how objective can you be about your own material?

[heatmiser]

This has been bugging me on and off for a while and I'm curious what others think...

Do you ever find yourself very satisfied with a recording immediately after the final mixdown and maybe for days after, then you revisit it months or years later and it sounds kinda crappy? Maybe some pitch or timing issue(s) jumps out at you that you never noticed before, or maybe stylistically you just wonder what you were thinking at the time?

Or the reverse - (less common) you are really bummed about the mix, set it aside and long afterward you dig it up, give it a spin, and lo and behold...it sounds kick ass?

I am wondering how objective one can be about the quality of one's own recordings when my own opinion of them seems to vary sometimes drastically over time...

Do you find that time is an important factor in recording / mixing...(taking time off that is)? I know this is all so subjective, but it really doesn't happen for me with other people's recordings. My initial impression of anyone else's music normally doesn't change much over time.

 

[Massive Master]

The worst recordings I've ever made were of my own material.

That said - If you go back - WAY back - 25 years ago, when I didn't have enough rope to hang myself with and I was "playing it safe" with pretty much everything, those recordings sound quite decent (but the talent was a little short).

 

[heatmiser]

Hmmm...not exactly encouraging, but I wasn't looking for encouragement, just honesty...so, thank you.

 

[iqi616]

Do you ever find yourself very satisfied with a recording immediately after the final mixdown and maybe for days after, then you revisit it months or years later and it sounds kinda crappy? Maybe some pitch or timing issue(s) jumps out at you that you never noticed before, or maybe stylistically you just wonder what you were thinking at the time?

This is what rookies often experience.

Or the reverse - (less common) you are really bummed about the mix, set it aside and long afterward you dig it up, give it a spin, and lo and behold...it sounds kick ass?

This is what everyone else experiences.

I think it's because when you begin it's just amazing hearing it all come back at you and it's only later you spot the problems, but when your ears get more educated a kind of perfectionism sets in where minor imperfections get blown out of proportion in your mind. It often takes a while to distance yourself from a recording.

Even then, you often end up clinging to recordings where you overcame significant challenges to get a reasonable mix and overlook better recordings that almost "mixed themselves".

 

[Massive Master]

Hmmm...not exactly encouraging, but I wasn't looking for encouragement, just honesty...so, thank you.

Objectivity is any engineer's best friend. On my side of things, it's the reason that most engineer's won't master their own recordings (I won't master my own mixes either for that matter, although I have a few times in the past).

When you're working on your own music, you have a battle going on in your brain between what you actually hear and what you "think" or "want to" hear. The song is "done" in your head and it's very easy to think the sounds you have are just right and the mix is all wonderful - Until someone else is in the room and notices that you have the kick muted.

That's an extreme, of course - But it's happened more times than I can count. You thought you heard it - It was on 'in your head' - It just wasn't on. That "Metallica" guitar sound in your head might sound more like Metallica through a set of stereo speakers to an outside ear.

In most cases, people working together feed off each other and are stronger than any individual alone.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not, never have, etc., etc., etc. said that someone can't make great recordings on their own. But I can say from experience as a professional musician (back when I had long hair and good looks) that recordings I performed on were almost always better when someone else was worrying about the mechanics and specifics and I was free to concentrate on performance and musical creativity.

 

[gecko zzed]

When you're working on your own music, you have a battle going on in your brain between what you actually hear and what you "think" or "want to" hear.

For me there are two seemingly contradictory forces at work:
1 you don't hear what you should hear; and
2 you hear what you don't need to hear.

Point 1 is a corollary of your point: your brain fools you into thinking that what you hear in your head is actually what your ears are hearing, and you sometimes don't pick up on things (such as being offkey, or racing ahead of the beat, or thinking the sound is 'this' when it is 'that').

Point 2 is where you spend ours sweating over some aspect of the recording that makes no material difference to the overall sound (e.g. an unplanned phrase in a lead break . . . it's not what you necessarily wanted, but actually has no impact on the effectiveness of the song.

To be objective requires you to remove somehow the emotional investment you have in a song, but that can be hard to do. Time helps . . . going back to it after not listening for a couple of weeks can reveal the things that you should have noticed back then. But the things you often fretted about will become invisible.

 

[Whatmysay]

Objective is not a line your cross - I think the question to ask is can you be objective enough? By enough I mean to benefit yourself as a performer, composer, engineer and/or producer?

To subjectively state that all you do is perfect, or alternative is terrible will not develop your capacity.

I think objectivity is achieved by carrying around in our heads the voices of those peers and mentors who have shown us a better way to do something or a system that helps productively distance us from our work.

As noted above collaboration is fantastic 'The Wisdom of Crowds' is always greater than the smartest individual in the group. That said if others are not available then the memory of their advice or wisdom is a form of internalised collaboration and develops our objectivity.

The real question is are you objective enough to evolve? If you think so, then being more objective is a waste of time - if you are evolving then you work will follow.

 

[gecko zzed]

'The wisdom of crowds", though, is fairly specific about the type of crowd that is wise, and notes four conditions: "(1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions".

There are unhealthy crowds as well: group think, mob rule, cliques and so on. And to be able to call upon the wisdom of a crowd (peers and mentors) means having confidence in that crowd. For example, how confident are we here of the members in this forum? Does, for example, the anti-Behringer school represent wisdom or bias?

But I do agree that diversity of opinion is important, and being able to harness that diversity to add gems to your cultural ragbag is an important way of broadening your own expertise and knowledge. And with that widening horizon you can be in a better position to assess your own efforts.

,

 

[Dani Pace]

I think most of us are more likely to be critical of our own work more than we are of others. I usualy find it a lot easier to record someone else than to record myself. Maybe we set our goals too high or just expect too much but it's hard to be satisfied with a project when we know we can do better. I find that I am rarely happy with my recordings of myself imediately after I finish a track. I often find a few days later I can seperate myself from the performance so I can listen to the track(s) objectively. Maybe I just pick things apart and notice the little imperfections rather than hearing the project as a whole like the average listener would. Sometimes we have to listen from a different perspective in order to hear what others hear. It's hard to be three people at once, performer, engineer and objective listener. Time seems to help seperate the three.

 

[heatmiser]

I think it's because when you begin it's just amazing hearing it all come back at you and it's only later you spot the problems, but when your ears get more educated a kind of perfectionism sets in where minor imperfections get blown out of proportion in your mind. It often takes a while to distance yourself from a recording.

Good points...thank you. I think personally, my standards initally are somewhat low. As a long time rookie, I continue to be amazed when I playback all of the tracks together for the first time and they don't completely suck...I think for some reason time is the key here. After a certain period of time, I seem to gain perspective and perhaps hear it more the way others do when they initially listen.

 

[heatmiser]

When you're working on your own music, you have a battle going on in your brain between what you actually hear and what you "think" or "want to" hear. The song is "done" in your head and it's very easy to think the sounds you have are just right and the mix is all wonderful - Until someone else is in the room and notices that you have the kick muted.

Very interesting MM...sort of like projection...like dating a pretty woman who isn't very nice...you have in your mind what kind of person you want her to be and project those qualities on to her...kind of scary actually. My hope is that merely being aware that this may happen and by reading and writing about these potential issues, I will be better able to avoid them.

 

[heatmiser]

For me there are two seemingly contradictory forces at work:
1 you don't hear what you should hear; and
2 you hear what you don't need to hear.

Point 1 is a corollary of your point: your brain fools you into thinking that what you hear in your head is actually what your ears are hearing, and you sometimes don't pick up on things (such as being offkey, or racing ahead of the beat, or thinking the sound is 'this' when it is 'that').

Point 2 is where you spend ours sweating over some aspect of the recording that makes no material difference to the overall sound (e.g. an unplanned phrase in a lead break . . . it's not what you necessarily wanted, but actually has no impact on the effectiveness of the song.

To be objective requires you to remove somehow the emotional investment you have in a song, but that can be hard to do. Time helps . . . going back to it after not listening for a couple of weeks can reveal the things that you should have noticed back then. But the things you often fretted about will become invisible.

Cool...point 1 is reinforcing what MM mentioned above, but point 2 is perhaps a subtle one that I'd not thought of before...thanks.

 

[heatmiser]

Objective is not a line your cross - I think the question to ask is can you be objective enough? By enough I mean to benefit yourself as a performer, composer, engineer and/or producer?

The real question is are you objective enough to evolve? If you think so, then being more objective is a waste of time - if you are evolving then you work will follow.

I agree about the value of alternate viewpoints, but found these two parts the most illuminating. I know this was a rhetorical question, but yes, I think I may have enough objectivity to evolve (maybe just enough?)...I say this because in general, if I go back and listen to past work of my own, I perceive a slow but steady improvement in a variety of areas over time. If I was completely subjective about it, I would expect to make the same errors repeatedly over time and not improve measurably. The speed with which we evolve is maybe another issue (patience), but I think it is essential to think we are at least making some kind of progress and not just randomly spewing out alternately good and bad material...

 

[Whatmysay]

The speed with which we evolve is maybe another issue (patience), but I think it is essential to think we are at least making some kind of progress and not just randomly spewing out alternately good and bad material...

I think this is what being a 'reflective practitioner' is all about. The objectivity bring some order to the randomness and adds value to the next time we work.