Don't settle
I’ve grown as an engineer and producer over the last 30 years. I started off as a talented musician who got records made through sheer grit and persistence, and somewhere along the way I learned actual processes and skills.
But I’ve always made pretty good records. And the reason is the grit and persistence. I wanted to be the kind of person who made great records, so I’ve always done my best not to settle for something that isn’t great — including when I’ve run into the limitations of my skillset. I made up with time and sheer bloodymindedness what I lacked in technique.
These days I can make good records much quicker (and less haphazardly). And I can certainly make records with more ear candy and nuance. But even back in the day, I could still make good records — because I was stubborn about it, and I wasn’t willing to settle.
So that’s my simple little encouragement for you today: you don’t have to settle! You can keep coming back to the work, and re-engaging, and experimenting with new approaches. You don’t have to throw up your hands and decide that “This is the best that I can do.”
Me included, by the way. Shannon and I ran into this over the last couple of days with the new 80s kids song we’re working on. There was this one sound that we had so much trouble getting right. We worked on it for literally hours … and then we got frazzled and had to put it aside and move on. And we came back to it the next day, and realized immediately that it wasn’t where it needed to be emotionally. Ugh!
So we scrapped it, and started again. And this time we got much closer!
And then much later we went back and listened to that part of the song for the first time in a few hours, and we realized with fresh ears that it still wasn’t quite there. So we experimented some more, and arrived at adding one more layer that I think may have finally gotten it to the right emotional place?
And when we open the song tonight, we’ll see whether we were right. I hope we were! But I feel comfortable with the idea that, if it still feels anything less than perfect, we can keep at it. Eventually we’ll get it right. As long as we don’t settle.
Never stop — jamie