“Work!!!” When Maynard G. Krebs cried out that phrase we knew he wanted only to get out of it. Work, to Maynard, had a bad connotation.
Yet, work to me is a good thing. I love my work and wake up each day excited to be a part of our team.
Words get tarnished and sometimes cast undeserved meaning.
Compression is a great example of a word with a black eye. With today’s crusade against the loudness wars, any hint of compression rallies the troops and sharpens the pitchforks.
Yet, as I pointed out in yesterday’s post, you’d be hard pressed to find a vinyl album that was not compressed. And it’s likely compression that is the main reason some prefer vinyl over digital allowing us to hear more.
To a purist words like EQ, compression, reduction, and limiting are ones to stay away from—yet nearly every recording you love has some of those going on.
Before we circle the wagons to protect us from the infidels willing to take advantage of non-purist techniques judiciously applied in service of music, let’s take the time to understand them.
Just because some have overdone and abused technology to squeeze out what little remains of recording quality doesn’t mean the tools available to us are to be excommunicated.
