Meet Kevin Gray

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Introducing Kevin Gray!

Kevin Gray

At the age of eighteen, Kevin Gray was the youngest mastering engineer in the country when he started cutting records at Artisan Sound Recorders in Hollywood. That was in 1972. Over the next five years, he cut hit after hit for artists as diverse as: America, Paul Anka, The Beach Boys, Debbie Boone, Donald Byrd, Mac Davis, ELO, The Grateful Dead, Freddie Hubbard, Billy Joel, L.T.D., Manassas, The Osmonds, Kenny Rankin, and Redbone.

In 1977, he and his friend Bob Van der Veen produced, and Kevin mastered, a direct-to-disc recording for jazz pianist Victor Feldman, which they released on their own label, Cohearent Sound.

In 1980, he and his business partner, Doug Sheppard, opened their own mastering facility, The Cutting System, Inc. All electronics were discrete class A, and were designed and built from scratch by the duo. Projects were mastered for Bob Welch, Jay Ferguson, Pages, and many more.

In 1982, he was called upon again to master another direct-to-disc recording for Victor Feldman, this time for Nautilus Recordings.

With the compact disc looming on the horizon, Kevin decided to take a position with MCA Records, heading their mastering department. In his stay there, he mastered records for The Fixx, Musical Youth, Red Rider, Night Ranger, The Who, and many others.

From 1984 to 1989, he mastered at LRS in Burbank, working mostly on syndicated radio shows for personalities such as Casey Kasem, Dick Clark, and Rick Dees. He also mastered records for The Beach Boys, Stephanie, Rod Stewart, and Celebration. In 1989, he helped LRS launch into CD mastering. His old friend from MCA days, reissue guru Steve Hoffman, brought DCC Compact Classics mastering to him and over the next six years they mastered reissues (for CD and vinyl) for everybody from The Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Cream, to Elton John, Miles Davis, and Lightnin' Hopkins.

In 1995, Kevin moved to Future Disc Systems in Hollywood (who incidentally purchased his custom mastering system). In 1996, Kevin was responsible for the mastering of the MCA Heavy Vinyl Series - The Who, Buddy Holly, Dave Mason, Buddy Guy, and the Out of Africa soundtrack. He and Steve Hoffman continued to work on new DCC releases such as Bonnie Raitt, Jethro Tull, and Jefferson Starship. He also mastered other new (digital and analog) major label projects for Wang Chung, Paula Cole, Depeche Mode, Gina G, and Erasure. He cut the Grammy winning Dance Record of the Year in 1998 (Madonna) and 1999 (Cher).

In his thirty year career, Kevin has mastered music for every major label in every genre, including pop, rock, jazz, classical, punk, heavy metal, new age, gothic, world ethnic, disco, dance, soul, blues, and rap. He has to his credit more than a hundred top ten and Grammy award winning records, and dozens of RIAA certified gold and platinum albums and singles.

He began working part-time at AcousTech Mastering in 1997. He completely rebuilt and re-equipped the mastering room in 2001 and continues to upgrade and improve equipment constantly.