10.1.06

it's weird how there's been this huge outcry against brickwall limiting and how we should make full dynamic range records and blah blah blah but people, like really professional people that mix records for a living, are still making it impossible for the people who have to master them. i should say, it seems to me like the pressure that used to be on the mastering people to turn the wave forms into blocks of blown-out information is now resting on the mixing people. Maybe they think that the artist is expecting it to sound finished when the mixing is finished. I know that dave fridmann (sp?) 'masters' everything that is done at tarbox road just by mixing straight into an L2 or whatever. The record martin and I received yesterday was a record like that. What we were given was 13 blocks of waveforms. There was no way for us to add any information to the mixes because the compression on the mix bus (and probably some brick wall limiting) was so extreme and LOUD that boosting 11k by like 1/2 dB above unity would send the output into overs. Not to mention the fearn was getting totally killed on its input, simply because the output from digital performer (i.e. the raw files with a mellow amount of the waves multiband compressor) was so intense.

stop mixing records like this! get rid of your bus compressors and use them for other things! the mixing engineer has completely monopolized on what the record will sound like in the end, and leaves nothing up to the people who have to master the record. I don't understand.

I drove down to the new space with martin after chad showed up. it's going to be really incredible. seems a little bit slimmer in width than inner ear but there are two levels and the B control room will be upstairs and they're about the same in length. there is going to be a hangout balcony. Someone told me at the tapeopcon in new orleans two years ago that whenever parliament would go into record back in the day in detroit, there'd be a ton of people just like hanging out on top of the isolation booths smoking weed and having a good time. sounds awesome.

pagoda mixing tomorrow. hope i can make it.