Optical compression absolutely rocks. It's transparent to the important transients of the signal and makes things really lively and warm. I use a lot of it on my vocals to get them to stand out (among other tricks up my sleeve for sweet vocal presence). Most plugin compressors, usually those included with DAWs are very flat and clinical do the basic job of levelling out peaks in comparison. It would probably be hard to make a compressor plugin that does the vintage presence thing.
At the end of the day, our songs are road tested. It's part of the Fragmenta sound to always have that raw edge of live musicianship no matter how polished the production. We don't ever want to be one of those bands that can only track songs part by part, then struggle to match the standard live that they set for themselves in the studio. We wanted to make a statement about how real modern metal should sound and that you don't need to be a purely 'line-in' band or fly out and pay millions to a big name producer for it.
The guitars are virtually unchanged from what went straight to tape aside from some subtle settings on the outboard and minor eq for it to perfectly fit in the mix. It was one of those moments when I plugged in and immediately had that feeling just about every fellow forumite has had at one point or another (maybe more often if you're Jerry) "Oh HELL yeah... THIS is the sound!" rather than fighting an uphill battle. Whoever said that turning up and letting rip makes you feel like you're so well endowed you need to tuck your c*ck into your pocket was right on the money. Get that sound happening and it's smooth sailing from there.
It's also a principle I adhere to as a producer in that it's got to sound how it should before the mics even start getting set up (so obviously the same went for the drums, bass guitar and so on). One often forgets, the first step of recording doesn't involve recording at all.
We were having peoples jaws drop the floor and their bodies smashing together in the crowds before we ever had a record out and we'll never forget that. Our first record has pretty tight performances and the levels for each instrument are just about perfect. It was also raw-edged, particularly the guitar tones. A little less smooth and more of a Godflesh type crunch with the grinding highs but very thrashy.
Example;
. I totally understand what you're saying about getting the round right first and then worrying about capturing. There was a saying that was popular on the Sneap forum that applies here -- can't polish a turd!
