Youre a good man, Larry, I like how you set the example to share and take (or dont take) others shared opinions. I will have to be more like that myself.
I have a plug-in on the backing style called Bx_opto which is some kind of peak reduction unit.
Thats almost the definition of compression... lol
In the end, we all hear differently and have different goals, so I say go with what sounds good to you. The one thing that I did fairly frequently in the past (and this is a bad habit) is to make countless adjustments and changes and get lost in the mixing process.
A new habit (and I feel is a good one) is to step away from the screen for an hour or two and come back to the mix. Coming back with fresh ears helps me a lot and finally the best thing that I have done lately, and I think this shows up nicely in my latest video, is using the KISS method.
Keeping it short and simple with clear goals defined before the mixing process starts, helped me make that video, literally in something like 3 hours start to finish. The audio end of this all took me no more than 20 minutes! After I made the music side, I took an hour off for something to eat, then litened to it once more... bumped up the accordion 1 DB then I exported it and dumped the audio in to the video editor, set up the dual cams as I liked and synced things up, and exported. I was done. This is a big difference over the entire weekends that I would spend on those 5 minute videos!
I like the way the workflow functioned all to my advantage, and I think that instead of just winging it as I did in the past, I had 3-4 clear goals and made sure I achieved each goal without searching or playing too long with any part of the process like EQ, reverb, compression, or whatever. This is going to be my new way of working in the future on the more important projects.
Quick question for you Larry... before you make any recording or video, do you kind of produce it in your head, knowing what you want to see and hear before you start? If so, do you write any of this down? Finally, how close does what you see in your head come to your final product?
Thanks!