Our Story
Fabrik Audio was founded by Ste Pav, a recording engineer and producer with a deep, hands-on interest in the craft of capturing sound — not just getting it down cleanly, but shaping it into something with character.
The Studio
That interest has its roots in growing up immersed in the Manchester music scene. It was discovering the production work of Martin Hannett — the engineer and producer behind some of the city's most influential records — that first pulled Ste towards audio engineering as a craft in its own right. Hannett's willingness to treat the studio itself as an instrument, shaping space and atmosphere as deliberately as any musician shapes a melody, left a lasting impression and set the direction for everything that followed.
Ste holds an MA in Music Production, alongside an Industry course in Studio Production and Mastering from Spirit Studios and a Music Production & Mixing course from the School of Electronic Music (SEM) — a combination of academic grounding and real studio time that shapes the way Fabrik Audio approaches every session: technically rigorous, but never at the expense of what actually makes a track interesting.
Fabrik Audio works across genres — recent projects have spanned indie rock, ambient and electronic production, and more — with particular care given to artists who are figuring things out as they go, who need someone who can handle the technical side confidently while staying genuinely curious about what they're trying to make.
Mastering is about judgement first and tools second — but the right tools make good judgement easier to act on. Here's what's actually running in the chain at Fabrik Audio:
Pro Tools — the industry-standard platform for the mixing and mastering work itself, chosen for its precision, stability, and the fact that it's the common language of every studio a track might pass through next.
FabFilter — Pro-Q for surgical, transparent EQ work; Pro-L and Pro-MB for multiband control and clean limiting matter. Precise, low-colouration tools for when the mix needs correcting rather than flavouring.
iZotope — Ozone and RX sit in the chain for spectral repair and broader mastering moves, especially useful for catching problems a mix engineer might have missed before they become permanent.
Slate Digital — Analogue-modelled colour where a track needs some warmth or character rather than just correction — useful for adding the kind of harmonic glue that pure digital tools can't fake.
Universal Audio — UAD hardware emulations bring in real analogue behaviour: tape saturation, classic compressors, and console-style summing that give a track the depth and cohesion that come from decades of studio hardware design.
None of this runs on autopilot. Every plugin here is a decision, not a default — chosen per track, per mix, based on what it actually needs.
Since completing an MA in Music Production, we've been building Fabrik Audio from the ground up. We're actively working towards a fully hardware-integrated studio, bringing analogue outboard gear into the mastering process alongside the plugin chain. It's a deliberate, considered build rather than a rush to tick boxes — the kind of studio that grows in step with the work coming through it.