Alan Parsons in Nashville, TN Oct 27th, 2007

Discussion / Q&A    Engineering / Production

A. I quickly answer Automatic Double Tracking. Alan smiles broadly and quickly says “Wrong! It’s actually Artificial Double Tracking; then explains to us how it works. He describes moving it to find the best position (in milliseconds) and moving it continuously for a phasing effect

A. "Actually it was much later in the game before anybody expected anything better than mono 'in the cans', probably 1970-71 I suppose."

Q. What kind of monitor speakers were typically used back in the day at Abbey Road?

A. "Typically Tannoy #?s in most rooms (including some model named after the cabinet maker) and the such-and-such room JBLs."

Q. What do you favor for near-field monitors?

A. "Actually they don't really do much for me; I do have some EVENTs that I like to use but not so much as near fields."

Q. (timbre4): What are your thoughts about the volume maximization of today’s releases? The compression/brick walling genie is clearly out of the bottle now.

A. "Yes, I'm afraid that's absolutely true; and there's no let up in the volume race. I for one will NOT compress a mix."

Q. What are your thoughts on automation mixing?

A. "Automation is here to stay; I enjoy using it. Yes there were elaborate mix dances of multiple hands in the old days but it's much simpler to get on with the work now more consistently. The sessions we did yesterday with SAE students were all manual hands-on mixes however."

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