"It sounds like A Thing!"

When you’re first starting to work on a recording, there’s often that uncomfortable and protracted first stage when it doesn’t feel like a song so much as a collection of sounds sitting next to one another. Ugh! So uncomfortable.

Shannon and I had that experience just last night, working on our new 80s kids song.

I always try at first to get as close to the original sounds as I can, including going back into the historical record and researching what synths were used, what drum sounds were used, who the mix engineer was, where they were working, what gear they had at their disposal, etc. And there’s always a lot of experimentation — trying a million sounds and discarding them, picking something close but wrong as a placeholder, that sort of thing.

So there’s always this extended period of time at the beginning of working on a song where every single one of the sounds I’ve mocked up needs either tweaking or outright replacing. It’s the worst.

But then, inevitably, there’s a moment where one of us says to the other, “Hey, this is starting to sound like A Thing!”

That’s a great place to pause. At very least, save a copy of the session file; ideally, take a break and come back later.

Otherwise, if your experience is anything like mine, you’ll over-tweak something good right out of existence. Which is arguably the only thing more frustrating than suffering through the awkward early stages.

Recognizing milestones — jamie