By Teddy Allmendinger
Posted 05/22/2025
In this article, I’m going to dive into five of the top things that I have learned as a producer and engineer. Some of these are more process related, discussing thoughts and ideas that have supported my growth. Other points may lean more technical.
1 – Less is More
Now I can’t emphasize this enough. One of the luxuries of working in a big studio is that there are limitless amounts of microphones, and all of them sound pretty exciting. This leads everyone, including myself, to putting up too many microphones. It is common to see an excess of microphones on everything from a Leslie cab, to a guitar amp, to a drum set. The issue doesn’t actually lie in the amount of mics we have out there, it lies in the feeling of obligation to use them all. Once the recording is done and all of the audio is piled into ProTools, it is pivotal that the engineer can morph into a sculptor, always asking how we can embolden the shape of this music by carving away at some areas. I think it’s important to strike while the iron is hot, throw as much as you can at it, and then develop the mastery of taking away and refining. If you listen to the wide scope of popular music over the course of 60 years, you will find that they didn’t have the capability to stack 1000 guitar layers, and it sounded better because of it.
2 – Don’t Be Afraid To Restart
In my earlier days of creating music, I would often feel obligated and attached to whatever work I had put in. I was deceived by the idea that how much time I put into something had anything to do with the value of it. This led to finishing things that I was never really happy with in the first place. This will steal your joy after a while. After a couple of years of working this way, I began to develop an instinct on when to give up on something. I imagine that line is different for everyone but I do think it’s gravely important to find that line in yourself. Let me be clear, “giving up” should not echo as a surrender but rather a reason to try something new. Musical ideas come quickly and if I needle one out for too long and it’s not going anywhere, I’ll start to wonder what new moment I could’ve arrived at if I had just shifted my gaze for a few. So yeah, don’t be afraid to trash it and restart. Every time I do, I’m always pleasantly surprised at how quickly the “new thing” comes together.
3 – Be Specific About Vocal Engineering
It is so common today for people to go to YouTube, find a good vocal chain, slap a compressor on there and call it a day. I get bummed out by this, because come on… our voices are all so different! Why would we squash everything into a general sound? Our voices are home to our character, our persona, and our individuality. All of the nuances in timbre and texture really make us who we are, as speakers but also as singers. I see it all the time in my clients’ demos. They throw on compressors and reverbs that they were directed to by YouTube. Everyone else that went to YouTube and saw that video is using those same tools. This is ultimately going to arrive at some part of the sonic experience being very similar to someone else’s. Compressors are color blankets. As soon as you slap on a plugin compressor, you are adding a texture to it that will be observable in any other person who uses that same plugin. So be specific! If you are adding a compressor or a reverb make sure it’s because you love the tone and not because you’re “supposed” to. Go in there and get intimate with your audio. Make sure it’s how you like it and be observant when other factors impede on that.
4 – You Get More Bees With Honey
Now this is true everywhere in life, but it’s especially important in the studio. Music is intimate and requires performance. When you put those two things together there’s a ton of room for it to go wrong. The subtlety of the relationship between producer/engineer and artist makes a huge difference. Good music is obviously built upon talent, but I believe it’s made great through trust, collaboration, and exploration. Those qualities are the windows into finding something new. Lean in with kindness, be curious about what you don’t know, and be humble in the areas you are excellent. Leave room for the artist to want to try something. Leave room for the artist to feel equal in the technical process. Leave room to make a long lasting friend. The best music comes out of the best friendships.
5 – The Best Of Both Worlds
We live in a fractured musical society. One side is where music is entirely created in the box through digital means, and the other side is still rocking a tape machine. I’m finding the magic and the ingenuity lies in the harmony between them. I learned that the easiest way is absolutely not always the way. The digital world allows us to complete ideas with haste. This begs the question of what we might be missing by moving so fast. The analog world offers the opposite, which is sometimes a crawl, but in that crawl lives more time for methodical choices. Whether it’s programming drums and layering live ones in, real reverbs mixed with digital ones or whatever else you can conceive of, I think you will be pleasantly at what you find. Be curious about blending old and new. Be excited about feeling like a sound or a process is entirely yours.
