Do you avoid listening to your released, past productions not to spot mistakes?

 

Nah, just because the past is past and now is what's up.

 

Of course not, rather the opposite. If you've done your best, the mix should still sound good to you after a year, but if you can't find any flaws after max five years, you haven't made any improvements/progress.

 

Do you avoid listening to your already published productions in order not to discover any mistakes?
The first things I recorded were on a four-track cassette recorder, we had a music project and a practice room. which was open to everyone, we were all quite beginners, sometimes someone came along who played drums well or knew how to play the guitar. You could sit down at the drums yourself or play another instrument.

The equipment and the sound of the recordings is pretty bad, but it's exciting to hear what they've made. Most of the time you laugh about it oh man ...! But sometimes you are also amazed. I don't listen to it any more because the quality standards have grown with me.

Avoidance behavior is based on fear and insecurity, you should stand by yourself, because after all you have invested time in it, nobody likes working for the garbage can. Then there are mistakes, that makes things very human. Good training with bands is also being there in their rehearsal room. In addition, everyone starts small and grows daily with the tasks.

 

Nope, because living with your head in the sand is not the way to progress in life.

I might need a bit of a break - if I've been living and breathing a project for a couple months, then yeah, I'll prob wanna step away for a bit and get it outta my brain, but apart from that ofc I wouldn't avoid it.

Stop viewing things as "mistakes" - they're decisions you (hopefully!) took mindfully during the process. While you may not necessarily agree with all of those decisions now, nevertheless, that past record is a representation of where you were at in that time.

If you spot something in it you don't vibe with now, then sit with that, think about why it bothers you now, and think what you might do differently. Then take that knowledge with you into your current/next projects.

Wait until you hear a mix you're proud of played on a national radio station for the first time - when their broadcast compression smashes it into something almost unrecognisable, and you realise that mixing just got 10x more difficult lol.

But just like anything else in this job, you learn from that experience, adapt your approach, and you get better.

Then a little while down the line, you hear another record you've worked on being played on the air, and realise it actually stands up well to the songs that came before and after it, and you realise that you needed the first wtf moment to get to where you are now.

That's what progress is, and you should always be pushing for it.

 

It was a very freeing moment when I realized I could just revisit my old tracks and genuinely mix them so they don't sound like they didn't get produced at Sony MBG (moms basement/garage)

 

I avoid them mostly because they are crap :D

 

I do listen to my old stuff, purely to recognise mistakes I've made and to train myself not to make the same mistakes again. Training the ear is very important! I created a track around 5 years ago - it wasn't my best piece of work and sounded very dated, plenty of mistakes. I remade the track last year, and pushed it to a few labels to see if I get a bite. Many rejected it, as expected as it didn't fit their label - one label is currently reviewing it and I do have hopes it's going to get signed.

However, the labels that rejected it said it was a 'great' track - just not the right sound for their label, so that's a positive.

You can check it out here:

It's the third track from the clips.

Plus, Eric Prydz (if you're into Dance / Trancey sort of stuff) did exactly that, Pjanoo when it came out was like the Xth iteration of a very simple sound which was made years before it's release.

 

@Trurl, is that dislike a mishap?

 

Can you do this with my old songs too?

 

Not for tigers, only for lions

 

I go back to my past recordings regularly and if it doesn't sound as good as the recent mixes, then I know I've made progress.

 

actually I enjoy listening my old recordings and mixes, sure I hear mistakes, but I learn them and embrace them,
and totally agree with No Avenger, frankly I sometimes think my older stuff sounds better in some ways

 

This is the wrong answer in so many aspects.

 

I listen to shit I made on garageband back in 09 and some of it is better than shit I make now, unique teenage music from back in the day.. Now im 32 and got so much going on its hard to feel blissful anymore like I was when I was living under mom and dads roof.... I enjoy listening to my old songs (like 300 of them) to elicit a nostalgic feeling.

 

My previous songs are to me like photos of me being younger - I can't be ashamed of who I was, because I know I did everything to make it as good as possible at that time. It was expression of me, just in the past. In fact some of my tunes make me proud. But at some time I've learned to not release anything that doesn't make me feel extremely proud, so this may help.

 

Oh crap sure was! Didn't even see any of this. Fixed...