Mastering engineer and musician, Emilie Daelemans built her path through practice and patience. She came into music through drums, then was drawn to sound creation, training daily in contact with studios, especially at Studios Ferber in Paris, before a stint in New York and setting up on her own. A drummer and bassist, she still plays in a band.
In this episode, she talks about what triggered her vocation, her years as an assistant which, she says, taught her the essentials of her craft, and what mastering a project really means. It’s about listening above all, the role given to analog versus digital, the legitimacy that builds slowly, and the responsibility, both technical and artistic, you carry when you put the final polish on someone else’s work.
Emilie Daelemans – Mastering Engineer
As far back as you can remember, what are your first memories related to music?
I didn’t grow up in a very musical environment. My parents liked music, but it wasn’t a passionate obsession. There wasn’t really any musical practice around me, no records constantly playing, no people playing instruments.
The spark came when I saw my sister playing guitar on stage, at a music school. At that moment, I decided I wanted to play drums. I started playing and took lessons for seven years. That was my first real entry into music, and it never really left.
So you started with the instrument.
Yes. Drums, bass too. And I still play today. I’m a musician, I have a band.
How did the shift happen between playing music and getting interested in sound?
Pretty quickly, I got interested in sound in a broad sense: recording, capturing sound, how music is made. I liked tinkering, recording with musician friends, trying to understand how it worked.
Early on, I knew I wanted to try to work in this field. Do something with sound. So I chose to study sound engineering right after high school. During those studies, I discovered mastering, and I really liked it.
Mastering is a pretty opaque field, hard to access.
Yes, and it still is. There are very few schools, very little direct transmission. Few studios take interns. It’s a job that’s hard to learn, often through experience.
After my studies, I was an assistant in a Parisian studio, at Studios Ferber, for several years. Then I went to New York for a three-month mastering internship. Then I came back to Paris, where I started doing my own masterings.
The years as an assistant at Studios Ferber seem central to your path.
Completely. Being an assistant taught me, I’d say, 80 to 85% of what I know today to be able to do this job. That’s where I learned to listen.
Listening is something you don’t learn from books. It takes time. Being daily with sound engineers, observing, hearing, comparing, understanding. That’s the only real school, in my opinion.
The assistant position is also a particular stance.
It’s a demanding role. It requires a lot of rigor. The hours are tough, the pace intense. You’re asked a lot technically, sometimes more than some people imagine.
You have to respond to very varied requests, sometimes urgent, sometimes vague. And at the same time, you have to manage to learn, to take a step back, to observe what’s happening around you. If you’re an assistant without trying to understand, without being attentive, it doesn’t really make sense.
It’s a learning process as much human as technical.
Yes. You learn precision, patience, responsibility. You also learn to be quiet sometimes, to listen before acting. All that builds a very solid foundation.
When did you feel that music wouldn’t just be a pleasure, but a job?
Pretty early. From high school, I knew I wanted to try to work in music. I told myself that if I didn’t try, I’d regret it.
I always took it very seriously, even if it remained a passion. It was never "just for fun." There was always this personal demand.
Mastering remains a little-understood job. How would you explain it simply?
A lot of people know that mastering is used to homogenize an album, to make it playable, to make it "louder." But they don’t really know how it works, what tools are used, or if there’s an artistic side.
I would define mastering as the final step that allows you to finalize the overall color of a project. It is often compared to color grading in video, and I find the comparison quite accurate. It’s the moment when you refine, when you add the final varnish, the final shine.
Is it a profession where you quickly feel legitimate?
No, not at all. Legitimacy is very gradual. Personally, I don’t know if there was a precise moment. It takes time.
You have to question yourself a lot, test, try, make mistakes. And then, little by little, you see that what you do works, that people appreciate the work, that technically it holds up. You then start to trust yourself.
There is no official stamp that says « you are a mastering engineer ». Having your own studio, working regularly, delivering projects, all that helps build this legitimacy. Like in many professions, you have to manage to tell yourself, at some point, that what you do has value.
How would you describe your relationship with tools, between analog and digital?
I work with a mix of both. Digital has evolved enormously. Plugins have become very powerful, very precise, accessible. They allow you to do things that analog doesn’t always allow.
But I remain very attached to analog for the feeling. For not looking, but listening. I work with the screen on the side, so I’m not guided by graphs or numbers.
I honestly think the difference is not so much about the tool as about the attention paid to listening.
What responsibility do you feel as a mastering engineer?
There is an artistic and emotional responsibility. Artists also come for a sensitivity, not just for a technical standard.
You obviously have to respect their universe, their aesthetic, but I think you shouldn’t be afraid to propose. To say: « Here is a bolder version, and a more standardized version. » Then, the choice is theirs.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into mastering today?
Learn as much as possible, stay curious, ask questions, be open. And hold on. It’s a long path, sometimes difficult, but it’s worth it.
Magic card: if you could master the next album of the artist of your choice?
I’ve already had the chance to work on albums by artists I really liked. But I would love to work with Andy Shauf. Or with Cate Le Bon too.
Last magic card: set up your studio anywhere in the world.
Without hesitation, in the mountains. In a chalet, in peace. The Alps suit me very well.
