masteringhouse
www.masteringhouse.com
I don't think (?) Joe was proposing to use meters over your ears for all tasks, frequency dependent volume perception for sure.
There are occasions where due to the ease of use of digital software some inexperienced engineers can learn a few things by Joe's comments. The art of things like aligning a tape machine, or even setting up reference levels for digital seem to be coming a lost art. Even gain staging is a topic that comes up now and then.
Mixing entirely by the meters though I think would be a mistake. There is one well-known engineer (sorry forgot who) that actually puts tape over the meters so that they are not a distraction. If things go in the red, it's becuase he wants it to sound that way. Slamming things to tape versus keeping tracks at an acceptable level is a technique in the hands of the experienced, and bad engineering when you do it as a matter of course for no explicit reason. In the land of digital this isn't going to get you a distinctly different sound though within reasonably acceptable levels.
As always it's how you use it, not if you use it.
There are occasions where due to the ease of use of digital software some inexperienced engineers can learn a few things by Joe's comments. The art of things like aligning a tape machine, or even setting up reference levels for digital seem to be coming a lost art. Even gain staging is a topic that comes up now and then.
Mixing entirely by the meters though I think would be a mistake. There is one well-known engineer (sorry forgot who) that actually puts tape over the meters so that they are not a distraction. If things go in the red, it's becuase he wants it to sound that way. Slamming things to tape versus keeping tracks at an acceptable level is a technique in the hands of the experienced, and bad engineering when you do it as a matter of course for no explicit reason. In the land of digital this isn't going to get you a distinctly different sound though within reasonably acceptable levels.
As always it's how you use it, not if you use it.
