[4] During his time at Capitol, Marino mastered such classics as The Beatles' 7-inch single of "Hey Jude"[5] and John Lennon & Plastic Ono Band's Live Peace in Toronto 1969.

[7] There he became established with projects such as Don McLean's American Pie,[8] Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies, Gregg Allman's Laid Back, and Stevie Wonder's Talking Book and Innervisions.

After Chris Stone, the owner of the Record Plant went to Los Angeles, Marino had more management duties and he felt it distracted him from his mastering work.

In 1998, Ted Jensen, Greg Calbi and Tom Coyne, along with Murat Aktar (Absolute Audio co-founder) and UK based Metropolis, purchased Sterling from previous owner, Lee Hulko.

This type of design was common in mastering houses during vinyl's heyday, but what made this one different was the ability to also process 6 discrete channels for surround sound.

[14][15] Over the course of Marino's nearly 40 years with Sterling, he mastered and/or remastered albums by Kurban (band), AC/DC, Cat Stevens, Led Zeppelin, Guns N' Roses, Metallica, DIO, Cheap Trick, Arcade Fire, Whitney Houston, Coldplay; Cyndi Lauper; Journey; Kiss; Mötley Crüe; The Cars; Bon Jovi; Arctic Monkeys; Dan Fogelberg; Iron Maiden; Fountains of Wayne; Incubus; Joe Bonamassa; Jimi Hendrix; Joe Satriani; Michael Bublé; Weezer; Leonard Cohen, My Morning Jacket, The Tragically Hip, 3 Doors Down, Alice Cooper, Billy Squier, Cinderella, M-Squad, Sarah Brightman, The Psychedelic Furs, Tommy James and the Shondells, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ringo Starr, Santana, Josh Groban, Southside Johnny, Willie Nile, Elvis Presley, Fall Out Boy, Ozzy Osbourne, Blondie, Hanson, Jimmy Page and hundreds of others.

Double Fantasy had been out a few weeks when Douglas and Lennon decided to have a song they had just finished, Yoko Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice", mastered with Marino at Sterling Sound for a single release.