Articles

Triangular Compression Theories

I get asked a lot whether it’s good practice to put a compressor across the mix prior to mastering. Often this is from dance music producers so I thought it might be nice to offer a perspective. These are just my personal views, looking at things more from the mixing engineer and artistically creative person’s point of view.

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The Wonderful World of Mix Perception

Have you ever walked out of the studio feeling over the moon after a hard day believing you have the made the tune that is literally going to blow the world into next week, only to return the next day, nervously pressed play with fingers crossed and sat literally aghast at the utter pile of unlistenable shit you made? Declared yourself basically free of talent, walked back out and considered a career in the sandwich industry? (read more)

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Techno Has Reached Its Limits

Out of all the genres of music I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to master, (everything from full classical orchestrations to nursery rhymes via hard industrial noise bands), the one genre that often has me banging my head against the proverbial brick wall is techno. The reason? Producers using limiters to increase the volume of their tracks, at the expense of the dynamic impact of the music. (read more)

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Here’s a Grand, What’cha Gonna Do?

Let’s relax and indulge for a moment. Here’s a theoretical question for you: What if you had a thousand pounds to spend on some new equipment for the studio. What would you do? (read more)

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18 Thoughts

1. Sitting for hours in the studio will kill your ears and perspective. Take regular breaks. By this I mean long enough that when you return, you can’t really remember what you were working on. As soon as you play the track, problems are obvious. (read more)

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What Is Mastering?

(You won’t find the answer here, but my tongue is in my cheek so maybe you will)

Last week I renewed my car insurance. When the lady asked me what I did for a living, I told her I was an Audio Mastering Engineer. She awoke from her autopilot and momentarily turned into someone I was actually having a conversation with, “Oooo, that sounds exciting, what is mastering?”. She was interested, she acquired the need to know. It happens all the time with people who don’t write music.... (read more)

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