated high-density digital audio workstations, Emily chooses all of The Lodge’s state of the art equipment and is a highly publicized product endorsee for Avalon Design, Antelope Audio, AVID and Dangerous Music. In 2002, she helped launch the flagship Apple store in New York City with her presentation on the relationship between mastering and Apple Computers.
A trailblazer in an industry notably lacking female representation, Emily has also been featured in numerous audio media publications such as Home Recording, Mix, SonicScoop, Alternative Press, EQ, Bust, Billboard, Medialine, Rolling Stone, Pro Sound News, Remix and Tape Op as well as gracing the cover stories in Artist Pro and Electronic Musician.
Emily’s expertise was highly recognized at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards, where she was the first female mastering engineer to be nominated for a Grammy in the Album of the Year category. Emily and The Lodge were also nominated and won at the 28th Annual TEC Awards, for Best Record/Production for the Foo Fighters album “Wasting Light.” They won again at the 31st TEC Awards for Beck "Dreams." Again, breaking barriers, Emily was the first female mastering engineer to be nominated for a Grammy for Record of the Year for Sia’s smash hit "Chandelier" at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. Last year Emily blazed yet another trail for aspiring female engineers everywhere earning the first female mastering engineer nomination for a Grammy for Best Engineered Album Non-Classical for Bird and the Bee’s (Greg Kurstin and Inara George) "Recreational Love." She is currently nominated for two TEC Outstanding Creative Achievement Awards: for Album Production for Coldplay’s "A Head Full of Dreams" and Single Production for Garbage’s "Empty."
Equally as important as any industry accolade, Emily gives back to the music industry by frequently speaking on college campuses and at music industry conferences. In addition to her non-industry related charity work, Emily volunteers as a mentor to young aspiring engineers. She is currently serving her third term on the Board of Governors for the National Academy of the Recording Arts and Sciences, New York Chapter. Although Emily’s achievements in the audio field are numerous and widely respected, if you were to ask Emily what her proudest achievement is, her response will always be her son, Jackson — although, she’s quick to point out, “he has certainly mastered me, not the other way around.”
Session List
Oct 1:
RP9: Platinum Mastering (Panelist)