Let's take a moment and meet the mastering engineer who will be tweaking, EQing, cutting, and assembling your project.

His name is Fotios Koulakos. Pronounced (Fõt-e-os Koo-luck-ös)

Koulakos has been studying, playing guitar and bass, as well as composing music for various instruments since 1983. He furthered his knowledge with private instruction, as well as attending Kent State University. In 1990 he started teaching guitar, bass, and music theory, and has continued to do so ever since. His interest in recording started however, about a year after starting guitar (around mid 1984), as a means to fulfilling his personal musical ambitions. Over the past two or so decades, he developed skills in arranging, recording, producing, and mixing. The latest hurdle in the recording chain was MASTERING. He cut his first master in 1998 and continues to hone his craft today. In his spare time, he continues to compose and record his own work. He is also an avid weight lifter and practices martial arts. And believe it or not, Koulakos still finds time to research and read about his other passions, namely science and astrophysics. Koulakos says, "Maybe there will be a worm hole discovered, where you put a CD in at one end, and at the other end, are presented with a fully mastered CD. Of course it might come out earlier than when it went in, heh heh heh."

Here is a more in depth look at Koulakos' life. He was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa. His family had migrated there from Greece in search of industrial work. (His father was a welder). In 1979, the family, along with young Koulakos immigrated to the United States for a better life. Living in Iowa and working at a relatives restaurant, the boys father decided the food industry was not for him, and brought the family, through another relative, to Canton, Ohio where Koulakos' father resumed work as a welder.

It is here, that Koulakos spent most of his years and now resides. It is here, that the seeds of music planted long ago in his early childhood, began to show fruit. Koulakos was inundated with music all of his life; his father, a hi-fi enthusiast constantly playing greek music as well as more contemporary styles of the day, courtesy of Koulakos' older sister. His mothers' side, hailing from a long line of musicians, along with the non stop record playing didn't go without effect. However the musical gene lay dormant for a few years. Koulakos focused all of his artistic energy in art work. Mostly technical drawings to be exact. His other passion was science and engineering. ( foreshadowing, perhaps? ) When the time came, he was set to pursue one of those fields in college.

However, at around 13 years of age, young Koulakos started to have stronger feelings for music that was immersed in his soul since birth, and announced an interest to pursue the drums, and all manner of percussion. The rhythmic aspect of things intrigued him first. This was met with approval from his family, but at the risk of making a hasty decision, Koulakos' sister suggested the guitar as another possibility. After all, it was portable, melodic AND rhythmic, and one need not be in a band to fully express music. Where a drummer would need the support of a band to provide melody and chordal accompaniment, a solo guitarist, especially one trained in classical music could provide melody, counter melody, accompaniment, and rhythmic support. This was very much the way a piano player would go. Needless to say, the suggestion intrigued the young Koulakos to the point where his sister and him bought a classical guitar, and set forth on a road of guitar lessons. Unfortunately the older sister stopped taking lessons because of other obligations. Koulakos however, continued with the venture and has been actively developing his skills for well over 23 years now.

Following that, Koulakos built a fully functioning recording studio centered around a Mackie 32 channel 8 bus mixer and a Tascam MSR-24 track analog tape deck. "This furthered the development of recording, mixing, producing, as well as other musical skills, and stemmed from two reasons", claims Koulakos. "One, I'm simply a technical geek at heart, and I love the production end of technology…and two, the more of these skills I developed, the more I could fulfill my own musical vision with absolutely no compromise!"

Along the way however, after working in other studios, as well as his own, with client after client, one thing seemed to be clear, and kept sticking out. The process of MASTERING. "Don't get me wrong" Koulakos says, "I like all of the steps involved from beginning to end, BUT, mastering always fascinated me, because it was this "black art" that no one dared talk about, on which you couldn't find any information, and to boot, was the magical process of bringing a project to life. I HAD to know more! Plus the fact that the mastering engineer was the last person to make any sonic changes, both thrilled and terrified me…. I was hooked! Also from my dads audiophile days I learned to simply appreciate the art of LISTENING to good recordings, something I believe has been of tremendous value to me as a mastering engineer. I was conditioned as a lad to critique various recordings…not the music, mind you, BUT the recordings. As you can well imagine, some of those masterings were magical, which always augmented the effect of good music. Good music recorded, AND mastered well…what a potent combination!"

What resulted, was a back to the drawing board attitude, and more time reading, studying, tweaking, and above all LISTENING, and developing an ear for perceiving detail, as well as the holistic sonic picture. ( Please see the link for "what is mastering" for a detailed explanation of this process)…..And then , tweaking and more tweaking, and invariably more listening.

"Unfortunately," says Koulakos, "the development of a lot of these skills was based on trial and error, a lot of self discovery if you will. I don't say that in a boastful manner, but only to give a reference point…You see, in the early eighties when all of these interests manifest, the available resources for information were precious little...I mean as a guitar player, if you had a guitar, a couple of pedals and an amp, you were happening. Home studios were still reserved for the ultra rich, and the few people that were in the know were as tight lipped as a hazmat containment suit. There simply wasn't the information explosion of the internet age. Nowadays, the amount of information available on ANY topic in this business is downright staggering. The books, articles, and magazines alone are overwhelming…not to mention the numerous recording schools…but I digress. The point is, that to find information, let alone anyone willing to help you was difficult. To ask local studio engineers even the simplest question, was the equivalent of asking them for their winning lottery ticket! All of a sudden these intelligent well spoken individuals had a sudden drop of 50 IQ points at the onset of a question. Not to mention the sudden amnesia at my presence. Ask a question of how you can spend money with them, and even Einstein would have trouble keeping track of their lexicon…ask a question for knowledge sake, and we were back to the opening scene of "2001: a space odyssey" where all of a sudden, they were apes beating bones against each other. Here, I assumed the giant monolith was a big mixer. Needless to say I walked away disappointed and frustrated."

A "do it yourself" attitude was in order, and Koulakos accepted the challenge. Eventually this road led to building and integrating a DAW (digital audio workstation), and ultimately, Koulakos joined the computer and digital age. This analog-digital hybrid approach is one that he favors for both his personal recording, and his professional mastering. His roots however, are deeply embedded in the analog tradition. Koulakos states, "What can be done in digital is mind shattering, I love it! BUT…audio has its roots in analog, that's your base, your foundation if you will. I meet young people claiming expertise in a number of audio fields, yet, are unaware of basic analog principles that their digital counterparts were built upon! You need the whole education, not just the plug in way of doing things. I'm not in favor of one over the other, just the fact that you need to know how audio recording in general came to be, and the subsequent steps after that…I'm eventually going to write an article on the pros and cons of this highly digitized age…I'll post it on the site."

However which way he does it, Koulakos has a simple, and practical philosophy, "Use what works and gets you the final results in the most efficient manner, and discard the rest. Period, end of discussion!"