About Us

About Sonic Science Lab

Hello (or “Witaj” as we say in Poland) – I’m Artur Stawski, and I founded the mastering suite in 2010 (rebranded into Sonic Science Lab four years later), in response to the growing demand for a dedicated, high-quality mastering service in Central Europe. Studios in the United States and the United Kingdom have dominated audio mastering, but “Mastering the World’s Music” happens wherever the right sound, experience, and technical expertise come together. That’s why I created Sonic Science Lab!

As an engineer, producer or musician, you understand the value of knowledge, practice, training, and experience. Even if you are just getting started, you have already spent years honing your craft. You wouldn’t just walk into a studio before you learned how to play your instrument or start a recording session without knowing how to use the sound equipment. Great music is as much about preparation as it is about inspiration, and that’s why I know you’ll appreciate the years of preparation that have gone into the Sonic Science Lab mastering suite.

Four Decades in the Making

I began playing and working with sound in the late 70s. I was eight years old when my father (for some odd reason) brought home some broken-down analog synthesizers. I took them apart to see how they worked and soon started building my own. Even then, I was driven by the desire to improve the sound as much as possible. I started mixing on tapes to get it right.

Throughout the 80s, I built and experimented with voltage-controlled oscillators, amplifiers, crossovers, and even compressors. When computers began to be available (I had big luck to have one of the first PCs on the market), I learned programming pretty quickly and soon (early 90s) coded my first mixing software (32 channels/16bit, Pro Tools was 4 voices then…). When I began studying informatics at the University of Warsaw, music was already about computers and sampling. Even with the limited technology I had at the time, I was obsessed with trying to perfect multibit sampling and playback, remarkably improving critical listening skills.

The new century jump-started my expectations about what was possible with sound engineering. Although Poland is unknown to many, it has gained a world-wide reputation in audio engineering with companies that have origins here like Mytek, Lipinski and PSP Audioware. I wanted to be a part of this growing Polish audio expertise, but I had gone as far as I could on my own. So, I turned to some of the world’s best pros and received intensive training in the latest mastering techniques and equipment.

Trained by the Best in the Business

In 2013, I was hand-picked by Vlado Meller and Alan Silverman – two of America’s undisputed masters of mastering – for special training.

Vlado has been a successful mastering engineer for more than 40 years, won two Grammy awards, and worked with artists such as: the Beastie Boys, Andrea Bocelli, Johnny Cash, Celine Dion, Duran Duran, Kenny G, Kenny Loggins, Julio Iglesias, Michael Jackson, Lil Wayne, Limp Bizkit, Kanye West, Kenny Loggins, Paul McCartney, Metallica, George Michael, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Public Enemy, Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira, Barbra Streisand, and Weezer.

Alan has earned two Grammy nominations and has mastered recent releases from Judy Collins, Shawn Colvin, Ivan & Alyosha, Norah Jones, Chaka Khan, The Kinks, Dolly Parton, Madeleine Peyroux, Ron Pope, Keith Richards, J.D. Souther, Cheap Trick, and Jimmy Webb.

I spent years in the trenches of audio engineering and critical listening, before taking a single dollar from anyone. I learned the mixing craft first with mixing engineer Hans-Martin Buff (Prince, The Scorpions); Richard Mendelson (Eric Clapton, Squeeze, and also a professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston USA); and then yet another mastering legend Jonathan Wyner (David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, and James Taylor). There is no substitute for training with top professionals.

But what do these big names mean to you? Simply put, it’s all about training and experience. In today’s global, networked economy, anyone can claim to offer mastering services, but too many engineers and studios around the globe don’t specialize and don’t have an idea how to find the perfect, finished sound for your music, that will translate well across all the playback systems and electronic devices available today. Too many sound-engineering studios offer so-called “mastering” services, but mostly rely on guessing and trial-and-error as they learn on the job, resulting in dissatisfied clients.
Few studios have appropriate mastering tools, fewer know what they’re doing, and even fewer do it really well. If you don’t want your music to become an experiment at the hands of some inexperienced engineer, then you need the kind of knowledge and experience that you’ll find with Sonic Science Lab.