Problems first, creative work second

When I’m first pulling up someone’s song to work on, what I used to do was to dive immediately into the creative part of the work. The fun stuff.

I get so inspired when I first hear someone’s work, and I start having ideas for things I might like to contribute, and I want to get started!

And, inevitably, I would find myself a day or so later with this problem: I would be basically done with the creative work — all the sound design, all the special effects, all the nitpicky volume automations — and I would realize in a thunderclap sort of way that there was A Problem.

A whole lot of the time this problem would be with the vocal. Vocals are the most difficult instrument to record and mix — the singer’s singing apparatus is constantly changing shape! And sometimes you can end up with a strident sound when the singer is pushing hard which is deeply unpleasant to hear. Piercing.

(This is very natural, and it’s typically no reflection on the singer’s talent or skill — it’s just a natural byproduct of the interaction between a voice and a microphone.)

So I would realize, when I was basically at the end of a mix, that the vocal wasn’t totally right. That it had occasional moments of stridency. And that’s a complete deal-breaker. It doesn’t matter how great the rest of a mix is if the vocal doesn’t sound 100% right throughout the entirety of the song. One weird-sounding moment can completely shatter our suspension of disbelief.

And do you know what’s about the worst possible thing to have to do in a studio situation? Trying to get the nasties out of a vocal that you thought was finished.

The corrective actions that you need to take to de-nasty-fy a vocal can change a lot of the other aspects of the vocal. The gain structure. The EQ. How it hits the compressor. The moment-to-moment perceived loudness. Meaning that you’re basically back to square one with a vocal and a mix that you thought you were finished. It sucks.

So, my takeaway: as much as I may want to jump headfirst into the creative work of a song, it’s much better to listen for, identify, and address any technical issues first. And listen with a particularly critical ear to the vocal; because the singer’s mouth shape is constantly changing over the course of the performance, the sound will be too, and odds are good that this will create anomalies that need dealing with. Particularly when the vocal is recorded in a home environment, as so many are these days.

And if I’m in the middle of working on a mix, and I notice a technical issue — I stop and deal with it right then. I don’t wait, not even a moment, because I’ve learned that if I do I will most likely see something shiny and forget. Sometimes these things take a little time to reveal themselves, and that’s okay — but I’ve learned not to delay addressing them once I’ve noticed them.

And the big upside to exercising this little bit of discipline: when I get to the end of my mix, it theoretically doesn’t have any existential problems! Which means it will have a much easier trip through mastering, because it won’t need as much problem-solving. Win/win.

Veggies first — jamie