---
title: "Sometimes It's Best to Slow Down"

description: "You know how much I love pace. While speed is super important, there are times to downshift and take it slow. Finding the balance between speed and accuracy is key for athletes and creatives alike. As someone that airs on the side of fast, I want to share some of the tips I've been finding as a mixing engineer, and hopefully expand the way you listen to music from a technical perspective."

status: complete

date: 2023-03-06

kind: solo

guestSlugs: []

listenUrl: "https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/Sometimes-Its-Best-to-Slow-Down-e1vegug"
appleUrl: "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sometimes-its-best-to-slow-down/id1567355195?i=1000602982135&uo=4"
spotifyUrl: "https://open.spotify.com/episode/502xCKVsd28h1cxEXYaXlk"

topicsDiscussed:
  - "Creativity"
  - "Mixing"
  - "Music production"
  - "Singing and vocals"
  - "Importance of detail"
  - "Managing recording flow"
  - "Creative decision making"
  - "Vocal editing insights"
  - "Balancing speed and accuracy"
  - "Understanding audio dynamics"

hostNote: |
  "There's a really fine line between being fast and being sloppy, and I don't always hit it." I lean toward fast, it's a bias that serves me most of the time and buries me in specific moments that are very hard to fix later.
  
  I go through the places in a mix where speed costs you: vocal breaths that get printed into a track, the accidental space-bar click that ends up sounding like a rim shot, quantization decisions you can't undo. The moments that require you to sit with the detail rather than push through it. The frame is mixing, but the principle applies anywhere precision and momentum pull in opposite directions.
  
  You come away with a more calibrated sense of where in your workflow to downshift, not as a general virtue, but as a specific, targeted habit.

selectedMoments:
  - label: "The need to slow down in music production"
    startSec: 1
    note: "I discuss the necessity of slowing down and finding balance in music production."
  - label: "Clear recording practices"
    startSec: 136
    note: "I highlight common mistakes in recording, such as accidental noise."
  - label: "Vocal editing intricacies"
    startSec: 227
    note: "The importance of careful editing of vocal breaths and sounds."
  - label: "Quantization choices"
    startSec: 405
    note: "I share my approach to quantizing music, preferring hands-on methods."
  - label: "Finding your creative rhythm"
    startSec: 581
    note: "I encourage a balance between speed and attention to detail in music making."
  - label: "Emphasizing importance of vocal tracks"
    startSec: 633
    note: "The significance of preparing vocal tracks before handing them over to mixing engineers."

excerptQuotes:
  - text: "There are moments in the creative process that you do need to slow down."
    startSec: 47
    reviewed: true
  - text: "You get that sound in the background, it's like, oh, is that a rim click on a snare drum? Nope, space bar."
    startSec: 134
    reviewed: true
  - text: "It would have been a real bummer, and there's a chance, probably I would have caught it, but there's a chance that I wouldn't have caught it until after it was released."
    startSec: 770
    reviewed: true
  - text: "There's a really fine line between being fast and being sloppy, and I don't always hit it."
    startSec: 811
    reviewed: true

faq:
  - question: "What are the benefits of slowing down in music production?"
    answer: "Slowing down allows for more thoughtful decision-making and can prevent mistakes that happen when rushing, ultimately leading to a better final product."
  - question: "How can I improve my vocal editing skills?"
    answer: "Focus on the entrances and exits of your vocal tracks, and be mindful of breath sounds that can become amplified during mixing."
  - question: "What does quantizing mean in music production?"
    answer: "Quantizing is the process of adjusting the timing of notes or beats in a recorded performance to fit a grid, but doing it by hand can create a more personalized feel."

transcriptPublished: false

draft: false
---