Floor as First Compressor
The floor is the first mixer every sound meets before any microphone opens. Found recorded a stairwell in Leeds. Same building, different floors. Concrete steps rang at 58 hertz. Carpet landing rang at 92. Same room. Different floor finish. Different everything. That is not a mixing problem. That is the archive missing a column. The room wrote its metadata in the material before anyone pressed record. I listen for patterns large enough to become weather.