Things to do when you don’t know what to do

Sometimes recording and mixing sessions don’t go as planned. They can feel uninspired, predictable…boring even. So what do you do the next time (un)-inspiration strikes? Give up, power things down and call it a night? Maybe so… or you could try some of these ideas instead.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the studio searching for an inspired sonic solution (yet again) to help me navigate my way out of my own musical mundanity. We all experience it at some point – feeling like your own worst enemy, surrounded by your all-too-familiar instruments, recording gear and mixing tricks.

When we feel this way, the overwhelming urge is typically to pack things up and call it quits. Unfortunately, we’re not always free to simply abandon a session every time our (lack of) inspiration strikes. Sometimes we have to plough on regardless.

So if you’re not feelin’ it during a session, but carry on regardless you must, what do you do?

Well, while it’s easy to say so here – and much harder to implement – essentially what you need to do is something different.

But of course when you’re not thinking straight, or you’re frustrated by the way a session is progressing, it’s hard to simply turn on a dime and ‘try something!’ Besides, you may have already tried a dozen things, none of which have worked, and now you’re out of ideas!

So what the hell does ‘try something’ mean at this point?

Step Away From Yourself

What I would say here, as a general rule, is that ‘trying’ is more than half the problem in most situations where we find ourselves stuck in a rut. In these circumstances, I’d suggest abandoning trying altogether. Instead, take a chance… on anything else.

Accidents, flukes – whatever you like to call them – can be great wellsprings of sonic solutions, and inspirational into the bargain.

If you’re feeling stuck in a recording or mixing rut, do something that allows chance to play a part rather than always trying to intellectualise or orchestrate every solution. While your capacity for thought, for sonic solutions, for logical musical progress might be vast, outside this lies an infinite expanse of possibilities, though right now you may not be able to see or imagine them.

So don’t even bother trying. Let chance do the imagining for you.

If you’re mixing, try anything other than techniques overly familiar to you. If there’s a delay plug-in you never use, try putting that on a sound that you’d ‘never, ever put delay on!’ And don’t judge the outcome straight away, either. Listen to what comes of this ‘heresy’ and see if it triggers any ideas or flow. If you’re using MIDI, try duplicating an established part and replace it with an entirely different voice. Sometimes simply mixing up the MIDI sounds in the arrangement is enough to release you from your malaise.

If you normally compress everything to within an inch of its life, try mixing without it for a change. If you’re concerned that your mix is too wet, ditch the reverb on all the parts that have ‘a hint of it’ and turn one of the wettest sounds into a delay-only effect. Finally, pick one of the loudest elements and make that dry too. What does your mix sound like now?

The important thing to understand here is that sometimes, as you progress with your work, you can grow more and more fearful of change, as if making bold moves will somehow destroy all your handiwork. In this day and age there is nothing stopping you from experimenting with bold moves.

The Welcome Re-Arranger

If you’re feeling particularly uninspired and you really can’t be bothered doing anything at all, not even something different – because that would require effort – do some random backwards listening.

Reverse some, or all, the files on your multi-track timeline (if it’s a digital recording), or flip the tape upside down (in the unlikely event that you’re working with analogue reels) and just listen to the audio backwards. There’s potentially a whole parallel universe of amazing sounds here for the taking that could potentially become part of your ‘forwards’ production if you’re open to it.

Some of the best aspects of many of my favourite albums were discovered this way, proving the point yet again that not all sounds on an album are crafted and designed; many are discovered by chance.

Backwards nuggets can sometimes transform a piece of music by unexpectedly providing a ‘hook’ melody, or creating weird rhythms that are invisible to the untrained ear. They can generate slingshot dynamics into musical transitions or add other-worldly disturbances in the background of a piece. Then there are those musical or rhythmic loops that, when played backwards, trip the song out completely by providing a strangely hypnotic, indefinably bent quality.

I can’t remember a time when reversing sounds in a timeline didn’t quickly uncover something cool that added to the mix. And the best part about these bonus elements is that I’ve never had to expend any mental energy acquiring them.

Read The Stop Sign

Sometimes the best thing to do – when you don’t know what to do – is, well… nothing. Or in some cases, less than nothing!

Your apparent lack of inspiration (so-called) during a recording session might simply be the result of the lack of need. Put another way, your inability to conjure yet another ‘cool sound’ for your latest arrangement isn’t necessarily the failing of your imagination, but rather the song’s requirements. It may just be that the song doesn’t need anything!

So don’t bash your head against the proverbial brick wall any longer. Take a break for 20 minutes, and upon your return, listen to the song as if it were finished. Don’t assume it’s ‘lacking’; hear it as a complete arrangement.

Flipping this expectation around will either confirm that you’re indeed done, or it will trigger a response in you that will inform your next move.

Another thing to experiment with is playing the song while listening to only five of its key musical elements. Mute everything else.

How does the piece sound now? Still lacking something, or is it now (ironically) fresh and clear again? Going back to a song’s core elements will sometimes trigger your imagination back into life, or indeed prove that some or all of the song can survive without some of its extraneous instrumentation. A crowded arrangement is stifling to the imagination. Cutting the song back to these core elements for at least some part of the arrangement might give you back the contrast you were looking for.

This form of editing can create a new sound and more pronounced structural dynamic contrasts without having to add anything.

Save As

The other thing to consider when you’re scratching your head looking for solutions is that you might have taken your song down the wrong road. Many a song arrangement and countless mixes have suffered this fate over the years, and the trick to making progress through these doldrums is learning to know when you’re off course, admitting your errors and correcting them.

If you find yourself in this situation, face the problem head on, admit you’re off course and set a new one. Save your session under a new name – ‘New Mix Direction’ or ‘What Was I thinking Before?’ – and liberate yourself from the conservative bonds that all those hours of work have subtly placed upon you.

The hardest part about making this decision of course is that it always feels like a setback. But time has not been wasted! On the contrary, if you don’t change course here you will only slow progress further in an egotistical attempt to save face, which makes no sense. How can a lame mix possibly allow anyone to save face? Retain your humility at all times and always act in the mix’s best interests. Defensive engineers are lame engineers.

Old Macdonald Had A Farm,  A.I.A.I.O

Of course, with A.I. now at our disposal, we can always seek its input – before it disposes of us – by prompting an engine to offer us a solution to a problematic arrangement, lyric or mix. The responses from some of these online generators can often be pretty lame in my experience, but not always. And they’re improving at breakneck speed, so before long they may be amongst our most powerful tools for extricating us from a sonic jam. I’m not thrilled with many other aspects of A.I. – my overwhelming concern is that it may rob us of the free will to learn this caper for ourselves, but I could be wrong about that.

For now at least, A.I. is undoubtedly a rapidly advancing tool that, if harnessed correctly, can improve our audio workflows appreciably, in ways that were mere science fiction only a year or two ago.

Finally, There’s You

Last, but by no means least…

One final thing to consider when you’re at your wit’s end in the studio, is you.

The key to ensuring an endless flow of solutions in this game is the openness and curiosity of your own mind. An open mind, a curious mentality are crucial to a well-maintained wellspring of ideas. You can’t keep providing solutions if your own thinking is growing narrower, your artistic view of the world shrinking.

Be curious.

This is what keeps you fresh and helps fight against your ego, which constantly tries to assert that ‘this is the way it’s done!’

There are countless ways to pursue artistic endeavours. If you think you know the best of them, you may simply be defending your own reputation rather than serving the song. We all make this common mistake, we’re human after all. Claiming to know everything, particularly when this so-called ‘knowing’ acts as blocker against the ideas of others, can be a fast-track to mediocrity.

Be open-minded and curious – and if you insist on claiming to know only one thing, claim this: that there is always another way forward.

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Andy Stewart owns and operates The Mill on Victoria’s Bass Coast. He’s a highly credentialed producer/engineer who’s seen it all in studios for over four decades. He’s happy to respond to any pleas for recording or mixing help… contact him at: andy@themill.net.au