aboutMOTTOsound

meet MOTTOsound

After a decade of recording, mixing and mastering in London as a freelance engineer, Russ moved to be with his wife in northern England in 2003. Shortly afterwards MOTTOsound was born to cement mastering as Russ' chosen career. A few years later, Jay Hodgson, based in Canada, joined MOTTOsound expanding territories and genres.

Russ Hepworth-Sawyer experienced many areas of audio before settling on audio mastering. Russ is an active member of the Audio Engineering Society and is their co-chair of the UK's Mastering Group. Russ is a former board member of the Music Producer’s Guild where he helped form their Mastering Group. Russ' clients include Warner Brothers, Universal, as well as countless artists across many genres, but those into acoustic performed music appear to like what he does! Russ also spends his time writing and researching all things audio mastering and has written several books on the subject with Routledge and also several magazine articles for the likes of Sound On Sound, Music Tech Magazine and Pro Sound News Europe.

"Jedi" Jay Hodgson has mastered thousands of electronic releases since he turned to mastering in the mid-2000s. Before that, he was awarded a Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal in 2006, primarily in recognition of his research on recording practice. He has mastered two records nominated for Juno awards, contributed music to films recognized by the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine and which screened at the United Nations General Assembly, and his students currently have more than 500 million streams on Spotify alone, and have entertained tens of thousands of ravers at live events such as Toronto’s Veld Festival and the national Juno Awards gala. Jay has authored, and edited, numerous books on recording practice, published by, among other international presses, Bloomsbury, Taylor & Francis, Continuum, Focal, Routledge, and Oxford University Press.

"I’ve worked with Russ at MOTTOsound since my award winning 2010 live album release No.5. When you’ve put your heart and soul into a project, you shouldn’t just put it into the hands of just anyone. Russ' professionalism, expertise and attention to detail is without a doubt what makes MOTTOsound the best choice for mastering your recordings. They have some of the best ears – and the safest hands – in the business." - artist and songwriter
Kirsty McGee, artist & songwriter, UK
“I was introduced to Russ through a mutual friend at Karousel. I needed someone to master a couple of tracks for me and Russ came highly recommended, and I can see why. Not only did he master the tracks to an incredible standard, he also went back and forth with me over the mix of the songs and helped tweak things here and there to get the song sounding as good as it could ready for mastering. I’ve come out with two stunning sounding songs and a better set of ears too. Thanks Russ!.”
Ryan Burnett, songwriter and artist, UK
"I can highly recommend to go through the mix advice process because Russ and Jay precisely suggested small changes while still preserving the musical idea of the mix. They are very fast in replying, always polite, and they take the time to go through iterations of suggesting changes and re-listening. The mastering then took my song to the next level and made it release-ready really."
Shari Sophie, singer-songwriter, producer and artist, Germany