If processing isn't your strong suit, it's probably best left alone. A lot of the time, processing the final mix can be counter-productive to what you're actually going for. Things that may sound great in the studio may not play nicely with the air processors and adding compression and/or EQ can really hurt the product. Compressing or limiting may make something sound nice and big in the studio, but after going through multiple compression/limiting/clipping stages in the air processor, it may actually come out quieter, due to over-compression. For EQ, subtraction is almost always better than addition. Boosting the bass is one of the worst things you can do to your audio. If you subtract some of the muddy bass, your good bass will shine through. If you just crank up the bass, your production will sound quiet and flat on the air. If you boost the high-end too much, it will cause the multiband air processor to work to tame that frequency range and making your audio sound dull, like an overworked de-esser. Back to compression, you must know exactly what attack and release time to use to compliment the air processing, otherwise, you'll get that awful pumping sound. Hard limiting can be useful as long as it isn't overdone. Use it to tame the most offensive peaks, but nothing more. Unprocessed audio doesn't sound bad after going through the air processing. Processed audio, while it CAN sound better, I would say that it's done improperly about 90% of the time and it actually sounds worse. Is the station local? If you can listen, do. Try a few different things and take notes on what actually sounds best on the air.
Emmett
