Demifugue Mastering’s founder, Emerson Mancini, is a two-time Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer working in stereo and immersive formats.

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Originally from Port Washington, New York, Emerson has spent the last decade-plus in his adopted home of Los Angeles. He came out as trans in 2022 and exclusively uses he/him pronouns.

Always drawn to writing, Emerson focused on music after a songwriting professor explained the word ineffable: that some things simply cannot be put into words. At Berklee it led him straight to music technology, where he fell in love with engineering, electronic production, and orchestral mock-up. After graduating summa cum laude, he entered the mastering world as an apprentice to Dave Kutch at The Mastering Palace in New York, and never left. Emerson considers mastering the luxury of sitting at his own personal altar of sound, and can’t imagine engaging with music any other way.

Storytelling has been the lifelong core of Emerson’s artistic life, and his mastering is shaped by a need to elevate the emotional impact of every song and every album. Sonics and audio craft are essential tools, but only tools. The point is to transcend code and frequencies in service of something larger: creating and elevating art.

Emerson spent eight years as resident mastering engineer at Larrabee. He now works from The Juniper Room, his own immersive studio, established in 2026 in the high desert of the San Gabriel Mountains.