Falconer native Randy Merrill is pictured inside his mastering studio, M6, at Sterling Sound in New York City. Merrill received two Grammys last week for his work on Adele’s album “25.” Submitted photo

Randy Merrill never specifically set out to become a Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer when he first began studying audio recording, but he’s certainly not complaining now that he has attained that status.

On Sunday, Merrill not only learned that he would receive two Grammys for his work on Adele’s album “25” and hit single “Hello” — which won Album of the Year and Record of the Year, respectively — but that he would be afforded the opportunity to share the moment with the artist herself before millions of viewers.

Now employed with Sterling Sound in New York City as a mastering engineer, Merrill flew from one coast to another last week in order to attend the 59th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. When the announcement came that Adele’s album “25” had won Album of the Year, he shared the stage with a large entourage, including Adele herself, and could be seen on millions of TV sets standing directly over the left shoulder of the award-winning recording artist.

“It was a very surreal moment; and pretty incredible, I have to say,” Merrill said. “I never really thought I would have gotten to this point in my career, but I’d always hoped for it. It was a great honor to work on (Adele’s) album, and to be a part of the process of making it and getting it out to the public.

“It was an even greater honor to be recognized for it, because there are so many people who are involved with various recordings that are released, and it’s not often that you get recognized at this level.”

Merrill said he was surprised when “25” won Album of the Year, as Beyonce’s album “Lemonade” had garnered strong reviews from critics and was anticipated by many to be the favorite within the category. He did, however, feel that Adele’s single “Hello” had a good chance at winning Record of the Year, and so was less surprised when that proved to be the case.

“I thought we had a good chance at Record of the Year, and so we went on stage for that announcement and then they took us backstage for photos,” he said. “Then they held us there for the Album of the Year announcement, and it came as a total shock when they announced ’25’ as the winner. So we got to go back on stage and I wasn’t expecting that to happen; that was the one thing throughout that evening that came as a surprise to me.”

Merrill was also credited on a third Grammy-nominated project, having been involved in mastering Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” album — which lost out to “25” in the Album of the Year category.

THE MASTER OF MASTERING

A mastering engineer is a person skilled in the practice of taking musical content that has been previously mixed in either the analog or digital domain as mono, stereo, or multichannel formats, and preparing it for use in distribution — whether by physical media such as a CD, vinyl record, or as some method of streaming audio.

Merrill described his job as being the last piece of the puzzle before a song or album is officially released.

“Of the whole production process I’d say we’re (master engineers) the most behind-the-scenes, but at the same time we’re the last stage of the creative process before something gets released to the public,” he said. “I tend to compare mastering to either photography or video, where you might take a still photo and adjust the color balance or brightness or contrast in order to get the photo to look as clear and presentable and exciting as possible. That’s kind of what we do in mastering.

“By the time a project comes to us, the artist is generally done with their part of it; and so quite often the artists at this level are too busy doing what they do — performing and traveling — to attend the mastering section.”

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

Merrill’s journey through audio production and engineering did not yield immediate dividends. It took five years of study, and holding a variety of positions in a handful of studios before he reached this point.

Graduating from Falconer Central School as Class of 1992 valedictorian, he had initially intended to attend SUNY Fredonia as a sound recording technology student, however, he had been informed shortly before his graduation from high school that the program was being discontinued at Fredonia; and so he went to Jamestown Community College to study audio production.

Just as he was about to finish his associate’s degree at JCC, he learned that the sound recording technology program at Fredonia was being reinstated. He said this ended up being a blessing in disguise, as he had now gained a good foundation for recording technology and felt he was capable of passing the audition required for admittance into the SUNY Fredonia School of Music.

While attending SUNY Fredonia, Merrill studied music, audio engineering, and acoustics. After graduating from Fredonia in 1997, he went to work for the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where he honed his skills in live and studio recording and mixing, live sound reinforcement, jazz arranging and percussion performance.

He moved to New York City in 1999 and started assisting and engineering at studios around town. He spent five years as a technical engineer at Avatar Studios, where he was involved in the construction of their mastering facility. It was at this point, he said, that he realized tech wasn’t for him but that he was interested in mastering.

In early 2006, Merrill joined Scott Hull Mastering as Scott’s production engineer. Shortly thereafter he started developing his own clientele. When Hull purchased Masterdisk in 2008, Merrill became a staff engineer there.

In 2013, he became an employee of Sterling Sound, where he has been assisting and co-engineering Tom Coyne’s projects, as well as continuing to master for his own clients.

“This story isn’t one of overnight success; it took almost 20 years to get here,” he said.