@Draven Grey when I was young, there was essentially a "mono-market" (or pretty close to it) and while the market was gate-kept by the major labels, once you were through the gate, market access to "the masses" was relatively easy. Now, the market is so fragmented that it is hard to assess "the masses" with or without a label, unless you are Taylor Swift or Drake! On the other hand, the gatekeepers are gone and like you pointed out, one does not need to access "the masses" in order to be a successful artist.

@Draven Grey Agree and Green Day is not even SoCal...they came out of the NoCal / Bay area scene!

@Draven Grey thanks for the detailed explanation! I *think* I understand but maybe you can walk me through this at our next lesson to be sure?

Well said. I am old enough to remember when allowing your song to be placed on a commercial was considered "selling out" and would lose an artist credibility and fans. Now it is a primary way for artists to make money. Times change.

Damian's point about how "the fulfilling part is the process, not the result" is spot on! I enjoy actually making the music - writing, producing, tracking, mixing, revising, etc. Fame, $, and adoration would be nice but that is not the bit that makes it worth doing.

@To the Sun It is very common to use a couple of compressors in serial on vocals. The classic chain is an 1176-style (FET) followed by an LA-2A (optical). The 1176 keeps things aggressive and in-your-face while the LA-2A smooths things out. Also, by chaining them together neither one has to work as hard so it can sound more natural, if that is what you are going for. In addition, each of the compressors brings a different sound color to the party. It is usually pretty subtle but can help add some depth. I'm not a fan of side chaining the entire mix based on the vocals. There is no reason to duck something like sub-200Hz for most modern vocals --unless you are going for some kind of pumping effect. If you really want to do this kind of thing, you are probably better off using something like Soothe which is at least only ducking problematic frequencies. That said, if there are major issues with clashing frequencies such that you want to do this across an entire mix, it is usually not a mix problem and it is more likely an arrangement problem. Take a look at moving the offending parts up or down an octave or start muting things until it sounds better. Two classic exceptions to this are kick vs bass and vocals vs electric guitars since the fundamental character of each can sometimes live in the same frequency neighborhood. In those cases, decide which is more important, and cut the other appropriately to make room.

@Draven Grey I'm always blown away by how much functionality Apple packs into Logic...very impressive. I actually have played around a bit with Groovetrack. I find it to work reasonably well but messes up enough that it is usually better for me to just re-record things to make them groovier organically. If the track is perfect except for a couple of flubs, then if I am feeling lazy and don't want to grab my instrument, I may drop into Flextime and see if I can get by with some minor repairs. It is a pretty manual process but at least it gives me control of the details. If I was doing commercial mixing, I would probably be more bothered by these kinds of time sucks.