I sincerely appreciate the inputs you’ve all provided on Seduction. In particular, I received some very helpful and critical feedback from professional mastering engineer Brian Lucey. Brian is a well known industry professional I got to know through the GearSlutz.com forum. Great name, no? GearSlutz has over 40,000 members and nearly 2 million posts and is moderated by industry professionals. There is no better way to learn the craft of production than to tap the experience and insight of those that do it for a living! But as the name implies, its real purpose is to help members cope with a common ailment we affectionately label as GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

Brian not only knows his stuff, but also shares his opinions CANDIDLY… and of course, he does great work! In fact, he’s mastered all of my (finished) tunes so he’ll eventually apply his craft to Seduction, but not until I fix a few things. Also, Brian definitely has serious GAS, and he frequently passes it my way! My best studio additions as of late have come courtesy of his recommendations…

Brian took a few listens and replied back with “It’s fairly congested toward the end … more of a pile up than a mix with space and depth. Do you have limiting on the mp3? What about middle to width balance … have you considered that? It seems too much in the middle by the end, and the low mids are overfull. Once the Sax comes in it begins to get crowded … look at possible cuts in the 280 and 500hz range as a center freq, on the sax, guitar lead, and bass to a lesser extent”.

This feedback is all about dialing in the production. As mentioned, I didn’t spend a great deal of time on my trial mix due to those sinus issues (which are thankfully behind me), but it’s feedback like this that helps chart a more specific course of action! Brian has basically given me a recipe to get the mix in better shape, and that’s important to do before I turn over to him for mastering. So thank you Brian, and now it’s time to “go back to the board”… the mixing board, that is…

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 6:35 am and is filed under My Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.