Lesson #6 Intro to the Console - Posted on 2013-06-02 by Juan Ramirez

April 8, 2013, 3 Hours, Lesson 6

In class we got into console details. It was a little confusing at the time but I feel like it sunk in somehow because I have a better understanding of the console now. 

During lecture todd described saturation differently than the book, calling it instead "too much gain." I thinks of saturation as running your equipment "hot" and right on the edge of overdriving it. His explanation is that the equipment is tested (thus spec'ed) at high levels, so the equipment runs best when full of voltage. 

Some tips i learned: when equalizing, it's best to think in terms of taking out the bad instead of trying to add in good. Adding frequencies is risky business and usually leads to questionable (and I'm guessing largely unpredictable) sounds.He talked about panning things out (because things panned to the center stand out) instead of getting rid of them. This really comes into play when trying to get the mix to work in both mono and stereo, which is hard but necessary, considering how many people still hear songs in mono from car radios and cheap computers. Another EQ jem: most music and vocals happen in the mid-range, so in order to give your mix a full sound, take advantage of additional octaves. Basically, if you don't have a good arrangement, you can't have a good mix - and keeping everything in a narrow frequency range means everything will fight everything else for lots of masking.