No Limits

Following yesterday's upload of latest_news.mp3 and the raging controversy about latency (or was it), I sat down and had a quickie mix sesh last night, and moved Roy's guitar track several hundred samples forward. It still sounds great to me; there are a couple of places where the attack of the guitar is obviously late, and I'll fix those at some point, but to look at the track(s) visually, there's no way you could line up Roy's guitar with the other instruments and it still sound right. I like the feel because it sounds like a totally different groove going on.

Obviously I've listened to it a lot more times than anybody else on earth, so maybe I'm too close to it, but I think it sounds (and sounded) great. James sort of agrees with me that the "latency" isn't/wasn't a problem. But follow the link above to the "new improved" version and judge for yourself.

As part of the mixing, I used a different compression plug-in* on the master fader (Focusrite ISA 130, from the Forte Suite), and capped everything off with the new Sony Oxford Limiter plug-in*, which sounds superb to my ears.

*In case you don't know, "plug-in" is another name for a bolt-on or add-on. In computer recording terms, you're adding functionality to your multi-track recording software by buying yet more software. In the case of Sony Oxford and many others, the add-on can actually cost more than the original software, so you'd better be sure you really want them. Because I work for a dealer, I get to demo them.

Most plug-ins are designed to affect the audio in some way. Sometimes you feel, given the expense, that you want to throw everything to the maximum so as to get "value for money" in what you hear. Sadly, the best way to use most plug-ins is to apply their effects subtly, so it's barely noticeable.

In the case of a limiter, the idea is to boost the overall volume of the track (so it sounds "commercial") without exceeding the level at which the audio would distort (digital distortion always sounds horrible). Sony do another plug-in called the Inflator which achieves an increase in perceived loudness without ruining the dynamics of the original recording. It's a sad fact of modern life that A & R men and other record company suits in recent years have insisted on making records as loud as possible, destroying the musical dynamics in the process. It's why, to take an obvious example, someone like Robbie Williams doing "Swing" music doesn't sound anywhere near as good as Sinatra on Capitol in the 50s.

Given the existence of the Inflator, the Limiter is a little confusing, because it does a similar job, though not in the same way. I guess you could use both, which I'll try at some point, though using too many plug-ins can result in mashed potato.

Anyway, one side effect of both compression and limiting can be that the "brightness" of a recording is lost as the higher frequencies are compressed along with the high-energy bass frequencies. The Oxford Limiter allows you to restore brightness by adjusting the "Enhance" slider. It goes up to 125%, at which point you will hear artefacts, but at a level of around 75%, I thought it sounded much better than without the Enhance effect. I think what it does is allow higher frequencies through without compressing them so much (or at all), which allows you to make the limiting process more musical and transparent.

Sorry for that long footnote, if you've read this far!