The Legacy Project: Deciding When Enough is Enough!

“Greensleeves & Puddin’ Pies” has finally been sent off to be manufactured now!  What a ride it has been!  In spite of my best intentions, I often end up leaving things to the last minute.  Having said that, the CD is now designed, I have signed off on the recording, and it is now out of my hands!

When producing CDs, the hardest task for me is deciding when enough is enough.  Every time I would listen through the tracks that had been given to me, I would hear more little mistakes, or sounds.  Often, not even mistakes, but simply things like the sound of the guitarist’s fingers sliding on the strings.  The big question is when to decide that you are ready to move on.  I struggle with this every time I make a CD.

So here is the dilemma.  I want everything to be perfect:  I want every note to be perfectly in tune, I want every note to be crystal clear, I want there not to be any extraneous sound on the CD.  Here is the truth though…  My playing is not perfect.  Sometimes there are extra little sounds that creep into a recording.  My inclination is to spend many hours and a lot of money trying to make it all perfect!

What is the problem with that?  Well, I feel like it would not be completely honest for me to present you with a CD that was auto-tuned on every note, and where every little squeak was removed.  I want to present you with a CD of me, not a CD of the robot Katherine who never makes any mistakes.  To my ears, a CD that has been overly corrected in the studio does not sound like humans playing music any more.  So often I love the first CD that a band produces, but then as time goes by, their sound is polished to the point of being over produced and not as enjoyable to me anymore.

All in all, this is a very fine line to walk.  I want to present a good product with it still being me with all of my imperfections.  I view all of my CDs as a snap shot of where I am at this one moment in time.  I hope that you enjoy this snapshot of my life at this point!