You're Not Wrong, You're Just Doing It at the Wrong Time

I need to say something that would have saved me years of mistakes: you're not wrong, you're just doing it at the wrong time. It's the biggest mistake I see producers make, and I made it for a long time myself.

There's a big difference between being wrong and being early. Being wrong means you don't understand the tools you're putting on your tracks. Being early means you reach for those tools before you've dealt with the root of the problem. Most of the sessions I get from friends and clients aren't wrong. They're early.

Three ways producers reach for tools too early

I open sessions all the time with 10 to 20 plugins on a single track. That's a huge no. Here are the three patterns I see most:

1. EQ before picking the right sound. If the sound is wrong, no amount of EQ will make it right.
2. Compression before the levels are right. And do you even need compression at all? It's there if you need it, not something every track gets by default.
3. Mastering a track that isn't finished. Sometimes the arrangement is just too much. A few simple arrangement moves can make a track feel so much better than any mastering chain will.

The action isn't wrong. The timing is.

Where I went wrong early on

When I started out I was learning Pro Tools, recording rappers and making hip hop beats on an MPC 2000XL. I was sure I had to EQ everything, high-pass everything and compress every track. If my session wasn't complicated, I felt like I wasn't doing enough. (I debunked the high-pass part a while back: high-pass everything? Are you making this common producer mistake.)

Looking back, two things were really going on. I was insecure about how things sounded, and I was trying to sound professional by copying what I thought the pros did. Today there's a whole YouTube full of "always do this" advice, and a lot of it is wrong for your track. No two tracks are alike, no two rooms are alike, and everyone's ears and monitors are different.

The real problem: I couldn't hear accurately

My biggest problem was that I couldn't hear things accurately. I was working in an untreated room with untrained ears, so I was already at a disadvantage. I knew what the tools did, but because I couldn't hear properly I was guessing. And every bad decision trains your ears to hear things wrong, which leads to more bad decisions.

What changed

A few things turned it around. Bad Boy Bill came by my studio and told me to get rid of my old Digidesign console, because better monitoring would change everything. Later I went to school for mastering and found ear training like SoundGym and room correction software. I upgraded my acoustic treatment from 2-inch to 4-inch panels and got them off the wall. All of that sent me down a rabbit hole of training, and my ears are far more refined now.

My workflow now

• I spend real time choosing the right sound before any processing.
• Before any EQ, I get the volumes right.
• Then I EQ so the parts balance with each other.
• I only compress when something needs it, and I rarely high-pass anymore.

Bad sound plus EQ equals a mess. Good sound plus EQ is a path to success. Pick the right sound and you might need very little EQ, or none.

Three rules for every move in your DAW

1. Before touching any plugin, think about the sound source itself, and the volume.
2. Ask why you're fixing it. What's the goal, and will this plugin get you there? If not, would a different sound get you a better result?
3. Keep moving forward instead of perfecting. Producers get stuck in the loop. The best way out is to keep arranging.

Where the channel is going

I'm moving the channel toward concepts: EQ, compression, saturation, mixing and arrangement, and why people make mistakes in each, instead of another "do this, do that" tutorial. If there's a concept you want me to cover, tell me in the comments on the video.

You're not doing it wrong. You're just doing it at the wrong time.