Everything you hear is controllable

This is both the good news and the bad news, I suppose?

Literally every single thing you hear when you’re working on a song is something that you can control.

At first, this is more in theory than in practice, I think? There was definitely a whole lot of stuff when I was starting out that I could hear but I did not have the capacity to control.

But you keep working at it, and you get better!

Part of this is that your ears improve. I can for sure hear a whole lot of things now that I wasn’t even aware of twenty years ago.

And part of it is that your equipment improves. These days that mostly means plugins, and the nuanced understanding of how to use them.

And, one day, you will realize that you have the ability to both identify and precisely control every single aspect of every sound in the music you’re working on.

And then you’re … what … free? More burdened? I’m not sure. I think it’s both, at times. There’s no one I can pass the buck to in my work now — I have everything I need. Which also means that my areas of responsibility have dramatically increased from where they were in simpler times.

I wouldn’t exchange it … also, sometimes it feels like an overwhelming amount of responsibility. My basic job description is that I identify and dramatically signal-boost the emotion in songs … it’s a lot to take on, some days. As a lot of us are, I’m sensitive.

With great power comes great responsibility — jamie