Interviews
Long-form conversations with people behind the records you love.
New episode every Tuesday
Night Signal
A weekly podcast about how music is made, recorded and remembered. Long conversations with engineers, songwriters and the people behind the mixing desk.
Latest episode
The quiet art of mastering
Ep 48 · with Ines Albrecht
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Night SignalNew every Tuesday210 episodesTranscripts includedLive tapingsListener supported
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6 episodes
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48
The quiet art of mastering
with Ines Albrecht, mastering engineer
Why the loudest record is rarely the best one, and what really happens in the last hour before a release.
Transcript excerptMastering is the last chance to hear a record with fresh ears. Mine are the fresh ears.
If a song needs a limiter to feel exciting, the arrangement is the problem.
I keep a cheap pair of earbuds on the desk. That is where most people will meet the song.
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47
Why every city sounds different
Field recordings from six harbours
We packed two microphones and a notebook and recorded six port cities at 4 a.m. The results were stranger than expected.
Transcript excerptLisbon hums in a low B flat, mostly thanks to the trams.
Rotterdam was the only city where the gulls were louder than the cranes.
Every harbour has a heartbeat: the ferry horn nobody notices any more.
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46
Live from the Lantern Room
Recorded in front of 300 listeners
Our first live taping: three guests, one house band and an audience that would not stop requesting encores.
Transcript excerptHands up if you have ever listened to this show in the bath. Okay, that is most of you.
We asked the band to play the theme tune at half speed. It became a ballad.
Thank you, Lantern Room. Same time next year?
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45
Listener voicemail special
Your questions, our worst answers
Forty voicemails, eleven accents and one very persistent question about our theme tune.
Transcript excerptFirst up, a caller from Marisol Bay who wants to know what the theme tune is played on.
It is a toy piano. We are sorry and also not sorry.
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44
Building a label from a bedroom
with Theo Varga of Low Orbit Records
Pressing 300 records on a credit card, finding distribution and learning to say no to the wrong artists.
Transcript excerptThe first pressing sat under my bed for eight months. I slept on our catalogue.
Distribution is a relationship, not a contract.
Sign people you would happily sit in a van with.
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43
The strange physics of reverb
A deep dive into space you can hear
Cathedrals, stairwells and plate reverbs the size of a door: how sound bounces and why our brains love it.
Transcript excerptA cathedral can hold a note for nine seconds. A bathroom manages about one.
Plate reverb is literally a sheet of steel with a speaker glued to it.
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Recorded in Studio BAbout the show
Stories told at listening volume.
Every Tuesday Mara and Dev sit down with someone who shapes the way records sound. No hot takes, no rush, just curious questions and a proper pair of headphones.
210
Episodes so far
4.2M
Downloads
92
Countries listening
4.9★
Average rating
Formats
Four ways to listen.
Deep dives
Researched, sound-designed episodes about one big idea.
Live sessions
Recorded in front of an audience, house band included.
Bonus drops
Short extras for supporters: voicemails, studio tours and outtakes.
Your hosts
Two voices, one microphone each.
Mara Okafor
Host · producer
Dev Lindqvist
Host · sound designer
Listener reviews
Heard it on the train.
The only podcast I save for a proper walk. Every episode sends me back to records I had forgotten about.
Brilliant guests, warm hosts, and the sound design alone is worth subscribing for.
The transcripts are a gift. I read along on the train and then go back for the full interview.
Night Signal is supported by
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Side B
Pitch us a guest.
Know someone who makes records sound the way they do? We read every pitch and reply within two weeks.
