The Lacquer Channel

Canadian mastering studio located in North York, Toronto, Ontario since late 1987, now known as "Lacquer Channel Mastering, Toronto". Please do not confuse with The Lacquer Channel, Sausalito or The Lacquer Channel Limited for Toronto work previous to 1988.

Founded 1975 as The Lacquer Channel Limited, as an in-house mastering and lacquer cutting facility of Phase One Studios, located until 1988 in Scarborough, Ontario.
The current name of this facility is "Lacquer Channel Mastering, Toronto" with the name change occurring around 1986/1987. (Also known as The Lacquer Channel and Lacquer Channel, Toronto.)

From the mid 70s onwards, "The Lacquer Channel" was a dedicated mastering studio that, among other things, cut lacquer for a multitude of artists. Circa 2009 they ceased cutting lacquers and did mastering and basic CD labelling. They again began cutting lacquer in late 2013, early 2014 and changed the name to Lacquer Channel Mastering. There have been several ownership changes and hence several business models in play over the years.

Current engineers:
George Graves (since 1978) - Chief Mastering Engineer
Noah Mintz - Senior Mastering Engineer
Phil Demetro (since late 1990s) - Senior Mastering
Maeghan Ritchat (since 2012) - Mastering/Management
Milan Julius Schramek - Mastering
Andrew Cowan (2) - Mastering
Kristian Montano - Mastering
Gavin Gardiner - Mastering
Ben Somer - Mastering
Kevin Park - Lacquering
Sage Kim - Mastering
Marlon James - Mastering

Records cut at The Lacquer Channel are identifiable by an etched "TLC" in the runouts. This is sometimes accompanied by additional initials which indicate the cutting engineer. Please use Lacquer Cut At when crediting the company and Lacquer Cut By when crediting the engineer.

Cutting engineers:
GG = George Graves (can look like GC or JC)
nc. = Neil Carter (3) (can look like OC or JC)
STM = Scott Murley