I own Sonnox’s Oxford Inflator plugin. If you’ve ever used it you know it has some kind of unicorn dust sprinkled into its code because it generally makes mixes better when slapped on the stereo bus.
After owning this plugin for quite a few years, I took it upon myself to read the manual. Wouldn’t you know it, I wasn’t using this plugin in the way it was intended and so I had actually retired it from my mastering workflow.
Now that’s goofy.
Why Don’t We Read The Manual?
For me, audio plugins are relatively inexpensive compared to hardware. They also won’t cause damage or bodily injury if you don’t read how to use them. BUT you’re actually getting less than what you paid for if you don’t read the manual.
Maybe there’s some hubris too, “I know how a compressor works!”. But as the Dunning-Krueger curve indicates, that’s not how experts think.
Take Away: Instead of browsing for NEW shiny plugins on your phone, download the manual for one of your plugins. Read all the manuals for your plugins (even the stock audio plugins for your DAW). Summarise and take notes on specific techniques and use cases so you can reference them later (yes, I do this).
You’ve spent the money, now get the entire value out of those 1s and 0s someone spent a lot of time getting just right.
0 Comments