INTRODUCTION TO WHAT THIS WHOLE THING IS ABOUT:

Welcome to Redsecta.com. I started Redsecta back in '91-'92 when I began working on my own projects from my bedroom studio at my parents' house with a bunch of friends. I had my first "real studio" experience in '93 when we tracked a 4-song demo on 2" tape and got a taste of what it's like to record material on a huge Studer 2" machine, and it was an experience that I knew I wanted to build on for the rest of my life. It took me a while to realize that my attention was always towards the sound of music and while I do still occasionally make beats, the majority of my efforts go into the frequencies of the music, and how to make things sound better through processing.

Back then, Mastering was done by a select few and most people could not afford to have professional mastering done on their music, unless you were willing to perhaps work a few extra hours and sell off some things here and there to come up with the money for mastering, since back in those days, digital mastering wasn't entirely digital until the very last step, which was to get the material ready for CD replication. Mastering until very recently had been a "secret art", done by people who had customized gear you couldn't find in any store, and in my early years, whenever I would ask an engineer at a studio about the Mastering process, I would be brushed off with things like "Oh, it takes decades to learn to do that, there's no school for learning how to master, you just have to be an engineer for 3-4 lifetimes before you can even think of getting into mastering."

Then computers started to become very popular in the audio field, and hardware and software for computers began to be taken real seriously by the industry with platforms such as the well-respected UAD-1 suite of DSP processing and effects that sound like the real thing. Redsecta is a play of two words: "Red" & "Sector". I came up with the name while reading a book on the Cold War, and how the C.I.A. would classify areas controlled by revolutionary forces as "Red Sectors" and that also describes what I'm doing these days with Digital Mastering.

Am I the only person who is doing Digital Mastering with mostly computers and software programs these days? Absolutely not, but what is unconventional and "revolutionary" in what I do is that I work with the music I love, nothing else, and nothing more. While other companies out there advertise they work on "Hip Hop, Rock, R&B, Jazz, Electronica, Punk, Soul, etc." I choose to work with ONLY Hip Hop. REVISION: Over the last couple of years, I have taken on projects that are not your traditional Hip Hop project, such as one that I enjoyed working on from a group you might have already caught in one of the many live gigs they do around Los Angeles, "The Ventriloquists". I mastered their "Safety Meeting" CD. These cats are serious with the live instrumentation. My official stance is this: If you think your project can benefit from the point of view of a rap engineer's vision, then hit me up and I'll gladly check out what you're doing and we'll take it from there.

I could probably make more money dwelling into other genres like everyone else does, but the last thing I want to do is make what I'm doing a "job". I only want to work with music that interests me, or else it's going to kill my motivation to make my Mastering projects sound their best. My mission is to be the preferred Mastering Engineer for all the Hip Hop projects I can handle, and last time I looked, my rates are lower than anyone else's (and I'm talking about serious mastering services, not your average cat with cracked versions of plugins running on a Dell). The quality of masters I produce rivals anything you might hear commercially, and for me to be able to say that with confidence has taken some years.

Another revolutionary thing that I am doing that nobody else is doing (since 2001) is 100% free test masters. Not a 30-second snippet of one of your songs, not a song that abruptly ends and has the last 20 seconds gone to try to make you come back and pay for the complete master. Others would see losses in their businesses from doing this type of thing, so they can't do it. I stay up late on most days it's worth it. It's a pretty good sales pitch, but in all honesty, NOBODY is doing it like I'm doing it, and that's the revolutionary part. Other mastering houses who might be doing this for the money don't understand that in Hip Hop, it's more than Bass. It's about ethics as well, and nothing is more damaging than being known as someone who cuts corners, and that's the difference between other Mastering engineers and myself; I understand that in order to be respected, you have to earn it .

I had someone call me up one time and said to me that there's no way mastering with a computer would sound good. I asked him to send me one song for me to master and try to change his point of view about it, and as I'm writing this, I'm working on the third project he has sent me since from his record label (in all fairness, however, I am now using a few high-end analog units). Excuse me if anything I say here sounds a bit overconfident, but in all honesty, I have earned my stripes. I'm not a magician, however. It all starts with good mixes, and that's your part. Read more on that on our Digital Services page.

When I speak to my clients about their music, I already have an understanding of it, because I've been understanding it since I was 11 years old. I know what your music should sound like, because it is also my music, and I also know that these days, independent musicians could use as many breaks as possible cost-wise to put out their projects, and I've designed my rates to be unbeatable for the level of quality you will be getting. Mastering Engineers are able to talk amongst themselves in great detail with regards to the technical aspects of mastering, but can they get that deep with their clients' music? That's the thing that matters most. Unfortunately, there are many "Mastering Engineers" out there who use cracked software and charge very little for their services, so make sure you check them out. I like to hear from new clients that have heard an album I've mixed and/or mastered that they already have an idea of the level of quality I can produce, before coming to me to work on their project. Not everyone out there is out to put out great work at a good price!

Having a web site is great, but I never really wanted to be just a fancy business card for my mixing and mastering business, so I'm also working on a Production Resources section that features all kinds of stuff for producers, from sounds to articles and video tutorials related to production, so I hope you all come back and check what's going on up here from time to time, best thing about it is that it will be free of charge to anyone who might find the samples and other information useful. Matter of fact, why don't you just bookmark the site, because I plan on being here for a long time to come.

Respect,

L. Franco, a.k.a:

Feel free to hit me up with questions anytime at 323-574-5008 or L-ROX @ redsecta.com

L-ROX
Redsecta Mixing & Mastering

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