Well, I’m on another airplane, so it’s time to write some articles!  I’m on my way back from the 2009 ICCA Finals in New York, which will probably go down in aca-lore as “the day MTV took over”.

While judging the finals, I noticed something that also bugs me in recordings, so thought it might be a good topic – over-enunciation of nonsense syllables.  Now, your high school choir teacher might be proud that you’ve kept up your good diction, but I say doh jin jin walla boww to that.

This is something we producers are asked from time to time, and of course we'll do our best to achieve this for you if it's what you really want - Most of us just don't believe it's what you really want!

I’ve noticed lately that I am getting a lot of sessions from people who have been using reverb and delay in their tracking to get a little more inspiration and space under the headphones.  This is great, but looking at how they are doing it, I see most are unaware of a basic track management technique – sends and auxiliary effects channels.

{mosimage}In my last article, I told you all how I finally found my way through the naming maze to find the correct session to work on. That was the easy part! Now we’re inside the session and I have to do a lot of expensive housework to get things in workable order.

I know I tend to repeat myself quite often in this column, but some points are just worth saying again and again!

In previous installments, I have mentioned about objectivity and the whole forest-for-the-trees issue ad nauseum. I (and other producer/engineers) frequently point our clients back to this column to (hopefully) give them a better understanding of the pitfalls and traps that have caught the many who have gone before them by surprise - including us producer/engineers!