up the ante

Sometimes I get to start a record from scratch and see it through every step of the way. Other times I come in after it’s already begun. I work with a lot of people who are already doing it on their own, and come to me somewhere inside the process.

Sometimes they felt that the right thing was to do as much at home as possible for financial reasons until the time was right to bring someone else in. Sometimes I’m just mixing and doing some key overdubs on an almost-finished record to make it shine. Because of these opportunities, I encounter all sorts of audio/musical mishaps and eccentricities as well as some brilliant stuff and innovations. Everybody is doing the best they can with what they have, and I love to be a part of those projects.

In the interest of constantly upping the collective ante, I want to write about the most common mistakes people make, and offer simple inexpensive ways to avoid them. Hopefully this will be helpful to some folks along the way. As the weeks go on I’ll periodically put my audio-related thoughts here for you to read. Let me know what you think – I’d love to know.