So, what led to the muddy guitar tone? An enquiry, part III

Over the past couple of days, we’ve been talking about what caused The Muddy Guitar Tone. Here’s the third culprit, as I interpreted the situation:

Artist pressure.

And this is more common than you might think!

As alluded to in the initial post, this particular artist is very attached to this particular instrument, and they want it to be on as many songs as possible. Which: fair enough! The heart wants what the heart wants. And, particularly for something relatively unusual like a tenor guitar, that strategy can make good sense. If you use an instrument that not everyone else is using, your record will sound unique and stand out, and that’s a very good thing.

But that’s absolutely not an excuse to do subpar production. If the artist wants to use a difficult instrument that you’re not used to recording, it’s your job to figure out how to make it work. And not just “work,” but really work — great part, excellent performance, killer sound, the whole nine. Because, again, there’s no room for subpar tracks in our productions — because having high standards is free.

Complicating this is the fact that artists are human, and, like us, sometimes they want to get past the pressure of recording and move on prematurely to the computer part of things. Understandable. But — and this is important — this is where you need to exercise your kindest-yet-firmest soft skills. You and the artist both want the same thing: to make a great recording. But sometimes the impulse can be to do a couple takes and move on — to get clear of that performance anxiety. But if you don’t feel like you have the right take yet — be it part, performance, or sound — you’ve gotta keep going.

And this can be hard to navigate! A good strategy that I use a lot is “Let’s keep that one, and experiment with a different approach on another track.” Nine times out of ten the fact of having a decent take saved safely off to the side will remove that performance anxiety for the artist, and they’ll get to somewhere much better. Also, if your spidey sense is telling you that the artist’s patience for this particular part is wearing thin, then I would suggest moving on for the moment, and then returning to it later in a free moment. Let their subconscious work on it a bit in the interim.

When an artist has something they really want to try, the bottom line for me is that I do everything in my power to help them execute it in a way that sounds great. If I can’t do that, then it’s my responsibility as the person in charge to help them realize that it isn’t working in a way that’s up to our high standards, and to help them move on from the idea. Because, while every idea should for sure be explored, not every idea ultimately works. And it’s important to be able to recognize the difference. Indeed, it’s your responsibility.

Epilogue

For the record, my production mentee figured it out! They were able to use some of the EQing and distortion tricks we discussed at the beginning of the “muddy guitar” series to get the badly-recorded sound in line. And, more importantly, they got themselves up to speed regarding the hi-Z input on their interface, so that the incoming tenor guitar sound will be way better when they record it for subsequent songs. Win/win.

The best things in life are free — jamie