I came across a quote last night in the most unlikely of places...a WWE documentary. WWE? Seriously? Now you can sit there and judge me...and I can also give you a complimentary RKO next time I see you ;) Seriously though, here's the quote and it hit me like a ton of bricks as it lines up perfectly with our philosophy here at Seawell Studios about Mixing and Creativity:
“Experience is the greatest inhibitor of creativity and innovation. Because you learn from experience what not to do. But it is the unbridled passion and the fearlessness to just go into something with reckless abandon, that allows you to create something from nothing. That allows you to innovate.”
So who said it? Ladies and gentlemen...his name is... Paul Heyman.
As artists, we're used to pulling inspiration from all sorts of places so just bear with me here as I reveal how a wrestling guy just dropped the mic on us.
One of the biggest motivations for me to start this blog is that I would have engineer friends that would come to me for advice when they were stuck. Over and over the only real issue was that they were hitting proverbial walls that someone else had convinced them were necessary to construct.
For example:
Friend: "Hey, how did you get that kick drum sound in "Nothing Without You?"
Me: "It had a pretty hefty boost around 75Hz and a Steven Slate sample blended in.
Friend: "I've heard you should only use subtractive EQ"
Me: "Interesting...who told you that?"
Friend: It was on a music forum
Friend: I also heard using samples was only a last resort if something went wrong during tracking.
Me: "Who said that?"
Friend: It was on a YouTube tutorial.
By now you can see where this is going. I had this conversation over and over. Once my friends realized I had used methods they had been led to believe weren't ok to achieve a sound that they were looking for, it was like a light bulb turned on.
I had the exact same experience. When I finally stopped doing things(or not doing things) because someone else had made me feel like they were either right or wrong...I finally broke through and became the engineer that I wanted to be. When I decided to LISTEN and respond accordingly instead of THINKING about what such and such said in a forum post or a tutorial, I finally got it.
Before you watch another video or read another post about EQing or Compressing in a certain way because it is "the right way," do this....research the person that is giving that advice and go listen to their work. If you like what you hear, proceed. If their work sounds "ok" or "good enough" then taking that advice will probably give you the same results. As a matter of fact it would be a good time to hear some of my work here. Like what you hear? Cool. Not for you? That's cool as well.
I'm not ok with "ok." I want to be great...and I want to help you be great.
Seawell Studios is a studio of course…but it is also a blog, a community, a YouTube Channel, etc... so it may seem like a strange place to go on a rant about home studio/pro audio forums and tutorials since that's part of the business we're in. Hear me out though. My only hope is that whatever advice you seek from here on out, that it will be just that....advice....but not dogma. Methods and rules can certainly be helpful but please don't ever feel like you can't do something because someone else gave you the impression that it is the wrong way of doing it. This is art, it is subjective. When we write a song we seemingly pull something out of thin air. It's one of the truly magical things in life. I believe the engineering side of things can be just as creative and spiritual if we'll remove these self-imposed limitations and allow it to be.
I'm asking The Seawell Studios community to do this: Be bold. Compress something harder in a mix this week than you may have previously been told was "ok." Boost the crap out of an EQ because it gives you the exact sound you're looking for. On the flip side, do the complete opposite if that's what the song you're working on calls for.
LISTEN....REALLY LISTEN and RESPOND ACCORDINGLY.
-Josh Seawell