Re: Some ideas needed

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On 28 dec 2006, at 14.54, Richard Sales wrote:

> If the music is there, you could record it with a dictaphone and  
> the goods would come across.  it's just, for me, good sound is an  
> obsession and something I work on.  Does it REALLY matter?  Not as  
> much as the music by any stretch.  But I want to continue to get  
> work from labels and that means I have to care.    But all I have  
> to do is get as good a sound... so I have to work a bit harder and  
> pay close attention to things like data loss.
>
> And, frankly, it's a fun game.  But just a sideshow for me compared  
> to music.


I do agree with every word! Two days ago I was thinking that what  
people usually call "good sound" is in fact nothing technical but all  
about music. I was then hired to do "Logic coaching" with a producer  
in his studio and after two hours of mix tweaking he was so pleased  
that he wanted me to mix the entire album. But I never did anything  
"technical", only small musical adjustments like filtering and  
putting up some side chained compressors or noise gates to make the  
recorded instruments talk to each other a little more like I wanted  
them to have been played in the first place. The recorded band  
musicians were very good (fast Balkan folk stuff with a crazy party  
vibe) and I have no doubt that if they should have been listening to  
the control room mix while playing the songs they would have played  
their instruments like I made them sound afterwards, by my tweaks and  
treatments in Logic.  No "technical secret weapons" used, only  
general musical decisions to give more emphasize to instrumental  
parts that work along with the general emotion/rhythm/tonality of  
each song and bringing down some parts that I felt were "not in the  
right pocket".

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)
http://www.myspace.com/looproom