Do you….(revisiting your work)

[Lawrence]

….occasionally go back and listen to a few years of your work?

Dunno about y’all, but I do this once in a while. Sometimes it’s revelatory in a good way, often it’s cringeworthy, but it almost always leads to me remixing a few things that were worthwhile efforts, mixed in a hurry.

[Piet De Ridder]

Next to new ideas I’m working on, I always have a few old pieces I’m revising or trying to improve. Over time you learn new techniques, you hone your mixing skills, some new plug-in or library or virtual instrument comes along that you think might work well in some of your older work, … So yes, in answer to the opening question: I do. Very much so. All the time.

A big reason, for me personally, is also that I am, obsessively, after the ‘definitive version’ of my pieces. Even though I know that that’s obviously not within reach for mock-orchestral work, I try, at the very least, to arrive at a version that communicates everything I put in and is at the same time also reasonably enjoyable to listen to. And if it happens to have certain aspects of interest with regards to mock-up technique, that’s a bonus. But mock-orchestral stuff is only a very small percentage of what I’m busy with.

All my other pieces are these experimental electro-acoustic concoctions, or shamelessly kitschy retro pastiches, or other difficult-to-describe instrumental explorations. And for all these pieces, I really, really, really would like (and also spend insane amounts of time) to end up with something I can consider — in the most brutal, self-critical honesty — the definitive version. ‘Definitive’ being: a version in which all choices and decisions pertaining to content, sound, instrumentation, performance, mix and production all are 100% musically valid in their own way and make up that one, unique musical rendition that presents the piece in the most complete way. Wrapped in exactly the sort of sound I happen to like. And about which I, or anyone else, can’t say: nice, but if you were to record this with other musicians, it could sound so much better. Any version of my pieces that triggers such a comment, isn’t a good enough version. (And I've got tons of those.)

So yeah, I’m constantly at it. Still got mountains of work in front of me. And an ever-shrinking amount of time to do it in.

__

[Ashermusic]

….occasionally go back and listen to a few years of your work?

Dunno about y’all, but I do this once in a while. Sometimes it’s revelatory in a good way, often it’s cringeworthy, but it almost always leads to me remixing a few things that were worthwhile efforts, mixed in a hurry.

Yes,, occasionally

[Guy Rowland]

Funny you should ask. I do, but almost exclusively it is the stuff where I've collaborated with a singer.

Some 10-15 years ago I worked with a singer, and I ended up putting together a fake album of what we did that never got released or heard by anyone. Some 5 or so years ago I remixed a few tracks, ever wanting to shave away my flaws. I'm the only one on the planet who listens to it. There's a couple of duds, ones that got away. But in my deluded brain, I think 3/4 of it is absolutely brilliant. She should have been a star and it would have been a helluva debut. Great songs, and the production wasn't too shabby.

I think I allow myself to indulge in this way cos it's not all me. I think I've moved past the bittersweetness of "it didn't work out" and just enjoy it now for its own sake. It's kinda sad that the only one appreciating it is the person who made the bloody thing, but I think I'm old enough not to care any more.

[Lawrence]

That was the stuff with your young singer? It was pretty.

Coincidentally, it’s my songs with lyrics that I usually want to remix or work on when I go back, but some instrumentals as well.