Doug Van Sloun remembers the oddity of being on the phone with a potential client.

The out-of-state artist was asking Van Sloun to master his next record. Only the musician had no idea that the Omaha-based mastering engineer was currently treating the album of the band with whom he was currently on tour. The bands were from different cities and neither was Omaha.

“There was no connection at all between the three groups of us,” Van Sloun says. “That sort of stuff happens more frequently than one might think.”

Coincidence, maybe. But Van Sloun is working on those odds all the time. The clients page on his website details more than a hundred artists, and it’s not even an exhaustive list of all the people who have trusted Van Sloun’s expertise on their albums the last 10 years.

It’s not an exaggeration to say you’ll find the words “mastered by Doug Van Sloun” in the liner notes of the majority of well-produced Nebraska albums. From the bulk of Saddle Creek releases to nationally recognized artists like Damien Jurado and She & Him to Hear Nebraska’s forthcoming compilation — Hear Nebraska: Vol. 2 — Van Sloun’s ears and his state-of-the-art listening room at Focus Mastering have grown to become a hotter and hotter commodity since he moved there in 2005.

You can hear Van Sloun’s work firsthand after the release of Hear Nebraska: Vol. 2 at The Waiting Room on Dec. 27. Featured artists Simon Joyner, Conchance and Universe Contest will perform. Pre-order the record on vinyl, and RSVP here.

For this the eighth installment of Sessions, I sat down with Doug Van Sloun in his west Omaha mastering studio to chat about his unique reputation among Nebraska musicians, what happens when a band asks him to move mountains and measuring perfection on a sliding scale.

Listen to the full Sessions interview with Van Sloun here:

Table of Contents:

00:55 — Introduction
03:20 — The Power of Silence
06:55 — From Garage to Listening Room
11:40 — Buying Vinyl as a Kid
20:00 — Perfectionist by Nature
31:00 — Nebraska’s Humble Master
36:35 — Staying in a Comfortable Chair

Chance Solem-Pfeifer is Hear Nebraska’s staff writer. If you ever get a chance to listening to anything on the Focus Mastering speakers, savor it. Reach Chance at chancesp@hearnebraska.org.