pinkjimiphoton

i beg to differ on fuzz.. while some do have the buzzsaw effect (particularly if the guitarist doesn't know why there's knobs on their guitar) a fuzz can be far more versatile than an overdrive or a distortion, because it's interactive with the guitar. most dirt boxes will just get muddy when you turn your guitar down, and the distortion change is minimal. do it with a decent fuzzface, and you will get myriad shades of tonal colors, from "cleaner than clean" to all out filth. of course it is relative to the player, but tho distortion and overdrive pretty much sound like what they are, fuzz is a completely different animal. peace.

hi craig, great article (as usual)... you touched on something i've done too, normalizing phrase by phrase, which i've done for years. i tend to like open source audacity, but pretty much any daw you can use my trick. instead of normalizing, which can add noise, try this trick: use the amplify tool/command, and DE-amplify stuff with it... that way, you can nuke volume issues, with less noise.. and further, you can use it on individual spikes...instead of a compressor or limiter, just de-amplify it... you can zero in on problem spots, and turn them down. i used this a lot to be able to get insanely loud mixes without adding noise, or transient spikes i'd get from using plugins. i know it sounds stupid, but try it sometime, it works.. if you have a spike somewhere, just zoom in on the waveform, highlight it, and turn it down 4 to 6 db, or whatever it takes... kinda like manual compression. peace! pinkjimiphoton