If I have music recorded to a cassette 4-track, and have more than one instrument committed to each track, would a professional mixerperson be of any advantage due to the instruments not being on their own tracks, or could they do anything to help? If so, what? If not, why? Should I just have a pro master it instead or no?
Need Professionals?
- Thread starter Irk
- Start date
Dags
New member
Irk said:
Bit of bad news, Irk - if many instruments have been combined into one track for all four tracks then they can't be separated. You essentially have four tracks of 'mixed' material.
(Think of a CD - two channels of mixed material and impossible to just solo the guitars or drums)
In terms of panning, the only control you have is where you want each of the four tracks placed in the sound image, though there's some clever stereo emulation using comb filters that can widen the image a bit for each track or for certain frequencies within the track.
The only tweaking a mastering guru can do is balance the level between each of the four tracks, perhaps a bit of Eq and compression and maybe a bit of noise reduction to remove any tape hiss to clean the sound up a bit.
Dags