EQ Magazine - February 2008 - (Page 64) MIX BUS HOW TO PREVENT DIGITITIS 9 TIPS FOR SMOOTHER SOUNDS • • • • Dirty contacts can cause signal rectification and distortion. Clean connectors with agents such as Caig Labs DeoxIT (www.caig.com). Use audio interfaces designed for low jitter. During mastering, add dither when truncating from 24-bit to 16-bit. This eliminates quantization distortion at low-signal levels. Minimize the calculations your DAW has to do. Each calculation creates some error or distortion by increasing the word length beyond 24 bits. Rather than boosting the gain of a musical section and dropping it later, undo the changes, and apply only the correct amount of gain change. Consider using fader moves rather than compression. Compression adds distortion because it changes the waveform. Toofast release times cause distortion in low-frequency notes, and also cause pumping. A fader-setting change on a series of notes is less audible than a compressor working on each note. When you peak-limit and normalize a stereo mix to make a hot CD, try not to exceed 6dB to 7dB of peak reduction, as limiting adds distortion. Use even less limiting on mixes that don’t have loud transients. Rather than normalizing the limited signal to 0dB, normalize to –3dB to –1dB to allow for intersample peaks. Experiment with an analog tape plug-in to warm up a track, or record to analog multitrack tape and dump the tracks to your DAW for editing/mixing. To reduce graininess in a reverb plug-in, use a high-density setting, or use a convolution reverb. When recording source sounds, consider using less high-frequency boosts. Cutting around 3kHz to 7kHz tends to reduce harshness. Try a 4kHz lowpass filter on distorted guitar amps to take the edge off, and try multiband compression on voices that get raspy. Set the compressor so it kicks in above 3kHz or so during loud passages. Also, many condenser mics have highfrequency peaks that can sound brittle or sibilant. Apply a high-frequency roll-off, or better yet, use ribbon mics or flat-response condensers. Try moving the mic to a spot that sounds mellower, as well. Mic a vocal at nose height if it sounds too edgy when miked at mouth height. Mic a trumpet off-axis, and position the mic near the edge of the speaker cone on a guitar amp. Finally, use a tube mic preamp that can produce euphonic even-order distortion that’s toasty warm. —Bruce Bartlett • • • • • http://www.caig.com
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