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Old 08-01-2010, 06:41 AM   #33
drybij
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Somewhere else
Posts: 734
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I use Voxengo SPAN to analyze quality commercial mixes to see how they differ from mine. I consistently notice that the waveform is much more 'dense' than on my finished mixes. Not necessarily louder (as in loudness wars), but more of the gaps between the peaks are filled in.

One day I had my bass plugged in and it happened to have old strings on it. The waveform displayed in SPAN for just my bass was pretty close to a simple sine wave. I changed my strings and all of a sudden, there are many more peaks displayed in the spectrum... more harmonics, duh!

After a while it dawned on me. More harmonics equals more sound which equals more of the peaks filled in. So my rule of thumb is to use fresh strings. I'm guessing that this same applies to drum heads, reeds, etc.

I don't think this will necessarily make things louder, but it should record a more quality, fuller sound - which should translate to a fuller overall mix. I'm starting to think that this approach is better that 'artificial' means to make a mix louder, since you can't really amplify a sound that wasn't recorded in the first place.

I have a guitar-player friend who insists that older strings sound better. After seeing the evidence in SPAN, I can't agree.

Does anyone else have an opinion or experience with this?
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