There is a syndrome that always keeps us away from our goals and everything we want to accomplish. This syndrome is the perfectionism! Being perfect to everything is something that many people have, and it happens to home studio people too and with music creativity in general!
Let me give you two examples: You have just started your new home studio and you are very excited! You are thrilled with the idea of recording your own songs in your home studio. You can’t wait to start but when that moment comes, there is always something happening and we are behind schedule!But really? Is there any schedule at all? You are just exploring the new vst instrument that you just bought and you are trying all the sounds and trying to decide which is the best for the specific song you are working on. You are trying each plug in you have in your disposal and you don’t know which is the best to use for your guitar,that you have just recorded and you are lost in the sea of your plug ins! You want the best sounding result, but you can’t get it and the result is the opposite: FRUSTRATION!
Second example:You have your home studio for several months or years now, but you always find the most unbelievable excuses for not finishing your project.You are not sure ig you have used the right microphone for guitar recording and you keep wondering and you are still recording until you get the “perfect” sound or whatever that is! Maybe you are in the mixing phase and you just moving the faders of your digital mixer up and down without knowing exactly what you are doing, because you are not sure if you have set the right levels for your mix.You listen to your guitar tracks and you are thinking if it’s better to change the eq settings that you made just a few minute earlier! You are stuck an you really don’t know what to do!You are missing the point! And what is the point my friend? I’ll tell you in a moment! As long as you are trying to fix the “wrong” choices you made ,there will be always something wrong and you ‘ll never be satisfied with the results you are getting! And do you know why? Because you have the perfectionism syndrome! You are working on a song and you are very happy with your mix so far. You import a reference track into your project to compare with your mix and there is where everything falls apart!
I’m sure that you have done one or more of these things I mentioned above. It’s absolutely normal. I’ve done that for years and sometimes (not to say many times),I catch myself still doing it!I’ve got news for you though!There is a cure! There is a way you can end your perfectionism! Do you know what that is? It takes a lot of effort ,but I’m sure you can do it!Are you ready? FINISH YOUR SONG AND MOVE TO THE NEXT ONE! How simple is that? I know that this sounds a little bit sarcastic but I am telling you all these,because I’ve been there and and I am not so proud of telling you that. For years now I had half-finished songs in my computer and the reason for that is that I always had an excuse for not finishing that song. Maybe i didn’t know what to do with compressing vocals or what eq settings to do for my guitars or the bass guitar.So,I was just leaving this song half-finished and I was starting another one because I was sure that I would finish the next one.But nothing happened. The same! I was always coming to a point, where everything seemed or even better heard awful to my ears.Another song half-finished in my hard drive. And this story kept going for many years. This is not the solution! Perfectionism leads nowhere. You are stable. Stability will not get progress. You need progrees and the only way to achieve this is by finishing your song and keep moving to the next one. You won’t make the same “mistake” you did to the last song. Everything will be better to your next project. Keep moving forward! You built your home studio for recording ,mixing and releasing your music. This way ,nothing is going to happen! Let me give you two ways to overcome perfectionism.
The first way is by setting a deadline and working with a timer. What do I mean by that? Let’s say you want to record an electric guitar part for a song you are working on. If you set a deadline one hour for recording this guitar part and by setting your timer you will feel the pressure but you will not have the time to have a “break” And trust me! You will achieve your goal before this hour ends!I don’t care if you have to choose the right sound for your guitar,or picking the right digital amp for recording. All these have to be done in this one hour! After this one hour, you can’t do anything with that part. You have no more time for corrections or anything else.You are done!
The second way is, just book some time for you in your home studio for playing around with your plug ins , your vst instruments, making some notes on mixing , but not in the production phase! If you have two hours in the weekend for doing only this, please do! Justt book your time in your home studio and commit to yourself that you won’t do this while recording or mixing.
Leave your comments below if you are or you were perfectionist and how you did it or what you are willing to do for overcoming the perfection syndrome!