4 Jul
2005
4 Jul
'05
1:02 p.m.
On Mon, Jul 04, 2005 at 11:10:17AM +0100, tim hall wrote:
I have to disagree with that last statement. To me over-produced is
over-processed. [...] I am all
too familiar with watching a song die in the studio due to it having been
rehearsed to death before we began, then the writer decides to change an
important part of the arrangement five minutes before the red light goes on.
Then the engineer decides to compress the life out of the bass, drums and
vocals. By the time the keyboard player has done the 43rd Hammond take, the
band has lost interest. All the vocals go down flat because the producer is
obsessive about matching vowel sounds and timing, using extreme editing and
pitch correction, where none was needed. This style of arranging/production
frequently fails to come up with a final mix as there is always something to
fix or add, basically because you didn't get it right the first time.
[...]
tim hall
--- --- ---
Yeah, I agree. And the trouble with obsessive/compulsive perfectionism
is that the harder you try, the more imperfection you see. After enough
of this, the entire creative project can seem irredeemably flawed and
can lose its value in the eyes of its creator.
The trick, from my point of view, is to adjust one's focus away from the
creative product itself--whether it be a visual or aural or some other
form of art piece--and keep one's attention on the ideal that is the reason
for trying to create the product in the first place, and strive toward
as faithful a representation of that ideal as can be achieved.
Another trick, again from my point of view, is to look at a project
*subjectively* rather than objectively, to look at it "from the inside
out," so to speak, rather than from the outside in: to place one's
consciousness within the creative project rather than viewing it as
though it were something external to oneself.
--sorry for getting "philosophical" ;-)
-sd
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Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.
-Chuang-Tzu
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