Declared Sound

Mastering

Please contact dom@declaredsound.com if you’d like to discuss your project.

Mastering Options

Compact Disc – 16-bit 44.1k WAV files / DDP image / master CDR / digital transfer
Cassette – 24 or 16-bit 44.1k WAV files
Digital – 24/32-bit 44.1/48k WAV files
- iTunes (standard), Spotify, other online stores & distributers — 16-bit/44.1k WAV files with specially compensated headroom to avoid compression clipping by the service providers
- Bandcamp and SoundCloud — 24-bit/44.1k WAV files with specially compensated headroom to avoid compression clipping by the service providers
Vinyl – 24-bit 44.1k WAV files / DDP image / digital transfer
Music Licensing – 16-bit 48k WAV files and 320kbps MP3 for reference
320kbps MP3 from 32-bit 48k WAV
Metadata and ISRC Codes where applicable

I specialise in full dynamic range – making the most of all those sweet curves without over compression. That said, I’m totally aware of the current trends for volume, and I’ve spent years perfecting the art of keeping the dynamic range and bringing the volume up to a level that competes with the highly compressed sausages of modern music. I’m also adept in achieving that elusive live sound that many modern electronic musicians crave. Chances are I’ll have a good idea of what you want by listening to your mix, but talk to me about the sound you’re after… I’ve been involved with rock, punk, disco, prog, techno, avant-garde experimentalism, hardcore, grindcore, East African dance music, gabba, jazz, noise, revolutionary rave folk music from countries run by dictators, you name it… I’ll know what you mean and be able to accommodate.

Mastering – What do you get?

My standard fee is £50 per track, covering masters as required for digital, cassette, and CD. There is an additional fee of £50 for a vinyl master.

I also offer a sliding scale for mastering ranging from £20 to £50 per track.

The sliding scale works on an honest based system, and aims to make it more affordable for those on low incomes and/or from countries where currency conversion to £ doesn’t work out. If you can afford to pay more, please do so!

When the quote is agreed and your payment is received, you’ll get an experienced, knowledgeable and passionate ear putting the finishing touches to your music in a professional custom built mastering studio. You’ll have the opportunity to suggest amendments to the draft master, and when approved you’ll receive the final mastered tracks in all the various formats required.

Mixing & Production

I also offer mixing from stems and production services. This can include mixing your tracks from stems, to more full-on production work such as taking your instrument stems and processing the sounds through analogue outboard hardware (vacuum tube EQ’s and amplifiers, re-recording sounds with ribbon and tube microphones, processing with filters, distortion, reverb, etc). Please feel free to email dom@declaredsound.com to discuss your project.

Sound Design Services

As a musician, I also offer bespoke sound design for commercial applications such as video, adverts, indents, branding, social media campaigns, in-store installations, etc. Naturally, this service will very much vary depending on your individual needs and budgets. There’s more on my 20 years in music in the about section. Please contact dom@declaredsound.com for further information.

Credits: Scroll down and take a listen to some of the releases I have worked on… (it’s quite a lot over the past 10+ years, and no doubt I’ve missed some off this list)

Credits: Nyege Nyege Tapes

nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com

Operating at the intersection of sound, movement and sculpture, Kinshasa based street art collective KINACT collapse performance and ritual into music on their debut LP: Kinshasa in Action. Founded in 2015 by Eddy Ekete, Kinact have transformed Kinshasa’s public space into a living theatre, where refuse becomes regalia and street processions bear witness to pollution, superstition, gendered violence and postcolonial scars. Known for elaborate costumes fashioned from bottles, wires, tyres, dolls and detritus, their work bridges sculpture, activism and ancestor invocation., with costumes doubling as instruments, and tools of making reimagined as weapons of rhythm.

In 2022, led by Ekete, a core group of members travelled to Nyege Nyege HQ in Kampala for a two-month residency, entering the studio for the first time. Primarily a street performance collective, Kinact transformed the Nyege studio into a makeshift workshop, converting costumes into instruments and using drills, motorcycle parts, saws, hammers and nails to augment homemade xylophones and improvised drums. The result is a body of work welded into the Congolese landscape, shockingly contemporary yet politically resonant, questioning the future of not only the DRC but the continent at large. Performers appear as mythic avatars: Falonne Mambu as La Femme Électrique; Athou Molimo Bongonda (Spiritus) as ancestral bell-ringer; Pape Noire as L’Homme Pneu; Dudamwanza as L’Homme Poubelle; Patrick Kitete as L’Homme Miroir; Bestaguy Bayoka as Coco Man / Sachet Man; and Eddy Ekete himself as Homme Cannette. Each embodies a sculpture-being; each contributes sonic matter to the whole.

After a short, haunting introduction from Mambu, chanting “musique du Congo” over swirling synths, Kinact pull the listener deeper on Cercle de Tambour KinAct avec Manza, where industrial-strength staccato rhythms collide with undulating xenharmonic flute blasts and snapping percussion. Power drills whirr over hollow, plasticky drums on Atelier KinAct, while the collective’s circular saw becomes a driving rhythmic force on Gaingai, spiralling around a jerky, percussive thump.

Elsewhere, Cercle de Tambour Kinact spins rusted polyrhythms into psychedelic spirals, corrupting syncopated sub-bass pulses with sheet-metal cracks, explosive knocks and hoarse incantations. Existing somewhere between the street, the dancefloor and the factory, this music captures contemporary Kinshasa in motion, its noise, its urgency and its contradictions.

Across 11 tracks, a new chapter of industrial Congolese street sound takes shape, interlocking drills, hammers, saws, motorcycle engines, discarded pill packets, plastic bags, bamboo sticks and a homemade xylophone with raw chants, spectral invocations and communal drum circles. It sits somewhere between Einstürzende Neubauten’s industrial clang, Konono No.1’s distorted amplification and African Head Charge’s dread-soaked voodoo minimalism, yet remains grounded in Kinshasa’s street heat and night air. What emerges is a scorched suite of industrial Congolese percussion, equal parts scrapyard theatre and nocturnal trance.

Recorded at Nyege Villa Kampala
Recording, mix and mastering by Declared Sound
Artwork by Marc Armand
Additional Production by Declared Sound
Very Special thanks to Violence Gratuite & Eddy Ekete