Legendary sound engineer George Marino passed away after a year-long battle with lung cancer yesterday (June 4), and now some of the bands that had the pleasure of working with the studio wizard are offering their thoughts on the unfortunate loss.

As an engineer, George Marino played a pivotal role in mastering the sound of many groundbreaking albums including Guns N' Roses' 'Appetite for Destruction' and Metallica's Black Album, just to name a few. During his nearly 40-year career at Sterling Studios, George worked with and befriended many prominent rock bands and musicians.

Metallica's 1991 self-titled album was a pivotal moment in their career, shifting them from prominent thrash metal band to one of the biggest bands in rock period. During the recording of the disc they forged a friendship with Marino, as well as a working relationship that continued on four of their following releases. The band offered this statement on Marino via their website after getting news of his passing:

We were very sad today to hear that we have lost a member of our family as mastering engineer extraordinaire George Marino passed away following a year long battle with lung cancer. While some of you may not instantly recognize George’s name, he was an invaluable member of our extended Metalli-family and was absolutely crucial with his skills and guidance as he spent countless days and hours tweaking every nuance and sound on The Black Album, Load, Re-Load, Garage, Inc., and S&M.

George was the unsung hero behind the scenes on hundreds of classic albums working in all genres of music including Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, AC/DC‘s Back In Black, Guns N’ Roses‘ Appetite for Destruction, Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, Journey‘s Frontiers, and Cyndi Lauper’s She's So Unusual, just to name a few... he has worked with Ozzy Osboune, the Allman Brothers, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Kiss, the Offspring, the Cars, Coldplay and countless others. In his nearly 40 years at Sterling Sound, he won three Grammy awards, most recently in 2011 for Arcade Fire‘s The Suburbs, which won Album of the Year.

His talent, professionalism, attention to detail and above all true dedication to music, along with the mere fact that George was simply one of the nicest people we have ever met in anywhere in the music business, makes today a very sad one for everyone in the Metallica family and he will be missed by all.

Meanwhile, ex-GN'R axeman Slash tweeted, "World class mastering engineer & friend, George Marino, has died. We will miss him terribly. He was the best. RIP George."

Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante also expressed his sadness over the loss, saying, "Where do I even begin when it comes to George Marino? I've sat with George on So many Anthrax records and watched and learned how a record is Mastered. He made the long hours up at Sterling, interesting and fun. I would leave there thinking we just did something great. With George it was all for the music, He had a great set of ears! We lost a master craftsmen and a great man , I will miss him a lot!"

John Petrucci of Dream Theater also had a chance to work with Marino, and offered his condolences as well. "So sad to hear about the passing of the great George Marino today. We have surely lost one of the last titans in the mastering world. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."

The outpouring of support from the music community didn't stop there, as members of Life of Agony, Type O Negative and Tesla have also issued official statements on Marino's untimely passing. We expect that this is just the first wave of artists to issue statements on Marino, as his resume was not only impressive, but quite lengthy. See his full list of musical achievements at allmusic.com.

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