vst instruments, вст инструменты

Michael Stavrou clearly knows how to get great sounds on record. Even if he hadn't engineered for big names such as Elton John, Paul McCartney, and Cat Stevens, Sir George Martin's glowing foreword to Mixing With Your Mind would leave me in little doubt as to his credentials. In his book, Stavrou collects together a generous fund of engineering tips, tackling not just mixdown, but the recording process as well.


However, Stavrou breaks from the norm, by deliberately steering a course away from scientific or technical discussions, taking a relentlessly left-field approach to the subject in search of practical solutions to practical problems. Thus the chapter on compression doesn't tell you about the mechanics of a compressor, but instead discusses what order to address the compressor controls for the best sound. And if you think you can guess what order he suggests, guess again!

A good third of the book deals with recording — effectively fixing things before the mix — and hinges on Stavrou's very unusual and subjective approach to mic selection and placement. The value of this section of the book is difficult to assess, as Stavrou relies on a variety of extremely subjective terms in his discussions, and these could easily be misinterpreted by readers. Given that Stavrou avoids technical explanations, I think it is a shame that no audio examples were provided here to exemplify the differences between 'hard' and 'soft' sounds, for instance, as this distinction is at the heart of his strategy for choosing mics. However, despite the inherent difficulties involved in actually describing Stavrou's approach in a written form, these chapters do make genuinely exciting reading, and should certainly inspire any recordist to re-assess their mic technique.

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to mixing, a lot of emphasis is placed on the less tangible elements of the process, and this is the book's greatest strength in my opinion. For a start, Stavrou structures his mixing sessions to separate left-brain and right-brain tasks, thus avoiding interruptions to the creative flow. He then goes on to suggest a variety of ways to get your subconscious mind working for you, and also reveals some unusual tactics for keeping your objectivity while making critical mix balancing decisions.

Some may find the book's structure and presentation a little haphazard, and a number of the justifications Stavrou offers for his techniques might raise an eyebrow, but the sheer quantity of inspirational practical guidance — much of it unavailable elsewhere to my knowledge — more than makes up for this. I would heartily recommend this book to any SOS reader, and it has already earned a permanent place on my studio shelf alongside such well-thumbed tomes as Bob Katz's Mastering Audio and Howard Massey's Behind The Glass.