Third Man Mastering's Bill Skibbe Discusses the Sonic Impact of BURL Audio Converters

PLAYBACK cover star and Third Man Mastering engineer Bill Skibbe recently welcomed the BURL Audio crew into the label's pressing plant and studio. The Detroit-based mastering facility features an immaculate set-up, including a Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console, Neumann VMS-70 cutting lathe, Studer tape machines, and a BURL Audio B80 Mothership.

The BURL Audio B80 Mothership at Third Man has the BMB1 Digilink Motherboard and is configured with four daughter cards to handle the studio's conversion. This setup includes two BAD8s for 16 channels of analog-to-digital and two BDA8s for 16 channels of digital-to-analog.

"When I'm in there working on them, all of the years of nail-biting about digital went away," Bill says about his love of the BURL gear. "All of a sudden, I'm like, 'Why am I doing less work?' Well, I changed a major component of my signal chain and that's the converters, and now when I'm digital, I'm not working as hard. It's great."

In BURL Audio's new video, Bill further discusses his reasons for selecting the B80 Mothership for the mastering studio and the significant impact the converters have had on his work. Watch the full interview below to hear more from Bill and get a unique look at the Third Man Records space.

Interested in learning more about BURL Audio? Want to bring home a B80 or B16 Mothership for your studio? We can help! Contact a Vintage King Audio Consultant via email or by phone at 866.644.0160.