Gotye "Somebody That I Used To Know" Song Analysis

There aren't that many songs that can be classified as a true #1 hit around the world, but Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" (featuring Kimbra) is one of them and it's the song analysis for this week. The song is the second single from his third studio album called Making Mirrors, and was a recent #1 on Billboard's Hot 100, a rarity for an Australian artist. Like with all song analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"Somebody That I Used To Know" has an interesting song form in that it doesn't really have a bridge, yet contains another section that almost acts like one. The form looks like this:

Intro, Verse, Interlude, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, Verse, B Section, Chorus, Outro

What happens is that the first two verses are 16 bars each, but the third verse that Kimbra sings is 8 bars with another 8 bars that you can classify as either a B section or a bridge. Regardless of how you look at it, changing the 2nd half of the 3rd verse is very effective and definitely heightens the interest and raises the energy, which is what a bridge does.

The Arrangement
On the surface this seems like a simple arrangement but it's really quite deep and sophisticated. There's a lot going on, but without an instrument really playing a big wide chord.

  * The Foundation: bass and drum (mostly tom) loops

  * The Rhythm: acoustic guitar

  * The Pad: the background vocals during the chorus

  * The Lead: lead vocals, synth lines in the intro and chorus

  * The Fills: guitars in the verses, background vocals in the chorus and outro

As with almost all hit songs, listen to how the arrangement develops. It starts off sparse, gets a little bigger in the intro, then backs off again during the verse, then gets large during the chorus, then back down again into the interlude and so forth. That's the essence of a good arrangement in a pop song.

The Sound
The sound of "Somebody That I Used To Know" is fairly sophisticated, with lots of effects layers. First you have the acoustic guitar that's completely dry, while every other instrument has some degree of ambience. Most of the synth lead lines have a long verb that sounds really good as it blends into the track well.

During the second verse there's a guitar that enters playing fills on the left side that has a nice repeating delay. That also brings up the issue of panning, which is used pretty as you have fill and rhythm guitars and mono loops entering on both right and left, which keeps the mix interesting.

The vocals are also layered with the both Goyte and Kimbra's lead getting a long verb, but most of the back ground vocals being pretty dry. You can really hear the sound of the reverb itself at after the hard ending. Take notice that the chorus lead vocals are doubled, helping to give the song a thicker more dynamic sound at that point.

There's a spot in the song where the background vocals distort a little (at around 3:10), but otherwise it sounds pretty clean.

The Production
I love the production on "Somebody That I Used To Know." Gotye (Wally De Backer to his friends) has a distinctive way of putting the song together that's sparse in the fact that virtually nothing is playing big chords, yet it sounds big and dynamic. The loops really work without sticking out as "loops," and the background vocals on the outchorus are excellent as they weave back and forth; sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes just Gotye, sometimes just Kimbra, sometimes both. Most excellent.

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5 Tricks For Getting A Great Studio Guitar Sound

Jacob D recently sent in the following question: "Bobby - I've been trying to get a good guitar sound recording but it always sounds so small. I've tried every pedal you can think of, but none of them get me the sound that I hear on big time recordings. What should I do?"

Okay, Jacob, here's something that I learned the hard way and I've outlined in several books like The Recording Engineer's Handbook and The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook. Put the pedals on the side and plug your guitar directly into your amp, then crank that sucker. To get a great guitar sound you have to not only move some air, but also turn your amp up enough so that both the input and output stages of the circuitry begin to distort a bit, if you're playing through a tube amp.

This even applies to the inexpensive small modeling amps that have flooded the market. Even though the sound of a solid state (a non-tube amp, without getting too technical) amp is pretty clean before you dial in the overdrive, the sound can benefit a lot from a little of the speaker being overdriven as well.

That said, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1) Smaller wattage amps work a lot better in the studio, which is why you see a lot of 5 to 20 watt amps now available. A 100 watt Marshall (or hundred watt anything, for that matter), for instance, is altogether too loud for 95% of the studio situations, and you'll get a sound that's just as big from one that 10 watts without everyone having to wear earplugs.

2) With either a tube or solid state amp, make it sound as good as you can with it relatively clean sound before you add any distortion, either from an amp model or a pedal. You'll find that you won't need nearly as much of the crunch and the sound will sit better in the track.

3) Always be judicious with distortion and effects when recording. Usually what sounds good to you in the room is too much for the song, causing the guitar sound to become more of a blur than a distinct element in the mix. It's okay if you record with too little, since you can always add it later, but you can't take it away once it's recorded that way.

4) Don't smash the mic up against the speaker grill. Move it back a foot or so (which is the old school way of doing it) and you'll find that you'll pick up more of the character of the speaker because it has a chance to develop, as well as a bit of the room.

5) Move the mic a bit. Move it across the best sounding speaker in your cabinet to find the best combination of fullness and definition. Closer to the voice coil and you'll get more high end, and more to the outside edge of the cone will give you more body. Usually about halfway provides the best combination, but don't be afraid to experiment. Try this first before you reach for the EQ. You'll be surprised how well it works!

So keep your sound big and muscular instead of tiny and small. Crank the amp up, move some air, and play a bit cleaner than you think you need to. You'll be surprised at how good it will sound.

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The Kurzweil Music Story

Everyone knows Ray Kurzweil as one of the world's most respected futurists, but he also played a huge part in the music business as well. 30 years ago Ray (with the help of Stevie Wonder, Bob Moog and Alan R. Pearlman from ARP) came up with a then groundbreaking instrument in the K250, one of the very first electronic keyboards to have a weighted keyboard with action similar to a real piano, as well as a sound that was closer to one than ever before.

The K250 was indeed groundbreaking. Not only was it the first easily portable instrument that employed computer architecture to achieved its sounds, but it was also one of the first with a SCSI interface enabling the user to add external hard drives to store the sounds (a very big deal at the time). It also had one of the first samplers, available as an option, that had a sample rate that went up to 50kHz.

As we jump forward 30 years, Kurzweil Music Systems is still one of the leaders in high quality electronic keyboards while so many other computer based music systems (like Synclavier and Fairlight) have fallen by the wayside.

Here's a great video on how Ray went from creating systems for the blind to the MI business. Note some of the vintage segments of some really old audio gear.

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The Pros And Cons Of Mixing On Headphones

Christine Lavin recently sent in the following question: "Where do headphones fit in the mix for you, or do you listen just to the speakers? I've been in studios where they have 3 sets of speakers -- small medium and large -- and the producer or mixer (if it's someone else) listen on all three.  But I'm a headphone person. Wonder what your opinion of that is?"


I'm a firm believer that you can get great mixes out of virtually any set of speakers in just about any room, and that includes headphones as well. The trick is that you have to have enough listening time to get a reference point as to what sounds good or bad when you play your mix back elsewhere. That's why mixers began to take their own speakers wherever they went (or asked for NS-10s) in the first place. It was something that they were familiar with, and since they were nearfields, the room didn't come too much into play during the mix so they could be surer of the result.

Mixing on headphones does have 4 significant downsides though:

1) You can't wear them for as long as you need to (8, 10, 12 hours) before your head and ears get tired from the extra weight. 

2) You have a tendency to turn them up, which can lead to some quick ear fatigue, again limiting your ability to mix for long periods. 

3) Because most of the more expensive professional headphones really sound great, you get a false sense of what the mix is like (especially on the low end), and it causes you not to work as hard getting the frequency balance of the mix right. 

4) The vast majority of the audience won't listen on phones after the mix is completed. Since a mixer is always aiming for a mix that sounds great on most speakers that the material is played on, you want to stay in that realm if possible, and even listen on some crappy speakers if possible as a check. Headphones just sound too good for that.

That said, headphones do have their place. They're great for editing in that you can hear clicks, pops and inconsistencies that you may otherwise miss while listening on speakers, and they're a great check for panning and checking reverb tails when mixing, but I wouldn't personally use them for an entire mix.

But if you're mixing in your bedroom and don't want to wake the the kids, significant other or neighbors, then by all means, go for it. Just make sure that you listen to some other material that sounds great on speakers first so you have a reference point of what sounds good and what doesn't.

Here's a bonus question also from Christine: "Do you think it's optimum to mix in a different studio from where you record, and/or bring in someone with fresh ears who hasn't been there for the recording of all the tracks?"

The only time I think that it's worth going to a different studio to mix is if you think that your mix is going to sound a whole lot better as a result, like in the case of mixing through a console rather than in the box. Otherwise, I'd stay in the same studio that you tracked, if for no other reason than not having to worry about software and plugin compatibilities that always seem to crop up when you go to a different system.

As for getting a different mixer, if you're stuck on the sound of the project for some reason, then it's great to have a fresh set of ears (as in someone else's) for the mix. Also, if you can hire someone who's a great mixer who you think can beat anything that you might come up with, then it may definitely worth it ("may" is the operative word here - you might not get what you expect). Otherwise, I think you're a lot better off using the same team that tracked the song(s) from the beginning for the sake of vision and continuity.

Any other questions? Feel free to send them along to requests@bobbyowsinski.com.

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Phil Collins "In The Air Tonite" Song Analysis

Here's a song analysis of one of the few songs that really changed the sound of music for a while. It's "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins from his 1981 album Face Value, which was the first single of his solo career. The song is interesting in so many ways, not the least is the fact that 99% of the lyrics were spontaneous and improvised. As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"In The Air Tonight" doesn't have a traditional song form by any means, but the form is understandable after you realize that it was more or less improvised. The form looks like this:

Intro, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Chorus, Chorus, Chorus, 

The intro is interesting in that it's 20 bars long, with the first set up part at 12 bars, then 8 bars of the keyboard pad. Then it begins with a chorus instead of a verse. There's no bridge and the outchorus repeats against a very long fade.

The Arrangement
As unusual as the song form is, so is the arrangement. Many of the instruments used don't play the role that you're use to them playing, like the guitar, which is used mainly for sound effect fills. Here's what the arrangement elements look like:

  * The Foundation: Drum machine throughout, drums (with no cymbals) on the last chorus.

  * The Pad: Synthesizer

  * The Rhythm: Pedal bass synth drone until the last chorus, when it changes to a reggae bass line that's doubled with a synth string line (very unusual), as well as a high synth pedal sound during the first and second chorus.

  * The Lead: The lead vocal

  * The Fills: Guitar effects, vocoder vocal at the beginning of the 2nd verse.

The Sound
"In The Air Tonight" was extremely influential for the sound of the ambience on the drums that was the result of the Listen Mic circuit on the SSL 4000 console, which is a sort of reverse talkback so the people in the control room can hear the musicians in the studio. The Listen Mic circuit has some heavy compression built into it so the level between musicians close or far away from the mic can be heard evenly, and this is what gave the drums the distinctive sound after the console was modified so you could record it. Producer/engineer Hugh Padgham later recreated the sound with heavily compressed and gated room mics, and that sound was eventually incorporated into most digital reverbs in what we know today as "Gated Reverb." This was the sound that engineers tried to emulate for a decade or so thereafter, as the gated reverb drum sound became very popular.

The song was built around a then new Roland CR-78 drum machine pattern (called "Disco 2"), which is bone dry and in your face, which represented the base layer of the ambience layers.

The synth pad, which is the most prominent instrument throughout the song, has a short delay (less than 100 milliseconds) that's panned to the right to give it a stereo soundfield, while the dry synth sound is panned to the left.

The lead vocal has a very distinctive sound also thanks to a short (less than 100 ms) delay and a touch of small room reverb. It's possible that it's the same delay that's on the synth pad. In the second chorus, a second longer 1/4 note delay is introduced at the end of each phrase. It also features an interesting use of a vocoder on the vocals during the second verse.

The Production
So many of the sounds are distinctive in this song, but the production really makes it a hit. While one might think that the synth carries the song on a passing listen, it's really the repeating synth bass drone and the high synth drone in the chorus that add motion. These two are down in the mix so it's easy not to be aware of them.

The other thing to notice is the fact of how the song develops, as most hits normally do. The second chorus introduces a harmony vocal with a long delay at the end of the phrases, the second verse introduces the vocal vocoder, and the last chorus and outro introduces the drums and bass line, which is doubled with a synth string sound. Collins then ad libs the lead vocal over the fade of the song. There's constantly something new happening throughout, even though it may be subtle, to keep your attention.

One last thing - although the sound of the real drums on this record would change drum sounds for a long while afterwards, the most interesting thing about them to me is that there are no cymbals ever played.

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A Tribute To Jim Marshall

When it comes to the giants of the musical instrument business with a huge influence on the music of today, only two come to mind - Leo Fender (who passed away in 1991) and Jim Marshall. Jim Marshall passed away last week at the ripe old age of 88, and left behind a rich legacy as the creator of the amplifier that was the sound of the rock - a sound just as loved and pertinent today as it was back in the early-60's when Marshall Amplifiers began.

As a tribute to Jim Marshall, I thought it fitting to present a short list of facts about the man and his creation:

• Jim Marshall was actually a drummer, not a guitar player. 

• He was a very successful drum teacher, with as many as 65 students at a time.

• One of Jim's students was Mitch Mitchell from The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

• Marshall Amplifiers actually started in the back of his drum shop in 1962, with the inspiration to design his own amps coming from players like Pete Townshend of The Who and Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore, mostly because Fender amps were so expensive in Britain.

• The original Marshall amps were based on the Fender Bassman. Since many of the parts used in the design of the Bassman weren't readily available in Britain, Marshall used parts that were more common to the country, which helped to change the sound from the relatively clean Fender to the much ballsier rock sound that we're familiar with.

• It took 6 prototypes before Marshall came up with an amp that they felt they could sell, the JTM 45.

• The first model received 23 orders the first day. Within 2 years the company had 16 employees and were making 20 amps a week.

• The first international order came from Roy Orbison (who you don't usually think of as having a Marshall sound).

• Marshall twice won the Queen's Award For Export Achievement, and was appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire (which is just below knighthood) in 2004.

• He was regarded as one of the wealthiest individuals in Britain, but donated millions of pounds to various charities over the decades.

• Marshall suffered from hearing loss, but not from listening to loud amps. He attributed the problem to playing with loud brass in orchestras during the 50s.

• He preferred a single-malt scotch which was bottled just for him.

• He refused to sell the company many times over the years because his name was on the product, and he was afraid what might happen should someone else gain control (as was the case with Leo Fender).

Rest in peace, Jim, and good luck on your new journey.

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Some Interview Excerpts

One of the things that people seem to enjoy about my books is the interview sections. I'm lucky that I live in Los Angeles and have some great friends that are experts in so many different fields, so Im able to interview so many people that are a lot smarter than I am. Plus, when I interview them for a book, they usually provide far more information than I ever expected. That's why I've always included the entire interview.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to read all of my books but like the interviews that I've excerpted here, I've posted numerous chapter and interview excerpts as well as a Table of Contents to all my books on the Bobby Owsinski website.

Here's a list of what's currently available from each book.

The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook 

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 2 Excerpt - The Mechanics of Mixing

        Andy Johns Interview Excerpt

        Dave Pensado Interview Excerpt

        Elliot Scheiner Interview Excerpt

        Jimmy Douglass Interview Excerpt

The Recording Engineer’s Handbook 

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 6 Excerpt - Basic Multichannel Tracking

        Eddie Kramer Interview Excerpt

        Al Schmitt Interview Excerpt

The Audio Mastering Handbook 

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 5 Excerpt - Preparation For Mastering

        Bob Ludwig Interview Excerpt

        Bob Katz Interview Excerpt

The Drum Recording Handbook 

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 13 Excerpt - Final Drum Sound Checklist

        Ricky Lawson Interview Excerpt

        Dave Weckl Interview Excerpt

How To Make Your Band Sound Great 

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 8 Excerpt - The Keys To Greatness

        Peter Thorn Interview Excerpt

        Brian Ray Interview Excerpt

The Studio Musician’s Handbook 

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 2 Excerpt - Why The Studio Is Different Than Playing Live

        Leland Sklar Interview Excerpt

        Rami Jaffee Interview Excerpt

Music 3.0: A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 1 Excerpt - The Five Live Stages of the Music Industry

        Chapter 4 Excerpt - The New Marketing

        Chapter 6 Excerpt - The New Marketing Part 2

        Gregory Markel Interview Excerpt

        Ian Rogers Interview Excerpt

The Music Producer's Handbook

       Table of Contents

        Chapter 6 Excerpt - Music Mechanics       

        Chapter 7 Excerpt - Preproduction: The Most Important Step

        Jack Douglas Interview Excerpt

The Touring Musician's Handbook

        Table of Contents

        Bob Glaub Interview Excerpt

        Terry Lawless Interview Excerpt

        Chapter 3 Excerpt - The Touring Musician’s Difference

The Musician's Video Handbook

        Table of Contents

         Chapter 5 Excerpt - Lighting Basics

         Chapter 8 Excerpt - Performance Video Production

The Studio Builder's Handbook

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 3 Excerpt - Some Basic Acoustics

        Chapter 5 Excerpt - Making A Plan

        Carl Tatz Interview

The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 3 Excerpt - Tonal Factors of an Electric Guitar

        Chapter 11 Excerpt - Acoustic Guitar Miking

        Dick Boak Interview Excerpt

Mixing And Mastering With T-RackS: The Official Guide

       Table of Contents
        Chapter 1 Excerpt - Mix Preparation

        Chapter 3 Excerpt - Using T-RackS Dynamics During Mixing

The Audio Mixing Bootcamp

        Table of Contents

        Chapter 4 Excerpt - Building The Mix

        Chapter 6 Excerpt - Setting The Compressor

Enjoy! And let me know what you think!

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8 Indicators That Your Mix Is Finished

One of the tougher things to decide when your doing a project is when the mix is finished. If you have a deadline, the decision is quickly made for you, but if you have a deep pocket budget or unlimited time, a mix can drag on forever.

So when is a mix considered finished? Here are some guidelines, courtesy of The Mixing Engineer's Handbook:

1) The groove of the song is solid. The groove usually comes from the rhythm section, but it might be from an element like a rhythm guitar (like on the Police’s Every Breath You Take) or just the bass by itself, like anything from the Detroit Motown that James Jamerson played on (Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On or The Four Tops Reach Out, I’ll Be There and Bernadette for instance). Whatever element supplies the groove, it has to be emphasized so that the listener can feel it.

2) You can distinctly hear every instrument. Every instrument must have its own frequency range to be heard. Depending upon the arrangement, this is what usually takes the most time during mixing.

3) Every lyric, and every note of every line or solo can be heard. You don’t want a single note buried. It all has to be crystal clear. Use your automation. That’s what it was made for.

4) The mix has punch. The relationship between the bass and drums is in the right proportion and work together well to give the song a solid foundation.

5) The mix has a focal point. What’s the most important element of the song? Make sure it’s obvious to the listener.

6) The mix has contrast. If you have the same amount of the same effect on everything (a trait I hear from so many neophyte mixers), the mix will sound washed out. You have to have contrast between different elements, from dry to wet, to give the mix depth.

7) All noises and glitches are eliminated. This means any count-offs, singer’s breaths that seem out of place or predominate because of vocal compression, amp noise on guitar tracks before and after the guitar is playing, bad sounding edits, and anything else that might take the listener’s attention away from the track.

8) You can play your mix against songs that you love, and it holds up. Perhaps the ultimate test. If you can get your mix in the same ball park as many of your favorites (either things you’ve mixed or from other artists) after you’ve passed the previous seven items, then you’re probably home free.

In the end, it’s best to figure at least a full day per song regardless of whether you’re mixing in the box or on an analog console, although it’s still best to figure a day and a half per mix if you’re mixing in a studio with an analog-style console. Of course, if you’re mixing every session as you go along recording, then you might be finished before you know it as you just tweak your mix a little.

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The Quietest Room In The World

If you've never been in an anechoic chamber, it's literally an unreal experience. Things are quiet; too quiet. So quiet that it's disconcerting, since even in the quietest place you can think of, you can still at least hear reflections from your own movement.

I've always assumed that the quietest anechoic room belonged to either JBL (I was told that they have 3 of them) or the Institute for Research and Coordination In Audio and Music (IRCAM) in France, but according to the Guinness World Records, it's actually at Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis. Supposedly the Orfield chamber absorbes 99.9% of all sound generated within, which results in a measurement of -9dB SPL. As a comparison, a typical quiet room at night where most people sleep is at 30dB SPL, while a typical conversation is at about 60dB SPL.

The Orfield chamber is so quiet that no one has been able to stay inside for more than 45 minutes due to the fact that you begin to hear your heart beating, you lungs working, and even the blood coursing through your veins. Some people even begin to hallucinate during the experience. In fact, you can't even stand after a half-hour since you no longer hear the audio cues that you're used to when you stand as the reflections bounce off the floor, ceiling and walls of the environment.

While it's easy to figure out what JBL does with their anechoic chamber, what goes on in an independent one like at Orfield? It seems that the chamber is used by companies like Harley Davidson and Maytag to test how loud their products are. NASA also uses it for astronaut training.

Here's a short video that describes the Orfield anechoic chamber.

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Cutting Vinyl At Abbey Road

With vinyl sales increasing every year, there's obviously a new-found interest in the format. Here's a a great video that shows a vinyl master being cut at none other than Abbey Road Studios.

Of course what you're seeing is the a totally up to date process using the current state-of-the-art, but it's really not all that removed from the way discs were cut 50 years ago. It's only a bit more refined.

If you want to learn more about cutting records at Abbey Road during The Beatles heyday, as well as a lot of other interesting Abbey Road-related stories, check out Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust, which is the memoirs of Beatles engineer (and Bowie, Supertramp, Devo, Kansas, Missing Persons, etc producer/engineer) Ken Scott.

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9 All-Time Bad Tech Predictions Again

As we approach the 1000th post and 1 millionth page view of The Big Picture Blog, I thought I'd repost some of the more interesting posts from the beginning when there wasn't much of an audience. This one is just as interesting today as it was a bit over three years ago.
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The prediction business is always like walking a tightrope over a waterfall. You're a lot more likely to fall off than make it to the other side. Here are a few of the most egregious forward-looking flubs of the past 112 years, courtesy of Info World:

• "Everything that can be invented, has been invented." - Charles Duell, Commissioner of the US Patent Office, 1899

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

• "Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946

• "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years." - Alex Lewyt, president of Lewyt vacuum company, 1955

• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

• "Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet's continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse." - Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995

• "Apple is already dead." - Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997

• "Two years from now, spam will be solved." - Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, 2004

• "The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a mouse. There is no evidence that people want to use these things." - John Dvorak, noted tech writer and columnist, February 1984.

The interesting thing about these predictions is who made them, as not many of them are lightweights. Let this be a lesson on being careful about making predictions. They sometimes come back to haunt you.

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Overcoming The Self-Production Blues

Self-Production is simultaneously one of the most difficult things to do in music, and perhaps one of the easiest. Every artist hears what their music should sound like in their head (that’s the easy part), but it’s sometimes difficult to get it to actually sound that way when it comes to real-life recording. That can lead the artist to overwork a song until it’s limp like a dishrag, or overproduce it so it has so many layers that it sounds like there’s a 30 piece band backing you up. Indeed, it’s difficult to get it to sound somewhere in between where your project is both exciting and vital, and still meets your vision.

One of the biggest problems with a creative artist is going in circles. This means that the artist has so many good ideas that the production is never finished. As soon as a version is complete, the artist thinks, “I think the middle 8 should have a ska feel.” Then after that’s recorded he thinks, “Maybe the entire song should have a ska feel.” Before you know it there are versions in 6/8, speed metal and reggae (and maybe more), with each one just sounding different, not necessarily better.

If this is what's happening to you, there are two words to keep in mind to help you out of your rut.

Instinct - Usually, the very first inspiration is the right one, especially if you’ve gone through more than a couple of different versions. You’ve got to repress the urge to keep changing things and learn to follow your initial instinct. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tweak or perfect what you’re doing; it means that you shouldn’t make a right turn in a direction that goes against your initial inspiration.

The exception to this is if you think it might be cool to have multiple different versions of the song available so you can give the alternate versions to your core fans as an exclusive gift. Then, a wholesale change in direction can actually be particularly useful.

Deadline - One of the biggest problems with producing yourself is the fact that your project is usually open-ended time-wise. As a result, you end up with the “project that wouldn’t end” that keeps going for years (no exaggeration here).

The surest way to keep that from happening and to actually accomplish something is to set a deadline for the project’s completion. Many people do their best work on deadlines because they don’t have a chance to second guess themselves. The final product may not be 100% of what you want, but remember that it seldom ever is, even with all the time in the world available to finish the project. Save yourself some heartache and impose a deadline on yourself.

If you're interested in some more production tips, check out The Music Producer's Handbook. You can read a few excerpts here.

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