I've recently had the pleasure of spending a little less time behind a desk and a little more on my feet with a guitar in hand. My old faithful Fender Custom Shop Nocaster has emerged from it's case and I've been practicing and rehearsing with it quite happily. This week I set down to record a few basic guitar tracks and on playback noticed a sound. One of "those" sounds. It's a tiny twangy buzz  that occurs when a guitar string is touching something that it shouldn't, and it's called "sitaring" because it sounds a bit like a sitar. What's causing it is immaterial here, the point is that I've heard it, and now I can't un-hear it. It leaps out at me, I'm voicing chords to avoid the troublesome string and my string skipping is coming-on a treat. And what's this got to do with making records? Really?

I’m fairly certain that over the years I’ve read that Multi Band Compression is both “a miraculous savour of” and “an evil plague upon”, audio. Less dramatic commentators often suggest that it is something along the lines of “a useful and powerful tool that can nevertheless cause great damage ....” and various fora state unequivocally that “all mastering engineers” use them, and that “no serious ME would ever allow one in the studio” This is all very well and good, but you’ve probably got one anyway so what can you do with it?