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Originally Posted by
Trem
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By "Hidden" I simply mean everything that does not have a dedicated knob (or similar) that makes it obvious what it is, on the equipment being used.
well you mentioned a bass roll-off switch on a mic. That
is a dedicated control. You just don't understand why it's there, so it seems "unobvious" and "hidden" to you!
A checklist could at least keep you out of trouble. Your mentor says: put the switch here for vocals, here for cello, off for kick drum. Most of the time, that will be the right thing to do. Without that checklist, you will have to learn
why you put it here for cello and off for kick drum. But once you know what it does, it's so much easier to learn to hear it.
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Gear manufacturers and software designers choose what to make dedicated controls for. For someone who is "learning by doing", they will try tweaking the controls that are laid out, and try to come up with the best sound.
Well, no one is choosing to place those knobs to make it harder for you to tweak. They are placing those controls so that
people who know what those controls do can dial in what they are going for, Yes, you can reinvent the wheel, but that will take forever. Better to learn the background info.
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keyboard shortcuts
Yes, unfortunately there are no shortcuts to the shortcuts! Also, knowing the keyboard shortcut for a task is less important than knowing your DAW has some global capability in the first place. Back in the day, I got a hard-copy manual for my DAW. It was hundreds of pages. I read it from cover to cover. It took a long time, but was worth the effort.
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knowing the difference between what happens when an analog signal is pushed to distorsion to tape, vs what happens if a signal is pushed to distorsion inside a DAW.
So much of what is posted on these kinds of topics is
opinion. In deciding to use the sim or the real tape, the only opinion that matters is your own. For such things, I would say it is more about
hearing the difference vs
knowing the difference. You can make good engineering decisions without knowing the theory of exactly how coders program their tape sims.
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.. they are unaware of Sonarworks (or similar),
Plenty of people are 'aware' of it, but don't necessarily rush out to buy it. And they can still get great results. Many will say physical treatments should be prioritized.
It strikes me that some of what you think you need to learn is actual audio basic knowledge and best practices.
But there is also a fair amount of internet forum myths and marketing-induced FOMO jumbled up in there.
You will need more knowledge to even be able to make the distinction. You don't know what you don't know.
As I said earlier, there are short (and long) videos on every single individual thing - many of them free. You could pick a topic and just start watching YouTubes
a la carte. Stay away from anything made by someone selling gear or software. Or at least take it with a grain of salt.
You could also take a class. Online or at a nearby college. Since you are genuinely interested in the technical side, you will probably find it enjoyable as well as worthwhile. There are also ear-training courses you could take which go beyond learning a piece of 'information'. Certainly your question is far too broad for you to get all the answers you seek collected as posts inside this thread.
Theres a thread:
A thread for asking the things you should know by now but don't. This thread was started by someone with a very similar concept. It is now 15 years old, 220 pages, 6,500 posts. Still going strong. Even so, it probably hasn't covered "everything" one might want to ask. But reading through it might be helpful.