Way back in the day my band was recording a demo.

I wanted my lead guitar part to sound really weird, like a plunky, glass-brittle'esque sound.

That's a weird description I know but I couldn't figure out how to make my electric guitar sound like that.

I even went so far as to put the condenser microphone inside a beer glass so see if I could make it sound "glassier."

Stupid I know. It only sounded muffled and weird.

I abandoned the sound and went in a different direction because I couldn't figure it out. Later I realized how easy I could've accomplished that sound if I would've just looked for a simpler solution.

The sound I wanted from my guitar wasn't a guitar sound. The plucky, stringy sound would've been easily recorded with a ukulele. The nylon strings and the small and sometimes brittle sound the ukulele has? That's the exact sound I was looking for and I just didn't realize it.

Sometimes, the answer to your crazy endeavors is simpler than you think. Realizing that you're running in the wrong direction is the hard part.

It's not that you need to look outside the box for a solution.

Putting a pint glass over a microphone is plenty thinking out of the box. No, it's more about taking your head out of the box and looking at it from afar.

Sometimes you're just too close to the problem to see the solution.

The same thing goes for mixing. Sometimes you don't need all the plug-ins on the market. You don't need the most complex mixing techniques and the most creative effects.

Sometimes you just need to know how to simplify and make an awesome mix with only five plug-ins.

That's where Step By Step Mixing comes in. Check it out below:

www.stepbystepmixing.com

P.S.

You may have received a flurry of emails from everyone who's ever gotten a hold of your email address yesterday. I certainly did!

GDPR compliance is here and it comes with an updated privacy policy that's just as boring to read as the previous one. The short version is this: The only personal information I really have is your email address so I can send you my hilarious jokes, but if you don't like my sense of humor anymore you can always unsubscribe at the bottom of every email.

Cheers and have a great weekend,

Björgvin