Just like a funnel

Following is a thought experiment concerning the recording process.

Let's use rough approximations and take a look at what is creating sound during a song. We'll deal with one radiating side only on the drums.

While playing a simple beat the drummer employs roughly 700 square inches of radiating area. If the bass player uses a cabinet with 4x10" speakers he/she will use 314in^2. A 2x12" guitar cabinet will use 226in^2. Ignoring the vocalist the total area is 1,240in^2.

Each cabinet in a standard shelf mount stereo will probably have a 6" woofer and a 1" dome tweeter. The stereo has a total radiating area of 58in^2.

We're basically trying to ram 1240in^2 of sound producing area through a 58in^2 hole.

In some respects the recording process is just like a funnel.

How do we make this work?

Usually by making sure instruments stay in their own octave lanes.

Say what?

Place your ear close to a cymbal after it's been hit and you will hear a bass note. You don't need low frequencies from cymbals in your mix so nuke them. Grab the high pass control and crank up the cutoff frequency until you can hear a difference. Repeat this for the guitars. There is an amazing amount of non harmonic low frequency thumping generated by a 6 string guitar that will mask the kick drum and bass guitar. Turn down the guitars and listen to the vocals while slowly raising the level of the bass guitar. Is the bass getting in the way? Carve a spot for the lower vocal register out of the bass. Do the same with the 6/7/8/5,000 string guitar part. Don't be surprised if you crank up the rolloff to 150Hz before hearing a difference.

Pick an instrument that should have treble and limit the treble club to one instrument. If every instrument has "air" (WTF does that mean anyway?) then the mix will be shrill and annoying. Pick an instrument to occupy the 6kHz presence domain. Kick everyone else out of the domain.

Your methodical efforts will result in a mix that will become cleaner and more likely to retain the character of the original instruments. The idea is to give each instrument its own space.

Our 6" speaker will then have less work to do and will be able to reproduce the mix more accurately.

Sarcasm Alert:

Your next trick will be to squash the mix completely and thoroughly such that your modern digital (90dB+ dynamic range) recording sounds like a 1960's car commercial.

BUYTHISCARORYOURDICKWILLFALLOFFANDYOU'LLNEVERGETLAIDAGAIN!!!!!!

They've got truffles!! Cool!!!