There’s the story told of a man who after a few weeks of getting a microwave oven started standing in front of it and shouting “hurry up!”
True or simply anecdote, it’s funny because many of us can see ourselves in the illustration. We long for something faster and within days of owning it we are used to the speed and want even more!
Let’s take computers, who wouldn’t want a faster computer? We spend our lives hoping for the next best thing that will make all our problems go away. But is speed the deciding factor in creativity?
The Magic Of Tape
A few years ago I asked a group of my peers, many of them professional recording engineers with several decades of experience, what they loved about using tape when recording. It was in the early days of tape emulation plugins, so I was intrigued to understand what they loved about tape. Was it the crunch, the warmth, the way it rounds out the edges? Which feature would they be most happy to have back in their DAW? The ability to adjust the bias, the tape speed or tape formulation?
It was none of these things.
The answer that came from many was the same and it surprised me. It was the time it took to rewind the tape after a take. It gave them a moment to reflect on the performance or the track. For some it was the way they had to consider how to lay out the recording across the different takes, the planning of the session.
So tape for them wasn’t about the technology, it was about the methodology, for many it was about having time to think. In the world of the DAW it’s all so instant, which can seem like a dream, but it doesn’t give you time to think or reflect on your creative choices.
Coffee Time
I work in video as well as audio, when editing video we also use just as many plugins for things like effects, transitions and colour grading. One plugin I use to give the final edit a grade takes a long time to render. An interview can sometimes take ten minutes to render, or perhaps it’s three minutes, but it feels like ten minutes. I know when I switched from Intel to Apple Silicon the render time improved dramatically.
I can view that render time in two ways.
Firstly, I can see it as an inconvenience, that’s ten minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Sometimes deadlines are so tight that every minute counts. However, often the pressure is artificial and placed on me by myself, we just happen to think that faster is better. Today I made a different decision, instead of shouting ‘hurry’ at my computer I decided to go and get a cup of tea. I made the computer wait for me!
One feature that seems to be misunderstood in music circles is offline bounce. I get that when you work in post and have to put out multiple versions of a mix, especially on TV and movies, that offline bounce is a really great time saver, no argument there. However, the amount of times I read of music mixers using offline bounce to save time I wonder one thing, have they actually then sat down and listened through to the entire mix in real time to check the bounce? For me this is an essential part of the QC process. I always make sure I listen and watch everything I do in real time at least once before I send it to client. So if you are in the habit of using offline bounce and then shipping, it’s not a good practice. That might make things faster but it’s possible you’ll end up shipping something that has a glitch.
Power Is Good… Sometimes
Computers getting more powerful is a good thing. It means we can have more tracks, more plugins, or less expensive hardware. However we often want to measure power in terms of time saved, which as I’ve already said in some circumstances and when a client is waiting, is entirely necessary.
However, perhaps the ‘go faster’ thinking is not the best when trying to be creative.
Perhaps we need those moments of ‘tape rewind’ to gather our thoughts and consider our next move. To make a right decision rather then a quick one.
We see so many adverts for plugins and software that claim will helps us do things faster. The problem with some of those marketing claims is they are implying that ‘faster’ and ‘better’ are the same thing and they’re not.
So next time you’re looking at your computer and shouting ‘go faster’ why not use the time to reflect on your creative decisions. Who knows it might transpire that ‘slower’ is better!
Discuss.