Slight policy change
KeithHandy posted in Featured Posts on November 26th, 2007
Did you get the memo?
Actually, slight procedure change, but “policy” sounded more authoritative. It has to do with managing the large quantities of music in progress on my hard drive. There are some older posts that I’m too lazy to dig up and link to, but anyway, they featured photos of my whiteboard with all the songs and post-it-notes describing what to do next. This has sort of worked, and I’ll keep using it, but I haven’t stuck to it 100%.
The new procedure doesn’t replace the old procedure; instead it’s supplemental. And most importantly, it will be good for my peace of mind. When I’m working on mixes, I have a bad habit of not actually mixing. By this I mean, I’m so focused on shifting things around on the timeline, cutting noise out from inbetween phrases, and generally tweaking the performances, with the idea in mind that I’ll actually worry about mixing after all that has been completely taken care of. The problem with this is that it leaves all my projects in a state that only I know exactly what to do with. Levels are out of whack, things that need EQ or reverb aren’t gettin’ any, and so on.
Imagine you’re a surgeon, and you’re mid-way through operating on someone. Then you take a break from this patient to operate on other people — a break lasting several months — while the patient’s body is wide open, his organs perpetually dangling. It’s a grotesque metaphor, but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.
The point is, even if there’s still plenty stuff you know you want to do, try to make the best mix you can of what you’ve got so far. Run that mix off, and back it up. Imagine there’s a possibility (’cause there is) that something could happen to either you — or your projects — before your songs are done. In the event of the unspeakable, whatever mix you run off right now could be that song’s only hope to see the light of day.
I’ve basically carried over bad (but once necessary) habits from using Cool Edit, where you can’t put a plugin on a track and adjust it any time you want down the road; any effect you apply is permanent. So it made sense to, say, avoid applying reverb until I was 100% sure I was done editing, etc.. I had to work in a very linear way. I don’t have to work so linear no more. Must take full advantage of this.
Effective immediately.
