[cerberus]

i don't find many "sweet spots" on my tools when mastering, the "sweet spots" for me are found entirely in the music, i use the tools to find them, and act on them... the magic setting is never the same for every song. i locate ugly elements and miniminze them likewise with the same tools. so any "sweet spots" don't seem to be on the tools.
i like my tools, but the correctness i try to achieve in mastering is obviously not coming from them. (except for when i've been using renbass lately; technically, it is a synthesis process).

i'm more interested in exploring how to control phase rotation at the moment and reluctant to use a dedicated eq in mastering, only lately as a last resort. dedicated eq has not always gotten me "to the church on time[alignment]". when i try, often there's lots of collateral damage to fix... can become a "circular" or recursive process, like a quagmire for me.

i am comfortable with my tools, but every one of them is a filter. it's really the mix engineer's job to balance their mix...i've usually got my hands full trying to preserve it since every process i might use also does some filtering. i'd rather not mess with the idea of changing the mix eq direclty with an eq "move" if i don't think i absolutely need to. and then i'll print the eq process in reverse to satisfy my desire not to smear transients futher in the same direction, which is an effect of i.i.r. eq.

could we talk about phase rotation more? i think the little labs box may be inappropriate for mastering, but it's the only thing out there that seems dedicated to the task; mix engineers claim it is very powerful and effective.

jeff dinces