it's always more fun to capture it the first time, peaking properly, and sounding the way you want it.

editing sux

I don't feel editing is bad at all but rather excellent and the more you do the more you realise you can prepare a lot of stuff before the mixing process. Take a bass track for example or a vocal track. There will always be a phrase or two that will be a little softer or louder than the rest. It is much better to edit the offending phrases rather than slamming a compressor over the whole thing just to tame the offending areas. People do that too much and the compressor settings need to be harder for it to work. But edit a few things here and there so everything is nice and even then you can still use a compressor but in much more relaxed manner and the track will sound much better as a result as well. (Remember this: low compressor ratios make the sound BIGGER, higher ratios make the sound smaller. If you have to use a higher ratio to tame silly peaks here and there you are shrinking the sound for no reason)

The compressor can now be put over the whole drum buss (rather than on individual tracks) and act as a glue type now just glueing the whole thing down a bit more.

I am very good and consistent drummer for example and can capture my playing very well. But even so there will usually be a few snare and kick hits that are just a little out of context with the rest. (ie tiny bit quieter or louder for whatever reason) A few detailed manual edits can put things very right and still preserve high sound quality. As a result less processing is almost required later on and that is not a bad thing.

Many top mix engineers hire very good editors that do a lot of work before the mix engineer even does his thing. There is a reason for it, it works very well.

After a multitrack session I open every single mono and stereo track up and have a look in the editor program. Some tracks don't need much or any work but others really benefit from it a lot.  If you have got lots and lots of plugins in your mix I believe you are doing something wrong to a certain degree. Editing prior to mixing will eliminate probably half of them. It means you are using too many plugs to fix small areas of tracks (and acting over the rest of the track for the rest of the time and not necessarily doing good either) instead of fixing the small areas of the tracks to start with.

hehe, yes, an engineer WANTS to edit!


a musician just wants to get on with it......

i don't mind warts on my stuff..
in fact, i encourage it!

Danny - The same holds true for me, ie, what i record is rarely the problem. the problem for me occurs on the kik and snare samples i use ( i only use samples for drums at this point - not set up to record drums). So, in an effort to make them sound good, i usually wind up with peaky tracks. (Mind you all: i am using Steven slate drums and or session drummer, or addictive drums for source, so drum samples are not crap). In my original post, the way i've been using the limiter is to cut off peaks >-3db, on the final mixed stereo master. Basically, I'm processing the limiter directly to the track, ie, it's not sitting in the effects bin. i used to go in to the offending tracks, as you do, and reduce the gain on the offending peaks, peak by peak, but that is so tedious !!! damn you need patience for that.

I hear ya Josh....like bats and unlike Jeff, I absolutely hate editing. LOL! I wish I could charge more for it...and in some cases, I do when something is just so bad that it forces me to be a surgeon over an engineer. Hahaha!

In your case, it may be a situation where you might not have found the right compressor yet or velocities may be too forceful on rim shot snares etc...too much snap or beater attack in a kick drum...stuff like that can really be a problem.

I like to compress my drums individually and then send them to a drum bus where I have another compressor waiting to process the entire kit so it keeps it tight. Though there may be a few little peaks on my individual tracks, the compressor on the drum bus usually takes care of anything else. I just did a few videos about the Transient Shaper you can check out in the main X2 forum. That may help you in controlling some of the peaks. Especially if things are lashing out a bit, the TS 64 can help curb them a little or a lot. It's definitely worth looking into. Good luck bro.

-Danny