Hafod Mastering

Wales, United Kingdom

Hafod is Wales's first, and still best, fully professional mastering studio, based just outside Cardiff in the beautiful Vale of Glamorgan.

Our engineers have a wealth of experience mastering across all genres.

With the best analogue and digital equipment at their fingertips, they will work tirelessly to get the best out of your recordings.

We happily accept work online but we highly recommend you book an attended session if you're within range. Come and soak up our peaceful rural surroundings while we pull out all the stops to make your music sound amazing.

THE TEAM

Meet the gang...

Donal WhelanCEO & Founder
Donal "The Ears" Whelan set up Hafod mastering in 2004.
With 25 years of experience under his belt he has spent the last fifteen of them dedicated to building the best mastering studio in Wales and in the process has become a key player in the Welsh musical landscape.
 Contact Donal
Gethin JohnChief Mastering Engineer
Mastering at Hafod since 2009, Gethin is our chief engineer, and is rarely to be found without a smile on his face!
In that time he has delivered epic sounding masters for clients all over the world including Emmy winning TV soundtracks, Bollywood hits and award winning albums for UK indie artists.
 Contact Gethin
Levi OwenMastering Engineer
Levi has been mastering with us for 6 years and he is fully trained in The Hafod Way.
He has mastered hundreds of records and has built a solid reputation for consistently great sounding masters.
With golden ears and an enthusiasm for all things audio - in particular low frequencies! - Levi is also a Billboard-charting hip-hop producer signed to Embassy Music Group.
 Contact Levi

We know audio.

Everything in this playlist has been mastered right here...

Drop us a line if you'd like to hear higher resolution examples of our work or read more about what we do.

OUR STUDIO

Our studio is at the heart of everything we do and we're really proud of it.

Hafod was built on the premise of putting fantastic speakers in a fantastic room, backed up by fastidious attention to detail with the electrics, electronics and acoustics.

This room allows us to hear exactly what’s going on with your music, what needs changing and importantly, when to stop changing it.

Analogue Gear
Manley Slam! Mastering Limiter
PrismSound Maselec MEA-2 EQ
Dangerous BAX EQ
Manley Massive Passive Mastering EQ
Summit DCL-200 compressor
Ampex ATR102 Tape Machine
Brook 35V Unbalanced Buffer Amp

Digital Tools
Digital Audio Denmark ADDA2
Apogee PSX 100-SE
A smörgåsbord of plugins
MeterPlugs Perception by Ian Shepherd
Weiss Saracon Sample Rate Converter
Sonoris DDP Creator

Monitoring
IMF Electronics RSPM Mk.IV Speakers
Balanced Audio Systems Model F Dual Monaural Power Amplifier
BAS T.X. Type 2 Balanced AC Power Module
Crookwood and ADT Monitoring and Metering
Brook 35V Balanced Buffer Amp

Other
Acoustics by Murray Harris and Jochen Veith
Westwick Installations balanced mains power system
6 custom designed LF resonators
Star point earthing with earth stake

CONTACT US

Send us an email, drop us a line, slide into our DMs, however you like!

Wales, UK

Phone: +44 (0)1446 775512

Email: studio@hafodmastering.co.uk

OUR CLIENTS

Here is some of work we do here at Hafod and the awesome clients that we do it for.

Cymru am byth

The Welsh indie scene

We pride ourselves on being part of the community we're from and helping friends of the studio create exciting work.

These are a selection of albums mastered at Hafod and released on Welsh indie labels, several of which have been nominated for the Welsh Music Prize. We've mastered releases for Sain, Libertino, Clwb, Ikaching, Turnstyle, and just about every label in Wales.

If you are an independent Welsh artist looking to get your work mastered, give us a call or drop in for a visit.

India

The Bollywood connection

Songs are an key part of the film in the Indian film industry and we have clients and friends in all the major production centres of India

We master soundtracks and single releases for top composers and performers including A R Rahman, Ajay Atul, Amit Trivedi, Vishal Shekhar, Shankhar Essan Loy and many more.

We deliver masters in all formats needed for single release, digital streaming release and music to picture for trailers and incredible videos for studios like Yash Raj and labels like T-Series.

SFA OK!

Super Furry Animals remasters

Since 2014 we have worked on a series of remasters for the furries.

First undertaking high quality digital transfers from the original master tapes.
Then remastering 20th anniversary editions of their classic albums and collections of bonus tracks.

Finally delivering the albums in all their glory plus collections of never heard before material for special edition releases on BMG to mark the 20th anniversary of the original releases on CD and Vinyl.

Music for natural history and animation

Brollyman

We have a longstanding relationship with the Emmy award winning and brilliant composer Brollyman

Every cue of his that hits the screen has been through our studio first including music for.

Nature's Misfits with Bill Bailey for the BBC
Critters TV for RTE
My First for CBeebies
Molly and Lou for Youtube

Hafod Mastering

THE TEAM

Donal Whelan

Donal "The Ears" Whelan set up Hafod mastering in 2004. With 25 years of experience under his belt he has spent the last fifteen of them dedicated to building the best mastering studio in Wales and in the process has become a key player in the Welsh musical landscape.

Gethin John

Mastering at Hafod since 2009, Gethin is our chief engineer, and is rarely to be found without a smile on his face! In that time he has delivered epic sounding masters for clients all over the world including Emmy winning TV soundtracks, Bollywood hits and award winning albums for UK indie artists.

Levi Owen