Rail: Most plug-ins don't come close to their hardware counterparts - do you believe they ever will? I know they can be useful if you accept them on their own terms, but can they match the hardware?

George: I believe in my heart and my ear and my brain that my digital EQ comes very close to my analog EQ. I believe that my analog EQ has some artifacts that have been VERY hard to get rid of over the years, but you've got to remember I designed this shit because I had a sound in my head, not some marketer's dream for a lot of dough… and I’ve STILL got this sound in my head that I'm trying to snare.

Oh yeah, the point. Which is that the data domain is a richer development environment right now, and certainly a bigger, hipper sandbox.

Harvey Gerst: When you DO track to digital, how close to 0 dBFS do you go?

George: It depends on how hip the overload is on my A/D's. Generally, I try to get the sound RIGHT at the tracking session, a trick from the old days. (Hey, Harvey, YOU remember the old days, don't you?)

That means that sometimes you've got to go for it, level-wise, sometimes you've got to lop off those tiny little hair-line peaks, that hair, to get down to the meat of the sound, the music.

Jeez, I realize I didn't answer your question. I pound the shit out of level - how’s that??

Tom B: OK, here is a change of direction. Do the acoustics of the "best" room change depending on type of music?

George: Wellllll. Yes and no. I think that rooms have resonances, and that certainly certain modes, and certain keys, excite one room differently than another, and if a room is washier, and more reverberant, then it's going to flatter classics, particularly choral music, more than it serves rock and roll, but the room itself doesn't really change, does it? (Except with temperature and humidity...)

Dave D: IIR? FIR?

George: IIR = infinite impulse response. FIR = finite impulse response.

Harvey Gerst: Since we're on EQ, how much EQ do you use while tracking, as opposed to EQing during mixdown?

George: Whatever it takes. A lot. None. I fear I don’t keep track. Hey, remember what Al Schmitt said - "I just turn the knobs until it sounds right."

Mike Martin: Here is a question that you probably get asked all the time. What do you think about sample rates, especially 96k and above? Is it just hype? Clearly converters are getting better all the time, but can you really hear a difference or is it just the quality of A/D's that are better?

George: This is a black hole of a subject. I'm going to refer you to the many threads on the Internet regarding high sample rates. For now, I can tell you that I work both sides of the street...like the very best hooker...

On one hand, I can point to no listening test that can reveal sine-wave response in the human ear above 18-20hHz. On the other hand, I have never -repeat never - heard the high strings on a fiddle, or a loud trumpet with a Harmon mute recorded and reproduced properly. And THESE INSTRUMENTS each have a characteristic such that there is measurable HF above 20kHz.

In the case of a trumpet (think Miles) with a Harmon mute, I've seen spectra (Boyk's comes to mind) that have partials out to 100kHz and a harmonic at 40-50kHz. That's as hot as the fundamental. So, I'm a little on the fence. I would point to Bob Katz's work in listening evaluation, but, let's get into that later. All I want to do right now is to force everybody out there to have questions, at least until something's proven.