Home Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

I don't completely agree with all of that.

The "trick" as you call it is really skill, experience, and a matter of taste. A good mixing tech can use compression judiciously the way that you might put salt on a really nice steak. A little bit of salt can compliment a fine cut of meat but pouring the entire salt shaker all over it would surely ruin it. A mastering engineer might work the same way, using EQ and compression in a complimentary fassion to produce excellent results. They are not all out to win the loudness race. I also think that he can only do so much with what he is given. Believe it or not, the most influential part of how the record is going to sound really has to do with how well the band performs into the medium. Performance is the biggest piece of the pie, then comes mixing and mastering.


I also think that part of the problem is that there are so many tools available to Joe recordist and he does not really know how to restrain himself when he uses them. "Hey, I bought all of these compressors and processors, so I'm going to use them!" I think anyone with a home recording studio knows what I'm talking about.

Of course there is the loudness race itself which is a real bummer. The topic has already been beaten to death on the internet but it is fair to say that there's a certain amount of insecurity if your record doesn't sound as loud as the next guy's. This applies to LPs as well as CDs because we are talking about the way tracks are layed down, mixed, and produced as a final master. It's hard to convince the end user to just turn the volume control up when we live in a world of instant gratification. I'm not really sure why that happened.

To make a long story short, I just want to disagree with the notion that you should never use a compressor, a limiter, or an EQ when you make a recording. The "trick" is in knowing how to use the tools to achieve the best results.

Happy Thanksgiving!
QE



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