At 9:22 AM -0800 2/26/07, Dan Dugan wrote:
>
>Some thoughts:
>
>Whereas mixing concentrates on each "song" or segment of the
>production, mastering tries to make the whole album work together by
>sequencing, level adjusting, and equalization when needed.
>
>You try to make it work both at high level on superb speakers or
>headphones and at low level on a little system or in a car. That
>usually means reducing the dynamic range, better done by mixing than
>by any automated process like compression.
>
>-Dan Dugan
Well summarized. Mixing is immersion in tonal balance and dynamics
for me. I don't see a need to master if each of the mixes to be
grouped, succeeds. Differences in qualities that are consist with the
settings are desirable. A bad mix is very evident when played next
to a good one.
Perhaps documentary video mixing comes the closest in practice in
terms of really dealing with live recordings, but with only a tiny
fraction of the nuance to spatial depth and imaging. Movies _could_
be doing it but they don't seem to-- with live recordings at least.
Mixing always makes me appreciate astute in the field micing-- its
very, very hard to make a good recording if the mics were not very
favorably placed. Its always fun to observe another recordist work
with well-mic'd material.
I will use compression on occasion in a multi-track mix, but when
there is only one, "sublime" layer, the settings I need to tame the
peaks seem to affect the dynamic range too severely, change tonal
balance and compact the spatial planes more than required. I can only
define about 4-6 spatial "planes" in mix _without_ compression, so,
98% of the time, I get out the old scissor icon and address each
transient peak as an event.
Many audio processing "plugs" are aimed towards an effect opposite
from what I'm after-- which can be telling and educational to explore
in itself. No mic/recording chain or plug is perfect. I often wonder
if there are couple of "revolutionary" plugs waiting to be made that
do understand what nature and field recordists want from their
recordings. Young recordists, learn to code! Rob D.
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