Years ago there was a well-known maintenance/technical engineer who was famous for, when the balance engineering staff was freaking out over some problem in a session, remarking “nothing here is critical… it’s only audio, not satellite data!”
Now he said this in jest, although in the heat of the moment it wasn’t always so well taken. But still, he had a point. It’s not satellite data. No aeroplane will crash. No patient will die.
It’s “only audio.” So why is it then that so many engineers and producers are, it seems, afraid to take some chances?
The Beatles were infamous, especially in their later, post Rubber Soul days, for experimenting and using the studio as a laboratory. By now most of us have heard the alternate takes of songs cut much slower or faster or with different rhythms, or even with completely different instrumentation. Famously, Strawberry Fields Forever was recorded as a rock band version at one tempo and key and then again on another day with orchestral instruments, and ultimately the two versions were varispeeded into the same key (or near enough!) and edited together at a certain point!
No one said it can’t be done. No one said they were “wasting time” looking for different ways to do things. That freedom to allow themselves to try ideas is what led to that pinnacle of creativity. They pushed not only themselves but everyone working with them as well to try things they’d never done before. And the results clearly speak for themselves.
I’ve many times found myself in the studio with a band searching for the way to make a particular song come out its best, and suggested doing short snippets of the “how would _____ do it”? What would be the Beatle version of this song? What would be the AC/DC take? How would Nirvana play it? By pushing the band to think about, and musically play-act a bit as other artistes it often allows them to get out of their rut and find a new path.
You’d be surprised how freeing it can feel to ‘play it like’ someone else and not worry so much about being you for the moment. I know the tendency on a ‘paid’ client project is to stick to the tried and true, but even in these cases, this experimental mindset is useful.
I was involved with one artiste who was talking to video directors (back when such things mattered!) and one big deal director did an interesting thing. He said he had an idea for a new, untried technique, and after explaining it a bit asked if the artiste would be willing to essentially be the guinea pig for it. He agreed and the result was, let’s call it “interesting”, but not brilliant, to be honest. But a few months later MTV was playing a hit video by another artiste using the director’s, by then, refined technique. But no one was unhappy and everyone agreed it was an experiment. And the technique was never going to get refined without trying it and working on it.
Maybe your client isn’t “wasting time” by exploring alternatives, and maybe you’re not either if you ask for some time to try something new or suggest you all dig in together and strike off in a new direction. If you don’t take those chances nothing ever changes and you never grow beyond a certain point. You not only eliminate that chance to discover something great, but you also risk making your work cookie-cutter and predictable.
It’s great to have techniques and methods to fall back upon, especially under time pressure, but part of the beauty of everyone having a project recording studio these days is that you probably don’t have to watch the clock all the time. You can take the time to record those left-field ideas and see what happened. Maybe the reggae version isn’t going to be it, but maybe it is.
As George Harrison said: ”If you don’t know where you’re going, any road can take you there.”