Sometimes we resist for too long and inevitably we regret we didn’t accept it sooner.
Just try the analog. Make a simple arrangement of royalty free electronic music and play the sounds through the channels of the lowest cost analog console. Of course, the more expensive the console the more clear the sound will be, but on a simple mixer one can feel how much the dynamics of each instrument are drawn more clearly in the analogue.
Think of a talk show on TV or the Internet. As soon as several people start to speak and the conversation is heated and everyone is shouting, no matter how hard you try, you cannot hear any of them.
Why is this happening? The audio signal that accompanies the video sequence has limitations on the frequency and dynamic range. The sound is affected by compressors and expanders. It is subject to losses in the process of transmission by air and cable. Sound transmitters (the speakers on tablets, TVs, computers, etc) are rarely high enough quality to accept the transmission. When several screamers try to climb into this small dynamic latch, it cannot handle the flow of information.
Similarly, the dynamic range of a digital environment in royalty free electronic music is limited by the objective characteristics of the system. Each sound “inside the box” (ITB) somehow tries to assert itself over the other signals, just like all the speakers on a talk show. The stronger one is asserted-the more the lower one disappears. If we assert everything—general readability is lost or we get clips, distortions, and dirt.
The analog environment is subject to this effect to a lesser extent. Sounds do not fight for the right to be heard. Each of them can be read well across its entire spectrum. In royalty free electronic music low-frequency bass and kick do not interfere with each other (and we know how often different “gurus” in online video pay attention to “mixing bass and kick”), the vocals easily fit into spectral wide instruments (guitars, pads) and so on.
Working in the analog, you do not need to bother yourself. You choose the version of the balance of instruments that you like. You can always add something without fearing that the mix will fall apart. The movements of the knobs on the analog console can be more sweeping—you do not need to remember the parameter values up to a decimal, you do not need to save after each step. In short—you are building a house, not a house of cards.
The less dynamic conflicts between tools, the easier it is to do the mixing. The easier it is do the mixing, the better it turns out. The better the mixing…the better the mastering.
