November 5, 2016 editorial: comments

The Valley of Diminishing Returns

Albert Einstein allegedly once said that the definition of insanity is, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That quote popped in my head as I was recording take 15 of a guitar solo recently. Was it insanity or just delusion that made me think that I would eventually capture that “magic” take if I just kept trying?

Why is it that early takes are often so much better? It’s not necessarily logical. You could make the argument that after 14 tries, I was a lot more warmed up, more familiar with the ideas I was trying to state in the solo, and therefore closer to nailing it. That seems like a reasonable analysis, but the opposite is frequently true. Most of the time, you only have X number of tries at something, before the quality starts to ebb, especially if what you’re doing involves creativity.

Part of the problem is that the more you repeatedly fail at a task, the more nervous you become about whether you can succeed at it. The time-honored engineer's trick of telling the singer or instrumentalist "Run one down so I can get levels," but actually putting the track into record, was born from the hope of capturing some of that early magic, when the talent was relaxed, thinking it was a non-consequential practice take.

Knowing when you’ve reached that point of diminishing returns when overdubbing — or when mixing, for that matter — is tough. It’s particularly difficult in a home studio situation when you're all by yourself, with nobody to bounce ideas off of or get opinions from.

I’ve often had the experience of listening to a mix the next day, after working on it late into the night, and having one of those “what was I thinking?” moments — unable to believe how out of whack one or more of the mix elements sounded.

In the heat of the session, it’s easy to think, “This sounds good, but I can make it better.” Then, two hours later, after changing the panning, raising the vocal level, adjusting the bass in relation to the kick, re-EQing the guitar, and making countless other “tweaks,” you’ve actually made it substantially worse.

There are ways to minimize the problems related to losing your perspective in that way. If you’re tracking or overdubbing, keep all your takes. You may not realize it at the time, but there could be some real gems in there, especially in the early ones.

When mixing, always save your session incrementally. That way, you have a breadcrumb trail in case you need to backtrack to find the point before the mix went off the rails.

In the heat of a session, it’s best to hedge your bets, because it’s really hard to know when you’ve crossed that line and are heading into the valley of diminishing returns.