Call me Lazy

If you've been listening to the show live or to the podcasts, you would know by now that I am the production engineer on The Limelight Hour. As I've mentioned on the show, I look out for different things in a song but that sort of geeking out session will make this post into a thesis. So here's a much shorter version, without too much self indulgence.

As the production engineer on the show, I really appreciate well mastered tracks. In a nutshell, mastering brings up the quieter passages in a song and tames the louder parts to give the song an overall balanced loudness by using signal processors like compressors and limiters. Apart from that, mastering engineers use EQs and often reverb to sweeten the mix and give the song, or all the songs in the album an overall feel and vibe. Some even say, it's a process of filling up the gaps. Lastly, noise reduction processors are used to fix little noise issues like electric guitar hum or buzz that sneaked into the mix either during the recording or mixing processes. If you want to know more about mastering, here's a good link to an article on Sound On Sound Magazine's site.

I personally enjoy Dahpne Khoo's and SceneAtTheMovies' CDs. It gives me great pleasure to work with such fine tracks. Much respect to their respective mastering engineers.

In the case of building a radio show, the production engineer will not have to do any mastering-type work and concentrate on balancing the overall levels of all the elements that go into the show. These well mastered tracks will blend into the radio show easily without having to tweak much.

Imagine this. As a listener, you get up to turn the dial when the song goes into the quieter parts. Worst still, if it suddenly gets really loud. You would jump right out of the couch to reach for the volume dial to turn it down, if not the mute button. Well mastered tracks simply gives the listener the freedom to enjoy the song without having to reach for the volume dial when it gets quieter and when it gets too loud.

So yes, I enjoy not having to get out of my couch when I listen to music. Call me lazy.