In Part I, we covered the realization of how we can obtain our reference of an acoustical source. We realized that every room is an important part of this highway that we're travelling on and no matter what avenue we take, we should be able to come back to the highway. In other words, to recap, every room should have the flexibility to fundamentally sound like all the other rooms that are being used in the process of listening. This is the only way to preserve and maintain the reference. Once we've established the reference we wish to maintain, we begin to involve the production side and then finally the playback side.

When a microphone records a musical instrument, or any source, it is picking up the air pressure and space of the environment along with the instrument itself. If a piece of dampening material or reflective material or another instrument or even another person is in that acoustical space, it will be transferred into the recording control room. This is how we create the reference, or the way we want the musical instrument to sound, before any effects are added. Now, remember, when you are listening in your control room through the microphone, you should be able to hear the instrument itself as interpreted by the microphone, the microphone cable, the line conditioning and all of the equipment, including the playback monitors, to give you their interpretaion of what has just been passed. The "coloration" that you now hear is part of the reference. If yuo wish to achieve the exact sound in your control room as in the live studio recording facility (i.e., likewise,the practice room, the performance hall), you must have an audio reproduction system that now becomes an extension of the instrument itself. You may want to refer to the articles that I have written on preserving the electronic signal. To give you a synopsis, the same principles that we applied acoustically and mechanically, apply electronically. But, now instead of it being only acoustical and mechanical, it is now acoustical, mechanical and electrical. If the signal is squelched or dampened in the recording control room, it will now sound less "live" than our previously determined reference. To be able to obtain this judgement, it is best to make a recording reference sample without acoustical alternations in the recording "live" room first, then apply the equipment, product mounting, electronic control and variable tuning methods to the equipment and monitors until you are satisfied that the control room sounds like the performance area. Then feel free to apply and change your acoustical judgments on the instrument itself. This will guarantee that you are preserving your reference. If, at this point, the signal sounds dull, constrained or peaky and does not have the same harmonic balance as our reference did "live", we know that we have squelched the signal with dampening. If the signal is bigger than the original reference and disembodied, then we know that the electronic parts are not in tune with each other. Once these two criterias are met, and again I refer you to an article called "Tuning Your System", you now can make judgment calls to suit your personal taste. If your system is finely tuned, acoustically, mechanically and electrically, you are able to hear the recording techniques and values of any recording. Keep in mind that the more tunable your system is, the more flexibility you have to adapt to any not only prerecorded material, but any judgment calls that you prefer to make for your own listening desires.