Monday, February 2, 2009

Reflection in Music Engineering

I have about a month left to finish my work on Concordia's Beat, which, now that everyone's been recorded, involves the mixing and mastering all 14 groups. I've already made seven pretty good rough mixes, and hopefully, the patch bay I installed this weekend will help with the other half.

As part of this, I went and revisited some old mixes I had made as I was first recording these tracks and was surprised at how much I had learned in just these last couple months. I was using compressors and limiters in very strange ways, I wasn't using the better of the plugins we have, I was cranking the gain in odd places, and overall, I was complicating the overall work flow. Not surprisingly, simplifying that made for an overall better sound - punchier and more natural.

I've also been happily using an old Aphex Aural Exciter that the project supervisor found at a local music store for cheap. The difference in my mixes when I use it right is like listening to a group live or with my coat over my head. I'll have to post some before-and-after demos some time.

'Til then,
-Greg

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