About me
records are traces of sound and a path we can take
any other time
they are magic
so are you
For the better part of the past 25 years I have been cutting insane records in terms of level, frequency, stereo content. Nowadays - most of my clients do not even do TPs any more. They trust the process. "Helmut's extensive work experience in mastering audio, refining the performance, calibration & maintenance of record cutting lathes since 1998 is extremely rare and valuable to the world-wide Disk Mastering community. His innovations help current engineers optimize their workflow, save time and valuable resources and deliver highest audio quality." (The Sapphire mastering conference) A very fortunate collaboration with the team of TokyoDawnLabs lead into the SimuLathe product family. It has gained high respect amongst professionals. SimuLathe Workflows were installed and trainings on Model Assisted Disc Mastering were attended by large players in the industry and the finest boutique mastering rooms. It is the modern tool that cutting engineers have all been waiting for. Born in Innsbruck/Austria I remember falling asleep many times to the sounds of Alpine Folk - my father playing the harp. At the tender age of 10 I found myself touring Japan's sold out concert-halls with a traditional boys' choir. My uncles' headphones could fade from mono to stereo. Mindblowing. My older brother introduced me to the North Italian "Afro/Cosmic disco" movement - performed by heroic DJs on 5 turntables at the same time. DJ sets in iconic clubs were recorded on tape, copied and passed on. An endless flow, psychedelic, churning, hypnotic.Recording local punk bands and playing the drums - then the call of electronic music to Berlin. From 1998 on I was playing live in countless underground clubs and festivals, running a small record label. At Dubplates & Mastering Studio shaping the widely known Berlin sound of electronic music for thousands of internationally successful artists, DJs and record labels. I was in charge of studio maintenance and calibration of the lathes until the studio was sold in 2022 when I proudly presented an early Version of the Software "SimuLathe" from Tokyo Dawn Records with Vladislav Goncharov and Fabien Schivre at Making Vinyl Offenbach. "We realized the potential for such a virtual lathe, with Helmut as technical advisor helping us understand a disc-mastering engineer's true challenges and motivations. This is how SL developed, a sort of 'flight simulator' combined with new audio processors developed exactly for the disc-mastering context." (Fabien Schivre, responsible for TDR's infrastructure and audio plugin development.) The plugin has gained high respect amongst professionals in the following. SimuLathe Workflows were installed and trainings on Model Assisted Disc Mastering were attended by large players in the industry and the finest boutique mastering rooms - Vantiva, Sonopress, Optical Disc Mastering Warsaw, Schnittstelle, Man Made Mastering, LathesVille, Josh Bonati Mastering NYC, Bob Weston Chicagomastering, Greg Reierson Rareform, Dietrich Schoenemann Complete, Paul Gold Saltmastering, Clint Holley Wellmademusic, Flo Kaufmann FloKaSon, just to name a few. "SimuLathe has changed the game completely for cutting long sides. I never have to do a dry run to optimize level / space usage. And the safety limiters give me confidence that my pitch and depth system can deal with the challenges of modern digital production techniques. It’s the best addition to my lathe since upgrading my pitch computer." Greg Reierson (Owner rareformmastering.com) "Simulathe is absolutely sublime, and well thought out in every aspect. I honestly cannot see myself cutting master discs without it going fwd. I'm a lifetime subscriber...Highly recommended,...Godspeed!" Tim Xavier (Owner manmademastering.com) "SimuLathe is a gamechanger for cutting room and peripheral departments. It allows for preparing plug&play DAW sessions remotely and transferring them to the cutting room. It makes dummy runs, testcuts, etc not needed. It simplified templates for hot/flat/customer XYZ cuts and made production line more constant. It shortened mastering engineers training twice and made it more precise. It fastens up and precises discussions, analysis and pre-cut versions with customers. It's worth every penny and payback in first week. It's literally Henry's Ford model-T revolution in phonography..." Kamil Kaczmarek (Head of Cutting Department opticaldiscmastering.eu) "Simulathe is the modern tool that cutting engineers have all been waiting for. Not only is the processor suite top notch for cutting work, but the ability to match Simulathe to the performance & behavior of one's own lathe is something that has just never been done before. Setting up complicated cuts and analyzing problems can be done faster than real-time now - a workflow benefit that has never existed before. Simulathe lets me do better cuts in less time with less mistakes. I can't believe how well thought-out this plugin is. You have just nailed it." Josh Bonati (Owner bonatimastering.com) "It’s very well done. Lots of useful features. It’s nice to see something so difficult executed so well." Paul Gold (Owner saltmastering.com)