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Paul West — VP, Universal Mastering

Universal Mastering Studios in North Hollywood, California, is the mastering arm of media giant Universal Music Group. Universal leads the industry, holding a quarter of the worldwide share in music sales. That level of business requires solid manufacturing resources, and Universal relies on an enterprise–class networked infrastructure to deliver audio assets when and wherever they are needed.

The Disc Description Protocol is a key aspect of their music production workflow. All audio assets are stored on their electronic “vault” as DDP file sets, so that data and metadata integrity is maintained while speed of execution, from order to delivery, is assured. This interview with Paul West, Vice President of Studio Operations at Universal Mastering Studios, provides a glimpse into his mandate to maintain top quality in the face of ever shorter turnaround times…

Sonic Studio:

I’m talking with Paul West about Universal’s recent purchase of multiple SonicStudio•DDP licenses…Would you like to tell me about that?

Paul West:

I think when we mention the word DDP to a lot of people, we get a blank stare. To us DDP is the nucleus of our operation. We create DDP files, we edit and manipulate them in various ways, we store them, we transmit them, and they make lots of little plastic discs at the CD plant. Also, it’s the core of our e–commerce module, from which all the other codecs and file formats are created.

Sonic Studio:

Basically, all forms of content distribution revolve around your DDPi file format?

Paul West:

Yes.

Sonic Studio:

Tell me about Universal and Sonic Studio…

Paul West:

Of course, there’s quite a legacy involved, which I won’t bore you with but, just to say, our studio in Los Angeles was the first Sonic System (purchased) on the planet, which incorporated the revolutionary idea of putting audio processing capabilities from of a Sun workstation into a Mac. That’s where it all began…

At some point, I came to the conclusion that, if we were going from various types of audio formats into audio files for the front end, we should extend that further down right to the manufacturing process. That’s when I made the decision to use DDP though, at that point, just for CD manufacturing because that ’s all we knew at the time.

I pushed Sonic to put in capabilities for a) creating a DDP file and b) monitoring it, like a tape machine. At that time, we were writing them out to Exabyte tapes, by the way. That was quite successful, it went on for many, many years.

Then, the next stage was for storage in a digital silo or bin…I realized we needed to add one more major feature…which was to create DDP images. Going back to Sonic which, in the meantime, had added a lot of other features, I strong armed them into adding DDP image (DDP file set) support and a few other bells and whistles. That was really the beginning of the idea to switch entirely to DDP in our organization, domestically and internationally. A short time later, our (secure file) transmission capabilities came about and that’s become the fundamental way we operate today.

Sonic is really the only people to take this seriously, and are farther ahead on the development, execution and sales of DDP tools. I would say, in all honesty, the rest of the world is sort of catching up in this regard.

Sonic Studio:

Thanks. At Sonic Studio, we continue to endeavor to provide tools that help you get your job done more quickly and efficiently.

Paul West:

Well, thank you…nobody has come up with anything better for that challenge.

Sonic Studio:

We try!

Paul West:

The last point I’d like to make is that, knock on wood, of the hundreds of thousands of DDPs we handle a year, in terms of creating, storing and processing them, we are not aware of one glitch. All of our checksums, which are our insurance policy if you will, from Point A to Point B to Point C, we have yet to find one failure.

Sonic Studio:

So, how do you view Sonic Studio?

Paul West:

Sonic has been a combination of, part one, a technical partner and, part two, the backbone of service and reliability. Since we run a 24/7 shop, we need that reliability and part three, the two of us pushing the envelope for further advancements. That’s how we look at our long term relationship.

This interview was recorded in February 2005. For information on how Sonic Studio can help your business grow while coping with the often conflicting demands of commercial audio production, please contact our sales professionals at 1-415-460-1201 or you local Sonic Studio representative.