If you know anything about flying, there’s a saying “flying on instruments” which basically means that you’re flying your plane not based on what you see with your eyes outside of the plane but what you see on your instrument panels. This is done simply because our senses can fool us. If a plane flips upside down, we wouldn’t know it unless we looked at the panel.
So what about music? Do we produce music based on what we see on our meters (EQ, gain, etc) or do we produce music based on what we hear with our ears? I’ve given this subject a little thought and I’m going to put in my two cents in this article. I hope you get something out of it.
First off, what exactly is it that we’re trying to do when we produce our music? That’s a very good question in itself because our goals can be different. And if our goals are different, won’t that make the way we go about the production different?
Let me give you an example.
Take that classic from 1972 by Derek and the Dominos, “Layla.” The original was very hard rocking. It had a big sound and the second part of the song, with the guitar solo, had a very ambient sound to it. It wasn’t in your face.
Now, zoom ahead to the unplugged remake done in 1992. The song was considerably slowed down, played on acoustic guitar and had a more in your face “unprocessed” sound. The recordings had nothing in common as far as how they were made and yet it was essentially the same song.
Okay, I wasn’t in the control room during either of these recordings so I have no idea if the sound engineers used their ears, instruments or a combination of both, but I do know that we got two completely different results out of the same song. That tells me that a “robotic” way of going about engineering a song can’t be the best way. Otherwise, the engineer would have just said, “Let’s just process this like the original because that’s what people are used to.”
And that’s the key phrase here, “used to.”
Did you ever sit down and think to yourself why certain kinds of songs always seem to have the same kind of sound to them, more or less? This can’t be anymore obvious in dance music. Go ahead. Listen to just about any dance tune that you’ll hear in a club. They all sound the same, production wise. Even something as innocuous as “Shoegazing” has a very distinct sound to it. The vocals are all processed the same way with that dreamy kind of ethereal feel. You get the impression that when the engineer sits down to mix this stuff, there’s a formula on his desk that has a list of EQ, compression and reverb settings and he just pulls them up.
I mean let’s face it. If we look at our own DAWs and pull up any of the effects processors that come with it, or even any third party processors that we purchased, what do they ALL come with? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with P and ends with S and it’s not panties.
Presets.
Every effects processor, synth and what have you comes with presets. You don’t even have to use your imagination anymore. Making a dance track? Just pull up your compressor and plug in the preset that’s labeled “dance master” or “fat dance master.” Same thing with your limiters. There’s a preset in them for every occasion.
In short, we can probably mix our tracks without having to hear them short of just making sure that the levels of each instrument aren’t totally out of whack. Beyond that, the effects processors will take care of everything just by pulling up a preset.
But I have to ask. Is that the way we “really” want to produce our music? Well, I guess it depends on who you’re producing your music for. And this is where sometimes we have to compromise our principles if we want to eat.
If a client has hired us to do a soundtrack for him and he expects the track to have a certain sound, you’re pretty much locked in to the industry “standard” for that sound. Experimenting can be dangerous. If you try something different and he doesn’t like it, you have to go back to the drawing board and start over. And trying something different means not totally depending on your meters. They’re already telling you what your song is “supposed” to sound like based on the levels. But what do your ears tell you?
So what if everything seems perfectly compressed and sterile? Maybe you want to do something a little different. Maybe you want the snare to be a little more pronounced than it would normally be for this type of tune. Maybe you think it needs less reverb or more compression. Maybe you want to be totally crazy and run it through a phaser.
If you take your standard sound and do something totally unique and off the wall with it, your instruments aren’t going to help you much. In fact, they’ll probably tell you that your EQ around 5K is too high or your limiter isn’t clipping enough. But what do your ears tell you? Do you like the way it sounds even though it’s not the norm for the type of music you’re producing?
Creativity begins with taking your meters and tossing them out the window. Sure, you don’t want the gain to go into the red because that makes a distorted ugly sound. But what if that’s the sound you’re looking for? Maybe we want a recording so hot that it makes people take notice? I used to record way into the red back in the 80s because I wanted that distorted sound on some of my tracks. I liked the way it sounded. Now, everything sounds so sterile and predictable.
Use your meters. But for crying out loud, if you really want to create something, use your ears too.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim