[Bob Womack]

It's all a compromise. You either give at one end or the other. You either spend for proper room treatment, and we are talking, as Doug said, thousands of dollars, or you have to adjust your microphone technique to eliminate room sound. In the former case you can work way out with a mic but in the latter you have to pull in the mics and learn to deal with proximity effect through EQ. Frankly, bass tilt-up is not the worst problem in the world if you learn proper EQ techniques or use mics with high-pass filters and learn to take advantage of them.

There was a time when amongst the recording techniques there were a couple that were at absolutely at odds - the California school and the British school. The California school developed a purist reputation where they would spend inordinate amounts of time trying to record without any EQ, crossovers, or processing - it was called the "straight wire" theory: nothing between the mic and recorder except esoteric wire, and make sure you kept the wire straight. Members of the British school giggled that while the California engineers were still scratching their chins and thinking their esoteric thoughts, the British engineers had chosen mic and preamp and spun up a few EQ knobs to create a killer sound.

In my own little world its a hybrid: we've got some killer mics and preamps, I'm in properly designed studio with a killer control room and monitor system, but I'm not afraid to use the EQ and processing as needed. And that has to be in your mind when you attempt to match the quality of a perfect recording by an experienced engineer in perfect room with perfect gear.

Bob