They say life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards. This is me taking a moment to reflect on the past few months...
It wasn't until I completed my recent mixdown for Angie McMahon's live performance that I truly understood the progress I had made lately. In comparison to a mix of a live performance I completed in September, it seemed leaps and bounds ahead. Admittedly it helped working with musicians of a higher calibre, but for the first time recently I have started to feel like music I am working on is finally worthy of public consumption. But there's still a long way to go and a lot to learn, and I thought it might be constructive for me to identify what is helping and what is hindering my progress.
(Treat your ears to aid digestion)
I think one of the greatest changes in my life lately has been the result of purchasing a diary. It has been a very busy few months counting down the year, and normally I would start to feel the pressure of falling behind, or at the very least worrying I would. Instead, having a clear outline of my week and what's important on the horizon has relaxed my mind, and pushed me to meet time deadlines. I find holding a material object which has a sole purpose works for me over, say, a phone calendar (analogue 4 lyf). Now that this habit has been formed, I intend to utilise it to help improve other aspects of my life.
For example, I have noticed that a big shortcoming of mine is my relationship with my phone; I avoid it whenever possible. In reflection I can recognise that my lack of timely responses could be frustrating to group members. I also tend to wait until a product is finished before I communicate my intentions or update any progress; but it would probably be helpful for anyone involved to receive regular progress updates. This is something I aim to improve on moving forward, and I hope that it could be achieved by utilising my newfound diary efficiency. I could leave weekly notes to remind myself to communicate with team members / superiors.
As far as planning goes, I think I have utilised my time relatively well (there's always room for improvement, but I do strongly believe in a solid life/work balance), and again the diary has greatly contributed to this. I didn't always adhere to my planned timelines, but this was more due to a number of opportunities arising that required me to regularly reprioritise my time, than to poor planning or a lack of motivation. For example, the audio assets I helped to create for the VR project took two weeks longer than expected to deliver.
One of these weeks was consumed by a last-minute requirement to learn how to use a digital desk for Yonder Festival, and then attending the festival itself. Although this caused a deviation in scheduling, I believe it was a worthwhile sacrifice as this was an amazing opportunity to put recent learning into practice, to improve my skillset as an audio practitioner, and to put my face out further into the industry and make important contacts. Although as previously mentioned, I could have communicated this better with the team. Instead I aimed to return from the festival and 'work overtime' to complete the assets so that I could come to them with the problem resolved, rather than keep them updated and feel guilty about not putting them first. Once again, in reflection, I have learned that communicating would have been a better option, just in case something else happens...
And of course something did. Another week delay was then caused by complications in getting the desired result. Even though we had hours of field recordings, upon listening to them in studio conditions I discovered that a lot of distant traffic noises, and people talking and snapping sticks as they walked, could be heard. This required me to either return to various locations and rerecord (which still presented the possibility of the same outcome) or to spend a significant amount of time trying to piece together sections that blended well and creatively using fades and different layers to get the best final product possible. To make things worse I also had a software issue with my computer, and had to make time to meet with Jordan (my audio partner in crime for this project) and sit down with him at his computer to complete them. Following this, just as we thought we were complete, we learned a bit more about how Unreal Engine (the software used to integrate audio with the VR environment) worked, and realised that the looping function on the software was much more inferior than we anticipated. It did not have the capability of crossfading as the WAV file looped, which required us to find a way of creating perfectly loopable assets that would not sound as though they were 'resetting', and did not present any pops as they did so. In the end, this took time, and in future I plan to be much more forthcoming with my progress and obstacles. I have learned through this process that I have such high standards of myself, sometimes I struggle to accept that I make mistakes or don't understand something. Perhaps more accurately, I can accept it personally, but struggle to let others in on this for fear of judgement or condescension. Acknowledging this could help me to improve my communication, to progress further, and perhaps even to grow as a human.
Another key point that I have taken from the past few months (with respect to my mix's in particular), is that perfection is not always best. I used to take far too much time deciding whether "a 2dB boost at 6k, or a 1.9dB boost at 6.05k" was better on the processing of one of five backup vocalists. I have learned to intuitively make decisions, gathering a feel for the track as a whole, often yielding better results, and in a far more reasonable turnaround time. I once read that 90% of a project is complete in 10% of the time, and I think this finally clicked in my head; perhaps mostly in that acceptance again of the imperfection. Human is imperfection. Imperfection is beauty. It is uniqueness and character (it is also the foundation of analogue #analogue4lyf). It speaks of a moment in time. And I think I am learning to use this as a creative tool in my work.
All in all the past months have been a time of great learning and improvement. I have expanded my skillset and attempted to work on a good variety of projects. I am feeling rather inspired, and cannot wait to keep working over the Christmas holidays, this time on some more personal projects. Taking this learning and understanding forward I hope to continue progressing, and learning from my processes. Until then, enjoy the end of year shenanigans! and...
Stay Tuned (because discordant sucks)
- TA
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