Happy Monday!
Our next inspiration/thought tool is The Productive Limitation.
(Actually, these tools all try to do the same thing, which is to force a thoughtless thought.)
A Productive Limitation is a restriction that encourages creativity and hopefully an interesting moment or idea.
A horse running around a fenced-in corral isn't that interesting. A horse jumping the fence is captivating. A Productive Limitation is setting up the fence.
You have only so much creative and decision-making energy across a day. Productive Limitations keep you from spreading and thinning your mental resources out, and concentrate your problem-solving skills and imagination.
Think of dynamite. If you ignite a stick of it in a field, it might blow a pit in the ground. Put it against a building with a bunch of sandbags around it and it blows out the wall. Limiting the blast concentrates the energy.
Limitations are built into any creative project. Someone says, “Write me a song,” and the first question is either, “About what?" or “What key?" Tempos, chord progressions, lyrical themes, choices of instrumentation, the performance boundaries on a singer’s voice—all limitations.
You’re very used to limitations.
Technical Limitations = Character
Limiters (compressors) were originally developed to prevent radio stations from overmodulating—sending a signal exceeding their licensed transmission wattage, which could get them in trouble with the FCC. It wasn't at all about character or punch or vibe; it was about not getting fined.
Engineers figured out how to make a circuit compress a signal by screwing around with the performance of certain types of components—tubes, transistors, diodes, etc. In many cases, the only way to get compression was, in essence, to get the circuit to work badly. Think of slowing down a motor not by using a throttle, but by causing misfires, running the fuel mixture strangely, missetting timings, etc. Yes, the engine would slow down, but it would also overheat, backfire, use too much gas, and in general function poorly.
Most hardware limiters function this way. Components are tweaked to outside of normal design parameters. This causes audible side effects: increased harmonic distortion, noise, frequency response changes. Back then, no one designed these things thinking, "This will impart a certain roundness if people overdrive the input." They were just trying to get the damn thing to work. FET units like the 1176 sound different from diode bridge units like the Neve 2254, mainly because of the artifacts of the process, not so much the compression itself.
The point was gain control, not character. That limiters added character was a bug that later became a feature.
A limitation becomes a gift, if you choose to accept it.
Technique is a workaround for a problem
I saw a video on YouTube: a bunch of guys discussing how they used a modified Glyn Johns three-mic drum setup to get a certain sound and blah blah blah... That three-mic system evolved because consoles at the time had a limited number of inputs and three were about all that could be spared for the drums. Glyn Johns evolved his three-mic setup as a solution, and then it became intrinsic to his sound. Would he have evolved it had he had access to 60 inputs?
Video of Glyn explaining his technique and offering a bunch of interesting tips.
You deal with what you have, make the best of it, and let the creativity flow out of that.
A limitation introduces a problem, which flips a switch in the brain to activate the very creative problem-solving neuro network, and BOOM! inspired solution.
The Edge, the guitarist of U2, developed his style because he wanted to play parts that were beyond his ability as a player. The delay pedal was a fix for his limited chops.
Think of all the weird singers whose vocal style is based on working with a very limited voice.
DAWs and plug-ins offer tremendous control. But creativity isn’t fired up by control. It wants problems and puzzles and surprises.
Learn to love fences
Adapt to your circumstances.
A friend made an album by cutting vocals and basic tracks on a $40 mic to a mini-disk recorder, which he would later dump into a digital eight-track and then, eventually, into Logic. He also limited himself to covers of songs. Mark Lesseraux is a very creative fellow who always gives himself fences to jump. He turns a T-Rex song into a revelation. The original is pretty fab, too. Of course, Marc Bolan’s whole vocal style is based on overcoming a fairly limited voice.
For a few years I mixed records with basically this:
- 24 channels with 100Hz and 10kHz shelving, mid sweep from 500 - 8kHz. And a high-pass at 80Hz. Just that.
- 4 channels of something like a DBX 160.
- 2 channels of 1176.
- 2 channels of LA-3.
- 1 Summit TLA-100 tube compressor.
- 1 Pultec EQP-1A type thing.
- 2 delay units.
- 1 reverb unit.
It’s a different world when you have to choose either one reverb sound for the whole record, or making the record dry except for one track, or running a speaker and mics out to the bathroom or a stairway to get some homemade reverb chamber happening.
What if you limited your plug-ins to just what I wrote above? Actually, I’m borrowing this idea from a friend, François Morel. He’s made a video about this. However, there is a pretty big limitation here: the video is in French!
This is a ridiculously good album, thrown together with a 4-track cassette recorder. Bruce Springsteen did the same thing for Nebraska.
Come up with some arbitrary rules.
Here are ideas, some off the top of my head, some I’ve done on my own projects, some are pulled from records.
Every other chord has to be a flat 4th from the previous chord. None of the words can rhyme (Paul Simon wrote a hit based on this limitation).
The drummer can’t use cymbals. Make a whole album this way.
All the lyrics have to be related to verbal conversation and all starting with the same letter of the alphabet. Do this for each letter until you get to E.
Decide there can only be ten channels up at any given time in your mix. If you bring in a new part, you have to remove something to maintain ten.
A clip from The Wind Rises, a Hayao Miyazaki masterpiece. Listen for the human voices doing most of the sound effects. The whole idea of the movie was a challenge: a historical drama about the aeronautical engineer that designed the Zero fighter plane for the Japanese Navy. It’s a ravishingly beautiful film.
Two bass strings. Three guitar strings. Hear it here. Of course, there’s also the White Stripes. Here’s a breakdown of an eight-track recording! Also, the White Stripes decided that they would only wear red, white and black clothing.
Matthew Sweet wrote and recorded an entire album in a self-imposed week. Hawksley Workman also writes and records songs in one day, at least this was the case early on in his career.
Every sound on this is a sample of the singer’s voice.
I direct stage plays, musicals and operas. One of the very first things I always do: I read the script and then figure out how to stage the entire play using two chairs, two ladders, and two white bedsheets. I actually draw out every scene. This always results in usable ideas that I put on the stage in the actual production.
The good stuff lies at the intersection of problem, accident, luck, and control. A limitation is an invitation: “Please, happy accident, come find me here."
Try to spend your time there. It's a rewarding place to be.
Warm regards,
Luke
