← Journal · From the studio
Every mistake I made while making this album (and the ones I'd make again)
Around 2019, I began a new journey. I decided to take a day off work each week to focus on music.
With a blank canvas, I began putting ideas down — no expectations, no direction.
I started messing around with the free synth in Pro Tools, initially just using it as a drone behind my usual guitar, bass, and drums. Suddenly, a world opened up that I didn’t know I needed. I fell headfirst into the rabbit hole of synthesizers. I started experimenting with drum loops. I didn’t have time to write lyrics — ideas were moving too fast. Eventually, the CPU became my limitation, so I upgraded my studio setup.
I was getting ideas down as quickly as possible. I wanted to work fast so I didn’t have too much time for conscious thought to kick in. And the result surprised me.
What I heard back was beyond anything I thought I could — or should — ever do. The tracks that started to stand out were instrumental, gritty, cinematic, 80s-esque sci-fi pop.
But then came the issue: how to turn these raw scratch-pad ideas into something consumer-ready.
Nightmare #1 — Re-recording the magic out of it
The raw ideas were only meant to be demos. I planned to re-record everything later. But no matter how hard I tried, something was always lost in the re-recording process.
The tracks weren’t that well recorded. I wasn’t trying to do that. I was going for pure speed. I would put a bass or guitar track down in minutes. Reach for the nearest available mic. In many cases, these quick takes ended up on the album. Some tracks were literally written as they were recorded.
This made mixing hell though: recording issues, timing issues. I went down the path of trying to “fix it in the mix,” which opened up even more problems. The more I mixed, the more I went back to tweak the original tracks.
A new supercharged laptop — “a Ferrari compared to a Nissan Micra,” as one techy friend called it — opened up a world of new, powerful plugins. However…
Nightmare #2 — The plugin rabbit hole
I loved these new plugins: Soundtoys, FabFilter, UA… and I had too much fun with them. I kept adding more, pushing things sonically just to see what would happen.
But the more I added, the harder everything became to mix — and in some cases, the worse it sounded.
The album was starting to take shape as a homogenous body of work I hadn’t consciously intended. I didn’t want to lose that spark, but every time I fixed one thing, another problem appeared: masking frequencies, losing the essence of the song, mixes not translating. Monitor correction software helped, but even when I thought a mix was finished, I tweaked again. And again. And again.
This went on for over a year. I became obsessed — too attached. At one point, I almost gave up. Life would’ve been less painful without this in it.
Then I had an epiphany (a now-obvious one): the hundreds of interviews I’d watched with big mixers and producers had been screaming the answer at me all along.
I took all the plugins off, slammed the faders down, and rebuilt each song from scratch, focusing only on levels. I added things back only where absolutely necessary
The result: a fuller, warmer sound — punch, air, clarity. I added a little fairy dust and finally, finally, things clicked. A glimmer of hope at last.
Lesson #1 — Get the tracks recorded right
I can’t state this strongly enough: get the tracks recorded properly. Go in with the mindset that the track shouldn’t need anything else. Make decisions. Commit. You can still work fast — to quote Bob Ross, the “happy accidents” are worth it — but for the love of (insert deity of choice), have your setup ready to capture the best possible recording.
The mixing and production of this album were torturous. I told myself I was suffering for my art, but honestly, I didn’t think it would ever end.
Thank you to Steve for months of head battering, sending him the ‘FINAL FINAL FINAL MIX - FINAL VERSION’ (that never ever was). I think the sadistic fucker enjoyed it, but still..
Lesson #2 — Get a brutally honest friend
That brings me to my next lesson. Find a good friend with no sound-tech background to give you a warts-and-all appraisal.
Often, the mix I thought was the best… Steve would say, “The original sounds better.”
It’s the old Quincy Jones/Michael Jackson story: on mix 43, close to perfection, they pull up mix 1. Shiiit!! That’s it.
And in the end..
An interview I listened to with Mark Hollis spoke to me. He said that the recording of Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock was so intense he had to take a year off afterwards. I didn’t do that. But I probably should have.
I made pretty much every mistake in the book. It was a voyage of technical, personal, and emotional discovery.
Would I do it this way again? 100%.
Would I recommend this Machiavellian approach as a healthy life choice? Absolutely not.
That said, you can hear the blood, sweat, and tears. You can hear the raw energy in each track. And from a technical standpoint, the thousands of hours of late-night mixing and screw-ups have turned me into a (dare I say it) mix engineer of decent calibre.
Does this sound familiar?
If it does — and you need some group therapy — give me a call.