I'm off today... maybe I should go be a creep at his hotel if he's still around. He likes either The Bowery or The Ludlow. 👀

Can you post the picture ?! Her gram is locked out.

Noely G and Jerry Seinfeld

If Noel is indeed mastering the album now, that surprises me a little bit, considering the Glastonbury deadline. I assumed he would be finishing the album in mid-May and then set aside another month for videos and artwork. On the other hand, he did mention having finished Chasing Yesterday "early" and then having to wait for months.

The rumour posted above claimed Noel would be "mixing" the album in New York. Has he done anything like that before? Wouldn't he mix the record with David Holmes?

Nah, I don't think that's the case. Either someone got it wrong along the way and got "mixing" and "mastering" mixed up, or someone heard that Noel is going to New York for Easter and decided to troll again. In any case, it's safe to assume the album will be released in the autumn, so it doesn't matter much.

I don't think he's mastering. Noel wouldn't need to be there for any mastering. Mastering gets sent away and then the artist just waits for the initial treatments so they can give approval to proceed.

I don't know. Noel was definitely there when CY was being mastered. I remember some pictures of him and the mastering engineer (Greg Calbi) watching football on TV.

The basic answer comes down to the changes that can be made.

The producer mostly deals in a blank state. He/she work with the artist on a number of demos and begin to record actual version. They're actually within the recording process, and can sometimes contribute compositions. The producer's job, is when finished, to have fully realized the artist's vision in recorded form.

The mixing engineer then receives what producer and artist have thought up (sometimes the producer will also act as the mixing engineer, sometimes someone separately will be hired). When you record, some instruments are naturally louder or softer, take up more head room or less. The mixing engineer's job is to make everything in the recording have clarity, and to make sure that certain sections resonate well. Like, you may have piano playing throughout the entire song, but the mixing engineer makes sure that you really hear it in the chorus, when an extra kick might be needed. So he'll bring the levels for it up in the chorus.

The mastering engineer receives what is essentially the final product. When songs are recorded, typically they have not been sequenced as one full album (that is with fade-ins and out's between each song is added). They're usually not recorded at the same level either. Songs whose volumes shift drastically from one song to the next. You don't mind some change, but you want it to sound like an album, so you want the lowest low in volume, and the highest high, to match from song to song. You also want to make sure that the album plays well, no matter the device or platform, whether CD, mp3, vinyl, and radio. All those platforms can shift balance of a song, bringing out unintended noises and sounds. In the end, the mastering engineer's job is to make sure that the final album has consistency and balance.

The more advance the album is in the process, the less there are whole sale changes. In the recording process with the producer, anything is possible. When it gets to mixing, recording mostly stops. The only recording that might happen is if in the mixing there appears to be a mistake in the recording (such as an off tempo or sour note), because sometimes mistakes get hidden by other instruments. In that case, that instrument will be re-recorded. But that's the extent of the recording. 99.9% of the time you're not adding a completely new instrument track while mixing. Like if there wasn't a piano on the original track, you can't decide while mixing that you want a piano on there now (you could, but you can't), you'd have to re-do the mix for the song. You work with and sometimes edit and re-do what is already present in the track. When mastering happens, all changes cease. The mastering engineer isn't doing recording sessions nor is the mastering engineer re-doing the mix. Those things are set in stone by the time it get to him/her. There are extremely rare occasions where the mastering engineer will notice something that was missed, and it will be sent back for mixing, but in today's studios, that's incredibly rare. Most of the time, if it gets to a mastering stage, it's a 99.9% chance that it'll be released.

Lastly, each step takes less and less time. Recording can be months or years. Mixing can be weeks or months, and mastering is usually days or weeks. And some times, depending on the artist, the artist will have less and less of a role. The artist is 100% contributing to recording. Artist participation in mixing can fluctuate from 0-100%. Some artists don't handle nor care about the mixing, some really do. But most of the time, the mixing engineer will do the first mix themselves, without the artist. If the artist wants to participate, then they'll come in for next couple rounds, for input. Mastering rarely has artist participation, which is surprising that Noel would care But maybe he just wanted to be there to go through the possible treatments himself and decide, which can save time rather than having a back and forth). The mastering engineer will typically work alone. They'll listen to the album, ask the artist what they're looking for dynamically, and pick 3-4 mastering treatments that fulfill what the artist wants. They'll then send artist samples of each song using each treatment, and let the artist decide which one they like more. Once a decision is given, then the mastering engineer will master the entire album using that treatment, then send it to the artist for final approval. If the artist doesn't like it, then it gets re-mastered.

I'm not going to lie. My expectations are pretty high.

Whatever stage he's at, it's not coming out until Liam Gallagher has, at least, finished touring. No way it's coming out in the autumn.

So 2018 at the earliest.

An album finished by June means a release in the spring the next year, not 3 months later.

Finished means it's in the hands of marketing, that will work on god knows what for the next 6 to 9 months.

at this rate, 2019.