Brian Lee
Born in 1970, Brian went to Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1988-1992, majoring in Music Production and Engineering under notable engineers Bill Scheniman and Carl Beatty. “When I graduated college, as luck would have it I heard that the great mastering engineer Bob Ludwig was moving to Portland, Maine which is where I was living at the time,” says Brian. “I called in all my favours and got my professor Bill Scheniman to make a few calls for me.” Bill used his own contacts to fix a meeting between Brian and Bob – “You have to hire this guy,” Bill said. So, Bob did.
Brian acted as Bob’s assistant at Gateway Mastering Studios for about a year, before he started to be given mastering projects of his own. His first major task for Rush was to remaster the earlier Rush albums, from ‘Rush’ to ‘Hold Your Fire’. “They wanted to use the latest digital technology to capture the original analogue tapes,” says Brian. “The masters were in excellent condition, actually not much work had to be done because they already sounded so great. Some of the early albums needed more work than the others, but that is a testament to the engineers that put together the original albums.”
In 1998 Brian stopped mastering and started working on DVD Authoring, video editing and graphic design. “Selected DVD artists that I have authored are Blue Man Group, Loreena McKennitt, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Eric Clapton, Nine Inch Nails and Frank Sinatra,” he says.