This is a story about perfection. Many, many years ago, I was working with another producer named Elliot Mazer. We were working on some Neil Young recordings.
Elliot was working on preparing something called SAC versions of Harvest. It was a record that I knew intimately and one that he had recorded and mixed and produced. So we’re listening to playback.
The song is “Out on the Weekend.” It’s literally the first track on the record. And Elliot says to me, “Do you hear where the headstock on Neil’s guitar hits the mic stand?” Elliot didn’t actually talk like that. But I gotta tell you, I’d heard that song thousands of times.
I mean, even before I got involved with any of this stuff, I’d worn that record out. Harvest is a reference album for me. If I get a new pair of monitors or I’m listening in a new room, I know exactly what that record sounds like because it’s perfect.
So I’m like, “What?” But Elliot’s like, “Listen again.” And so I did. The lesson I learned that day was the imperfections we all obsess over. An EQ or a compression setting.
A bad et. A little imperfection. It’s all inconsequential compared to the real payload of a song.
When your song delivers its message and when your recording supports that, your listeners enjoy a suspension of disbelief and they won’t care about them in your show. Does that mean I’m telling you not to sweat the details? No, of chorus not.
But don’t get lost in them. Your superpower as a producer is the ability to hear something a thousand times. Yet, on demand, still experience it like it’s the first listen.
Turns out you can learn a lot from old timers. And if you think you can learn something from this one, or know someone who belongs in a Beat Kitchen class, share this post.
