Overview

Part of starting over is thinking about all the things I didn't like about the way I did things before. So I thought I'd share with you a few thoughts about three things that I've felt could use some improvement over my previous efforts at this business and that I've come to think are extremely important:

• the way I've established and maintained the Median Plane in the control room,
• the installation of studio hardware in the control room,
• and the archiving and storage of all the projects we do in our studios.

These are mundane items; none of 'em will ever win a glitz award. But, like good grounding and good telephone manners, they are essential ingredients in any recipe for success in the studio business, and if you short them you are shorting yourself.

The Median Plane

We've really got to start with the Median Plane. If you want to work with anything more compelling than the crudest kind of left-right-center, grab-them-panpots-and-twist stereo, then you've got to have a viable Median Plane. While the end-user may not give a hoot and many playback environments don't even permit a viable Median Plane, you need it for two reasons:

1. Several stereo-mono incompatibility problems related to polarity are audible only on the Median Plane;

2. The various "sounds" of stereo can be heard reliably only on the Median Plane.

Critical analytical and production judgments about the quality and nature of your produced stereo image require that you listen on the Median Plane. Your recordings may sound way cool and totally fine off the Median Plane, but for a variety of technical and aesthetic issues, you need to listen to them on the Median Plane before your clients and fans listen to them under any conditions. Things sound different along the Median Plane, and you will find much there to learn about your recordings.

This article isn't the place to discuss why the Median Plane is so important. If you're curious, you might look back at some of my previous articles in Recording (The Phantom Image (8/92), Early Delays (9/92) and About Comb Filtering (2/93)). Whatever, the Median Plane in stereophony is worthy of consideration that goes beyond what we can talk about here.