Donal Whelan / Hafod Mastering
Academically qualified and professionally experienced, Donal Whelan's mission is to make music sound better.
Every day, Donal demonstrates his commitment to coaxing the best out of people's music by communication with his clients to understand their audio mastering needs, and then exceeding their expectations.
Donal understands how important your music is to you and how important creative expression is in this world. That's why he approaches every mastering job with the same care and attention that he brings to his chart-topping clients.
Work history
B.Mus(Tonmeister) at Surrey University
Chop Em Out, London
The Townhouse Post Production, London
Fairlight ESP, Sydney, Australia
Hafod Mastering
Years Experience
23
Mastering Highlights
| Artist |
Album |
Listen |
| Embrace |
Come Back To What You Know |
Spotify |
| Georgia Ruth |
Week Of Pines |
Spotify |
| Heaven 17 |
Penthouse & Pavement (remastered) |
Spotify |
| Elastica |
The Menace |
Spotify |
| The Gentle Good |
Tethered For The Storm |
Spotify |
| Gallops |
Miami Spider |
Spotify |
| Jonny |
Jonny |
Spotify |
| Houdini Dax |
You Belong To Dax Darling |
Spotify |
| Fila Brazilia |
A Touch Of Cloth |
Spotify |
| Mary Hopkin & Morgan Visconti |
You Look Familiar |
Spotify |
| Sandy Denny |
Gold Dust - Live at the Royalty |
Spotify |
Example Tracks
| Demo |
Before Mastering |
After Mastering |
| The Spires - Fireworks |
|
|
| Inferno - Welcome To The Lion's Den |
|
|
Testimonials
Donal mastered my album 'Ideas and Oh Dears' recently and did an incredible job. Now I have a cohesive gem of an album instead of merely a collection of songs. If you're wondering whether or not to master your project go get Donal to do it.
Kid Carpet. Tired and Lonesome Recordings, England
Been listening to the album. Brilliant job. Very pleased with it.
Matthew Scott. Virtual Variants, Wales
Both CDs excellent; Sweet Assassin is instantly stunning and able to inform my judgement on Vapour Trail, also stunning but a much more complex record and therefore required thinking about. Bear in mind that these albums are like children to me, and there is always the complex issue of handing on one's work to others to complete; the other side of that coin is that I'm paying for your ears, and I am wholeheartedly of the view that it was an excellent investment. Thanks again!
DB Smith. NSC Records, England
Rates
| Tracks |
Cost |
| Single Track |
£75.00 |
| Album (Unsigned) |
£700.00 |
| Album (Signed) |
£700.00 |
Currency converter:
Album packages include up to 12 tracks. Any tracks over 12 are charged at £50/track.
Hafod Mastering
Hafod Mastering was designed and built by one of London's top studio designers in conjunction with Germany's finest acoustic consultant.
Most of the audio mastering processing is done in the analogue domain, quite simply because it makes your music sound better.
High-end analogue to digital converters, well designed analogue equipment and industry standard digital workstations give us the flexibility to achieve the sound that you’re looking for.
Monitoring
Revox Studio 4 monitors
Chord SPA608 Power Amp
Velodyne HGS18 Subwoofer
Workstation
Sonic Studio soundBlade Mastering workstation
SADiE V4 Mastering workstation
Equipment List
Digital Audio Denmark ADDA2
Summit DCL-200 compressor
Manley Massive Passive Mastering Edition EQ
Manley SLAM analogue limiter
Ampex ATR102 1/2" and 1/4" tape machine
Sony PCM-7010 DAT
NAD C542 CD Player
ADT Monitoring and Metering System
Groovy stuff
Room acoustics by Murray Harris and Jochen Veith
6 custom designed LF resonators (bass traps)
Custom built diffusing ceiling
Star point earthing with earth stake under the mastering console
Westwick Installations mains balancing transformer
Years Established
9