Daily Blog - April 28th 2021

Some of the most beautiful houses are a tasteful combination of old materials and modern elements. Classic, timeless construction methods combined with new technology. We can find this in other areas, as well. All new and "modern" is not always better and old or "classic" is often beautiful but can almost aways be improved at least a bit or benefit from a fresh approach.

Have you tried combining the old and the new in your recordings?

If you're a bedroom producer creating songs on a laptop with all programmed drums and virtual guitar amps, how can you bring in some unique vibe to mix it up a little? Can you at least make some elements go through air and capture them with a mic again? Any weird speaker that you could try sending stuff through and see if it sounds cool? Or maybe reamp through a real guitar pedal before you hit your amp sim? Or hire a remote session musician to do record a real instrument with a human touch that you can add to your programmed arrangement?

If you're doing things mostly analog and "real", can you use modern technology to your advantage and add unique production elements? Post-production FX to create tension or more impact? Maybe try reamping and use a crazy plugin chain on a DI before you send it out through your amp and cab. Or create larger than life, insane sounding spaces/reverbs in the computer and blend them with your real room mics.

Combining the old and the new brings endless possibilities. There's no excuse to sound generic, dated, or boring. 

-Benedikt

PS: You'll also find these daily blog posts in my Instagram Stories: @benedikthain