Grampa: Excuse me, is that James Boyk, the pianist who teaches at Cal Tech?

George: Yes,, that's James Boyk who teaches at Cal Tech.

Rail: Digi (Digidesign) would have us mix inside the box. What are your opinions of the PT 24 bit HD mixer?

George: OH FUCK, NOT RAIL AGAIN!!! ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! I think that my pal Dave Clementson has crafted a pretty good dithered mixer. FINALLY. But it's taken years for them to admit that they needed a wider path, and that they needed dither at the 24bit level. You gotta give it to them - it's pretty counter-intuitive.

But the new mixer sounds better. How much? I dunno. People still can make a really shitty hairball of a mix on PT (Pro Tools). Just use every plug-in that you can find a Krack on, and use them on every instrument, and you'll probably have a pretty closed-down mix. My advice? Use plug-ins reluctantly. Except for mine.

rekka: It seems as though media is headed backwards as far as quality goes though. It's nice to listen to a 96k system in an ideal environment, but if the majority of "new" music listeners are "enjoying" MP3's, what's the point?

George: EXACTLY. You know, I use MP-3 a lot these days. We send out tunes, ideas, rough mixes... everything on MP-3.And,, you know, it sounds fine for what it is. You've got to remember that the median quality system has gotten much cheaper but the full-stun very-hi-fi system is just as expensive as it ever was, costs as much or more, and YOU CANNOT DO IT CHEAPER. You cannot Krack it.

So the majority of these listeners never get to hear the super-high quality reproduction that a few of us have been lucky enough to know. For them, it's about the song and the act and getting laid.

Tom B: What encoding do you mainly use for your higher quality MP3 xfers?

George: Shockwave on Bias/Peak.

Jeff Sochor: What is your home stereo/reference system composed of?

George: Mainly I have a studio system. You're not going to believe this, but upstairs in my "great room" I have NS-10's . Mainly, my wife listens to them. You've got to remember that I work 14-16 hours a day, mostly in front of the same monitors. They are basically this: SGM-10b's on Sherwood Sax custom twin120-watt fire-bottle driven amps. Genelec 1032's (5, plus a sub). Dyne BM6A's - these are on very good D/A's and I use them for dialing in lead vocals.

The Tannoys are for the joy of listening, the1032's are for multi-channel. Later next month I'm getting in new B&O speakers. (Yes, that's right, the same B&O that makes those cool turntables.) I heard them at Studio A at McGill this spring and I can tell you that the guys there have developed a new mid-hi range until that kills.

Tom B: What do you look for in a monitor system? Neutral response, or flat, or other?

George: To paraphrase Ry Cooder: I listen for JOY. Oh, and they've got to respond equally across the spectrum...

fadeout: Do you find that the visual element of working with a DAW makes it harder to listen critically or feel the music as you mix versus working on a "traditional" console?

George: YES - boy, am I glad you mentioned that. I brought this up in a panel a couple of years ago, that we're "looking" more than we're listening. You've literally got to turn your head away from the monitor sometimes to get back to how something sounds... particularly grooves. We're so tied down to "lining things up" vis a vis percussion instruments that we don't LISTEN to how the groove is leaning.

bblackwood: To steal a question from Mixerman : How do “you” know when a mix is done?