Nick Watson - Fluid West
Nick’s mastering career kicked off in 1990 at Sound Recording Technology (SRT) in Cambridge – a mastering and manufacturing facility known for serving the UK independent music scene. Over a ten year tenure, Nick cut his teeth mastering all manner of independent projects in every conceivable genre including albums for artists such as Gary Numan, Howard Jones and Fairport Convention. He also earned a reputation for re-mastering and occasionally remixing catalogue material; producing acclaimed reissues by artists such as Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple.
As the son of a Classical guitar teacher and Jazz scholar, Nick has always been immersed in music; and a degree in Electro-Acoustics provided among other things a solid grounding in digital signal theory which proved invaluable at a time when digital recording was still a new concept for many.
In 2000 Nick moved on to London’s prestigious Townhouse studios where he broadened his experience still further, working with a wide range of artists and harnessing the creative possibilities afforded by the combination of superior PMC monitoring and a fantastic suite of gear, combining the precision and versatility of digital tools with the character, depth and visceral impact which a high quality analogue signal path can provide.
It was during this time that Nick met Tim Debney, and together they hatched a plan to open a new studio, offering a quality service on par with London’s best, while keeping costs manageable and passing those savings on to clients. And so in 2006 Fluid Mastering came to be.
The twenty years or so since then have seen Fluid’s reputation grow, becoming the mastering studio of choice for niche and major labels alike; as well as catering directly to self-funded artists of course. In this time Nick has mastered albums for award winning Folk artists such as Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker, Sam Lee, and Brighde Chaimbeul; Jazz artists such as Ian Shaw, Andrew McCormack and Melt Yourself Down; Rock artists such as Jethro Tull, Dinosaur Pile-Up and Venom, and Pop artists including Pixie Lott, The Feeling, Gabrielle Aplin and Seal, as well as Indie bands such as Embrace, Black Grape, Sundara Karma and Sea Girls. In addition to new material, Nick has also enjoyed remastering in High Definition Audio classic albums by Howard Jones, Chris Rea and The Pentangle, the eponymous 2nd album by The Libertines and The Feeling’s double platinum debut Twelve Stops and Home.
Since Fluid Mastering’s expansion and relocation in 2022, Nick has enjoyed working in the heart of his hometown of Bristol with its thriving music scene, and after over thirty years at the console, mastering continues to be the ideal job to satisfy his eclectic tastes and ability to fully inhabit the sound of every project.
Jethro Tull | Motörhead | The Zutons | Black Grape | Deno | Cast | Howard Jones | Seal | Hawkwind | The Feeling | The Longest Johns | Jim Bob | Stephan Moccio | Benny Cristo | Pam Rabbit | Grey256 | Dinosaur Pile-Up | Trevor Horn | Sea Girls | Chris Rea | Little Man Tate | Black Midi | Bastille | Ronan Keating | Embrace | Sundara Karma | Fairport Convention | Toyah | (British) Sea Power | Jasdeep Singh Degun | The Residents | Pere Ubu | Night Flight | Cornershop | Jah Wobble | The Clockworks | Dodgy | Kris Drever | Ferris & Sylvester | Ian Shaw | Judi Jackson | Natalie Williams | Ruby Turner | Jacqui Dankworth | Gregory Porter | Gabrielle Aplin | Starsailor | Melt Yourself Down | Melanie C | James Walsh | Lisa Knapp | Josienne Clarke | Brighde Chaimbeul | Ben Walker | Gerry Diver | Lisa O’Neill | James Patrick Gavin | TEYR | Ian Anderson | Tess Parks | Susheela Raman | Mercury Rev | The Libertines | Alice Russell | Inspiral Carpets | The Membranes | The London Lasses | Shri | Andrew McCormack | Noemi Nuti | Matt Berry | Warpaint | The Correspondents | Billy Bragg | Pulp | The Strokes | John Martyn |Gary Numan | Venom | Pixie Lott | Sam Lee | Sam Carter | FM | Romeo’s Daughter | Yazoo | Katie Melua | Thea Gilmore | Tina May | Lazy Habits | Jammer | RK | The Undertones | The Fall | Baby Bird | Flook | Bert Jansch | The Egg | The Raincoats | Elio Pace | Paul Young | The Blow Monkeys | Therapy? | Swervedriver | Hundred Reasons | Faith No More | Melissa James | Mike Batt | Downton Abbey | Jamie Cullum | The Kinks | The Small Faces | Deep Purple | Petula Clark | The Sex Pistols | The Damned | Steve Winwood | The Nice | Marc Bolan | Fleetwood Mac | Jon Lord | Peter Green & Splinter Group | Status Quo | Procul Harum | Iron Maiden | Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five | Shalamar | The Whispers | The Chairmen of the Board | Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons | Gregory Isaacs | Dennis Brown | Toots & The Maytals | John Holt | Bob Marley | Lee “Scratch” Perry | The Skatalites | The Pioneers | King Tubby
Fluid West
Nick’s studio Fluid West is located at a thriving central Bristol location with an array of independent shops and food & drink options right on the doorstep.
Not good news for an engineer fighting against middle-aged spread, but we all have our crosses to bear.
The building, dubbed “The Pentagon” for reasons totally unrelated to any other five-sided edifice that might spring to mind, was purpose-built and the acoustic design is by White Mark, with studio fitting by Transmation.
Core Equipment:
Monitoring: PMC BB5 XBD-A With Bryston Amplification
A/D/A Conversion: Prism Sound “Dream” ADA-8
Mastering Console and Routing: SPL DMC & SPL Hermes
Outboard:
Prism Maselec MEA-2 Stereo EQ
Manley Massive Passive Stereo EQ
Rupert Neve Designs – Portico II Master Buss Processor
DAW: SADiE 6 with Cedar Re-Touch and De-Click
The core equipment is common to both Fluid West and Fluid South. For more information visit our Studios page.
Additional Equipment:
Culture Vulture Mastering Plus - by Thermionic Culture
Dolby 740 Spectral Processor
TC Electronic System 6000
Cedar Audio Cambridge Workstation
Playback: Studer A810, ¼” tape recorder/player
Secondary Monitoring: Spendor SA200
Culture Vulture Mastering Plus
For clean recordings that require a little extra something we wanted a valve stage with a twist and so we turned to UK tube maestro Vic Keary’s Culture Vulture, made by Thermionic Culture.
The Vulture is designed to harness the distortion characteristics of thermionic valves (tubes), providing more control over these effects than had previously been possible.
We’ve been happy to learn through experience with this unit that not only can it add real old-school warmth to sterile digital recordings, but can also provide wonderful subtle enhancements in a wide range of applications.
Dolby 740 Spectral Processor
The Dolby 740 Spectral Processor was developed by Dolby Labs as a sideline using similar technology to that developed for their SR noise reduction processors but with creative rather than remedial objectives in mind.
It has equalization and compression technology under the hood but it is neither of those things and yet both. It’s not a tool you would want to use on everything, but where it is needed it is the only tool for the job.
Nick uses his in conjunction with one of the parallel processing paths available through the SPL Hermes router, which makes it easier than ever to dial in just the right amount of its special sauce.
TC Electronic System 6000
The System 6000 on the other hand has so many functions that you could arguably master to good effect using it on its own.
We particularly like George Massenburg’s “DesignWorks” EQ, which is a 5 band parametric equaliser that we use mostly to cut problem frequencies at very narrow bandwidths. It’s the surgeon’s knife in our arsenal.
The famed MD3 and MD4 Dynamics packages are also here, providing M/S EQ, and three or five band multiband compression if needed.
Cedar Cambridge
For more serious restoration projects we have yet another flagship product and that is Cedar Audio’s Cambridge workstation.
The Cambridge is used for de-clicking vinyl records, removing mains hum and buzz (far more effectively than with a notch filter) and correcting time discrepancies between left and right channels in the case of bad azimuth alignment - an issue that plagues a surprising number of digitally archived tape transfers, smearing the stereo image, scuppering mono compatibility, and introducing unwanted artefacts to any M/S processing that might be warranted.
We’ve used Cedar’s world-class restoration technology on all sorts of remastering projects including our extensive work on the back catalog of the Trojan record label.