Nicholas Bolton

ABOUT

In 2014 after more than a decade of playing shows, touring, writing music and recording local bands, Nicholas Bolton started mastering music to help other independent artists enhance and finalize their albums affordably.

His first studio was Holy Tapes Mastering, and as of July 2022 Nick has started using his own name for mastering projects. He’s worked with hundreds of artists and has upgraded the studio many times over, now entirely composed of high end analog and digital equipment in an accurate full range monitoring environment.

Nick is also the Audio / Video Supervisor at NYU Steinhardt Department of Music and Performing Arts where he teaches, designs and engineers audio and video for three performance spaces.

He currently creates modular synth and tape loop music under the names Arsenic and Raft. Past musical projects include ex wife and Wetwired.

PREPARATION

Please send digital mixes to nick@boltonsound.com in a zip file.

Ideally, mixes should be at least 24 bit and at the original session’s sample rate.

Please remove all limiting and ensure you have a few dB of headroom. If you have limited versions that were used for mix approval its nice to have those as well for reference.

Please also include any alternate mixes you need mastered.

Contact me to arrange delivery of mixes on physical media.

If you have any questions please reach out. I love talking with engineers and artists during all phases of recording. I’m also around if you need someone to bounce ideas off of or just another set of ears on your project.

PRICING

Mastering rates are based on the total track count of your project.

TURNAROUND

Projects aren’t complete until artists are entirely happy with their masters.

Singles
2 - 3
4 - 6
7 +

DDP Image
Alternate versions

$ 75/song
$ 50/song
$ 45/song
$ 40/song

$ 50/album
$ 10/song

Preview files are first sent in a shared folder to receive artist feedback.

Upon approval, final masters are delivered as both 44.1khz / 16 bit and 96khz / 24 bit WAV files for digital release via download link.

Metadata encoding, edits and revisions are included.

Pricing can be flexible, if money’s tight contact me and we'll work something out.

Additional high resolution files are included for alternate versions and DDP Image if ordered.

Turnaround averages about one week for full length albums, usually less for EPs and singles. If you need masters quicker ask me about rush availability.