Ian Sefchick started recording music in high school on a Tascam Porta One 4 track cassette recorder. That led to a music career fronting the band Creeper Lagoon in the late 90’s. Creeper Lagoon was signed to DreamWorks records and he worked with producers and engineers such as Jerry Harrison, Mark Endert, Dave Fridmann, Greg Wells, and Mark Trombino. In addition to learning how to write songs in high school Ian also learned to build tube guitar amps and eventually went to Cincinnati Technical College for engineering. Fast forward to 2009 and he was working as a studio technician at the historic Capitol Studios in Hollywood. Within the first couple years at Capitol Ian restored a Neumann VMS66 Lathe that was in storage and started his mastering career. Along with vinyl cutting, Ian started digital mastering and building custom gear to go beyond what other engineers in the department were doing. Unfortunately, Capitol mastering was shut down in 2020 due to stagnation and union/company conflict. Ian is now offering years of experience along with partner Margraret Luthar as Dark Sky Mastering to artists, producers, and mixers who want they’re final product to be cared for and sound as vibrant as possible. Being a songwriter, musician, electronic engineer, and vinyl expert, makes Ian the perfect person to give your music that final touch of magic:)

Margaret is a Grammy-nominated mastering engineer who grew up with a theatre, band and choir background. She’s a classically trained trombonist who went to Syracuse University for Music Industry (conservatory-style music training, music business, law and technology courses).  During undergrad she learned how much she enjoyed recording music – so she ended up continuing her education at New York University, getting her master’s in Music Technology, with a focus on classical recording. She then worked as an audio engineer at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Aspen Music Festival, and jumped ship to Europe where she got a post graduate degree at the University of Stavanger, Norway, and also worked in a mastering studio as well as on projects throughout the continent. After returning to the US in 2016, she wanted to focus mainly on mastering music, leading to her stint at Chicago Mastering Service (where she also learned to cut vinyl!) and then as head mastering engineer at Welcome to 1979 in Nashville, before making the leap to LA. She’s also a broadcast engineer for NPR, adding to her diverse background. 

From Blue Note to Quality Control Records, Merge to Thirty Tigers, they’ve worked with just about every label on the planet. Ian has been nominated for a Grammy for mastering Greg Allman’s last record, “Southern Blood,” and Black Pumas’ “Live at Capitol.” Margaret has a Grammy for mastering Bobby Rush’s “Rawer Than Raw.”

For a more extensive list of credits, please see Ian Sefchick’s and Margaret Luthar’s Discogs pages.