The more you push your tools, the more side effects you create. 

Side-effects? 

Yes, off the top of my head:

• Phase shift.
• Pre-ringing.
• Post-ringing.
• Aliasing distortion.
• Intermodulation distortion.
• Increased floor noise.

And that does not include the collateral effects of heavy processing musically affecting things that you’re not actually targeting.

Now, you don’t have to understand what those side effects mean technically. Just know that they exist and the harder you push your tools, the more they come into play.

So what to do when there’s a task that requires heavy lifting?

Rather than pushing individual tools hard, do a little bit of processing at several stages.

This reduces the strain on your tools, fulfilling the task with less side effects.

Example:

I have an old breakbeat I want to bring up to modern standards. To do this, I will first need to do a lot of cleanup to make it easier to work with. Then I’ll focus on the dynamics, tonal balance, saturation, and stereo image. 

To do this, I will use a long chain of plugins.

I might do a little bit of dynamic EQ first, and then a little bit of static EQ on top of that. 

I might apply subtle transient processing from 2-3 different tools, each serving a similar purpose but doing their thing a little bit differently under the hood.

And so on.

Each tool is doing just a little bit of very focused work. But the cumulative effects of this process are night & day. 

This way of working allows you to achieve maximum punch and clarity because it keeps those nasty side effects at bay. 

To see this process in action, you can check out one of my videos in Patreon:

Processing a drum break – Loxy: Exodus (Resound remix).

I believe the best value I can give you is to document my approach straight from the trenches of my day to day work. Sharing my process as it really is, and not holding secrets.

If you have been reading my emails, you know that already. But there’s only so much I can do with emails.

By joining the Producer tier on Patreon, you will immediately unlock an exclusive library of 48 in-depth videos, providing value to people of all levels of experience.

The videos I do are much more comprehensive than your typical tutorials on YouTube.

You’ll also gain access to our private VIP Discord channel, where you can interact with me and other members to discuss the videos and ask questions. I’m there for you every day.