Loudon Wainwright III Quotes

When you finish a record, I look at it like a photograph. It's already taken. You got it the way you wanted it to be. You edit it, make sure the light and contrast are right, then you just put it away, and that's your photograph. Then you don't really think about it anymore.

I'm not somebody who can tell if the song is good enough to be pushed until I hear what it sounds like after all the bells and whistles are put on it.

When a piece is done, I mix it before going on to any other piece.

I've never made a record that didn't sound better than what was in my head - that's sort of my rule.

I've got my own studio, so I sit in my studio writing and if I get a great take, that's the take.

You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.

The whole thing with recording is you have to know when to turn off the tape machine and just stop recording because you want to keep fixing, fixing, fixing, you know?

Our job as producers is to make the music sound as good as possible.

I pay such close attention of the record making process that most people would assume are very little and wouldn't be that big of a deal; the packaging, the title, and the harmonies, I think, are arguably as important as the lead vocals.

But really important, perhaps most important is the craft; how you make your record, the creation of these sonic worlds you want your listener to hear.

I usually make records very quickly. I usually go in and record them and mix them, and I'm done within a couple of weeks.

Some people remaster their records six, seven times, remix it three, four times, spend a million hours, then they always go back and hear a demo of it and they'll say, 'Aw that sounds so much better than the final mix.'

I write the songs, go in and record them, then I listen to everything and decide how it all fits together.

Once a song is done, for me, personally, it's usually two or three days to get the mixdown.

My best capacity is to edit. If anything, I am a specialist at editing: my usual approach is to record a song very long. In the beginning just jam, jam on and on. Then break the song and play with it.

I think anyone who knows the audio process knows what mixing and mastering is.

You get the beats. You write to them. You go in the studio and lay it down. Hopefully, a song comes out sounding good. If it comes out sounding good, you put it to the side with the rest of the other good ones, and you try to decide which ones you're gonna use on the album.

I love production. I could do it 365 days a year. Post is different. It's just too slow, and everything is very finite.

Everything we did, we did live - and then Bobby took it home and chopped it up and edited it. Which is pretty much what they did with every jazz record you've ever heard.

I like being in a recording studio. I like watching a song go from the simplicity of the original music.

I've always thought my soundtracks do pretty good, because they're basically professional equivalents of a mix tape I'd make for you at home.

When I produce a record, I roll up my sleeves; I'm not one of those passive guys. I really get in there and make sure every note is measured. I tell the bass player, 'You have to play it like this,' or I tell the drummer, 'It's got to be like this.'

When I was recording from '70 to '82, I always played piano and laid the tracks down. But I used to talk to the other musicians while the track was playing.

Analog, electronic, whatever it happens to be, I simply love and adore literally every aspect of making music.

I've got the recording process down, and I can knock it out very quickly.