Steve Savitz wrote:
This is really helpful. I'll try all of these. are there any compression presets in the master track that you think are great? (rock/folk mixes). i guess it varies from song to song but some just sound bad.
Steve
I haven't really used them enough to develop all that many opinions, but I tend to drift to the ones that include "basic" in their names. Pop Basic, Rock Basic, that kind of thing. Some of the presets seem garish to me, and without the ability to go in and tone things down, I guess the ones called "basic" give me some illusion of moderation. And for rock and folk mixes in particular, my own preference is to avoid over-processing.
I use Logic and GB, and this is one area where Logic shines - you can tell it exactly what to do and it does it. In GB, everything is pretty easy and automatic, but I'm not exactly sure what's going on behind the curtains. Admittedly, this is also due to my own relative newness to the program.
I also like to use 3rd party plugins, particularly for dynamics (compression and limiting) although it's hard to justify paying for them, I suppose, if you're using GB which is free or close to it. However, one company I particularly like that has great bang for the buck is PSP Audio. Their Vintage Warmer plugin both warms things up and makes them louder. I wouldn't use it for everything, in fact I wouldn't use it on a lot of things. But for some material, judiciously applied, it's amazingly good. I believe they let you download a demo version from their website to check out.
The best way to deal with the presets, as HT said, is just to put one on a track and listen (apologies for contributing to the well worn cliche, but I too am helpless against its wisdom). However, I'd add a twist: try adding an effect that seems reasonable, and that sounds good for what you're doing. Then bounce that out ("share" - export to disk, whatever). Then, change it. Add a different effect, and bounce that out as well. Then listen to and compare them in a totally different environment.
Working in front of your computer with whatever speakers you have and with the sound and natural reverb of your room, it can become difficult to tell what these effects are really doing... where your song ends and your room begins. But if you take the track with you where you're used to listening to music, on your iPod, driving, deep sea diving, wherever you tend to listen to music, that can sometimes give you a better sense of it. Then you can compare the different versions in an environment that may be more natural, and also is just different from your computer setup, different being good.
Also, leaving the rarified environment of a studio and playing back on normal equipment can sometimes relieve unnecessary stress - hey this sounds pretty good! - or the opposite - this sounds worse than we thought! On a strictly dynamic level, it can also give you an immediate sense of how loud your levels are relative to other material since the gain staging of your studio might be misleading you.
Speaking of other material, another thing that people sometimes do is compare their track with a reference track of music they know and like that can serve as something of a beacon. For example, if you're going for a certain feel or sound with your song that is absolutely captured in a song you really love, if you take your recording and compare it to the other song, it may leap out at you that your recording lacks bass or punch or high frequency shimmer. Knowing that, you could then go back into GB and choose a preset or otherwise tweak your track that might help compensate for the difference, e.g. Rock Bass Boost.
Anyway, happy recording!
