Olaf Reitmeier

Olaf Reitmeier — German musician and sound engineer — works in the European melodic metal circuit, both performing and producing. From the 1980s onwards Germany developed a technical infrastructure that explains much of the country's weight in European metal: specialist studios, engineers with genre-specific experience and a production chain serving bands from across the continent. That structure matters more than is usually acknowledged. The characteristic sound of German melodic metal — clear, separated guitars, balanced vocal layers, defined low end — is not a natural consequence of the style but the result of technical decisions taken in the studio, repeated and refined over decades. Musicians working on both sides — playing and producing — hold a privileged position in that environment: they know the repertoire's demands from within and know what can be captured in a recording. It is knowledge you do not obtain by working on only one side of the glass.