datamusicata

I mentioned the other day that almost everyone who writes songs that I know of has some sort of recording set up.   And one of the devices or plug ins (a plug in is a computer program that emulates the device) that many folks have is a limiter and or a compressor and everyone has EQ of some sort. 

The compressor/limiters are wonderful devices that keep you from overloading the signal that you are recording.  Overloading, for those of you who find the term arcane, is just recording the sound with so much volume that it distorts as it is being recorded.  

Sometimes that is a choice.  That’s how distorted guitars got started.   People wanted to make it sound like that on purpose.   But when you are mixing a recording, this usually isn’t your goal.

You want clarity and you want it to sonically be pleasing to the ears.  Too piercing a frequency on some instrument will make it unpleasant to hear.   And too many sounds in the same frequency will make for a muddy sound.

But today, let us talk about what they call “master limiting”   this is a plug in that simply keeps you from overloading the recording,  no matter how much you don’t know about what you are doing.  Of course, you can overload this as well, but the unpleasant results would be intuitively obvious to even a tree.

Using these devices keeps the recording right in the range that allows it to be made into a CD.   Consequently,  many people use it all the time, and for Backstage At The Resurrection, I decided to use it on the mix down master tracks. 

Now every Mastering Engineer I've even met says the same thing.  Please don't put limiting on the tracks.  Let us do that at the Mastering Lab.  (If you don't know what mastering is, there are several articles about it here at Datamusicata.  Just  use the search  engine on the left side of the screen; scroll down til you find it and type in mastering, then hit search.)

But it seemed to make the process so easy, and I  simply plugged it into the chain  so that the final result always had to go thru that plug in (or device if you are using analog equipment).

When I finished the mixes, I took them into the living room and played them on my home sound system against some of my favorite CD’s.    My music  sounded like it had a sock over it.   I had overused the plug-in.   It had squeezed all the life and depth out of the mixes by making everything right up front, against my face.    The CD had no dynamics.  Everything at the same level, no real texture changes, no real emotion.

I went back out to the studio and took the plug-in out of the chain.   Actually I removed everything from the chain and went back to square one with all the mixes.  

I muted everything and starting with the kick and snare, then the bass, then my vocal (as this is my habitual choice of order) and then the next most important instrument, etc; always keeping an eye on the VU meters and making certain there were no places where I went into the red on them. 

I raised each level until it was where I wanted it to be in the mix, then if I still needed a little extra push I would use the EQ to find a frequency that, when increased, gave the desired results.    Then I put the effects back in and set those levels.   I like effects to only be noticeable if they are taken away, meaning that they are subtle and it’s only when they are muted that you notice they are gone.  You don’t notice them when they are there, unless that’s a conscious choice.

I remixed almost the entire CD in one day, and then last night listened to all the tracks in what I thought might be the order.   It wasn’t and there was one song that just didn’t’ seem to fit into the  CD and there were some mixing oversights where a part would suddenly leap out.   

So the short story here, is that I am very close to the end, but I’m still doing what I always recommend that you do.  Listen to your favorite stuff.   See how yours compares.  If it falls short, you ‘ve still got work to do.