S03 | E01 - Greg Obis - Wearing Every Hat

Speaks Volumes is back for Season 3, and we're kicking things off with someone who went from mopping floors at Chicago Mastering Service to owning the place.

Greg Obis interned at Electrical Audio, talked his way into CMS in 2012 by offering to vacuum and grab groceries for Bob Weston and Jason Ward, and spent a decade working his way up from quality control to full-time mastering engineer. Then in 2024, Bob announced he was moving to Portugal, and Greg made him an offer.

Mat Leffler-Schulman and Dan Coutant talk with Greg about the surreal jump from employee to owner, the lost art (and real fear) of cutting lacquers, why he asks clients to remove peak limiting, the loudness "come to Jesus" talk, reference mixes from The Replacements to Converge, and balancing life as a business owner with his band Stuck.

Greg's latest record with Stuck, Optimizer, is out now on Exploding In Sound Records.

Music in this episode: "Sicko" by Stuck, from Optimizer.

About Our Guest

Greg Obis is a mastering engineer and the owner of Chicago Mastering Service, where he has worked since 2012. He has mastered records for artists on labels including Sub Pop, Matador, ANTI-, Numero Group, Sacred Bones, and International Anthem. He also co-founded Born Yesterday Records and plays guitar and sings in the band Stuck.

Topics We Covered

• From intern to owner. Greg's path from Bennington College and an Electrical Audio internship to offering Bob Weston studio chores in exchange for a foot in the door, then a decade climbing from QC and archiving to a full mastering workload
• Buying CMS. How Bob's move to Portugal turned into a handover instead of a shipping container, why building a new room from scratch priced itself out of the running, and the "child emperor" phase of suddenly running the show
• Wearing every hat. Taking over project management, invoicing, and scheduling while keeping his own clients happy, and how coming up through quality control made him a better communicator
• Revisions and being the fall guy. Why the mastering engineer, like a monitor engineer, is the last one in the chain and the first to catch blame, and why recall requests are the most valuable education in the business
• Reference mixes. Greg's listening playlist: "Bastards of Young" by The Replacements, Yes, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kendrick Lamar, and Converge for when he needs something absurdly loud. Plus the legend of a Daft Punk record allegedly mastered twice
• Lacquer cutting. Learning on Bob's Neumann VMS 70, the fear of a blown cutter head, how cutting changed his digital work, and the great lathe-versus-house-down-payment debate now that the VMS 70 lives in Portugal
• Peak limiting and loudness. Greg's "limiter on or limiter off" philosophy, asking clients for unlimited mixes, 32-bit float delivery, and talking a client back from the loudness ledge with help from Tone Projects Uni-L
• When to say no. Mostly when it's a mix problem mastering can't solve. Otherwise: offer the professional opinion, then respect that it's their record
• Life outside the racks. Stuck's new album Optimizer, touring while running a business, cooking, weightlifting as a third space, and Greg's dream of a gloriously unlistenable side project made purely for the joy of it

Links

• Chicago Mastering Service: https://chicagomasteringservice.com
• Greg Obis: https://www.gregobis.com
• Greg's Substack, Live. Laugh. LUFS.: https://livelaughlufs.substack.com
• Stuck, "Sicko" from Optimizer (Exploding In Sound Records): https://stuckchi.bandcamp.com/album/optimizer
• Born Yesterday Records: https://www.bornyesterdayrecords.com