my process when I start a song usually looks something like this.

I'll spend some time throwing ideas around.

most won't go anywhere.

but eventually, one does.

there's that moment where something clicks and I think,

fuck yeah.

this is special.

so I start building it out.

then I go deep.

hours spent improving the production.

layering sounds.

changing instruments.

working on the arrangement.

adding things.

taking things away.

listening over and over again.

I usually bounce the track and take it outside the studio.

I'll listen at the gym.

walking the dog.

in the car.

on a shitty bluetooth speaker in my house.

not because I'm checking the mix.

I just need to hear the song somewhere other than the same chair I've been sitting in for the last six hours.

but there's a point I've noticed myself reaching again and again.

I've spent so long working on the song that I start losing perspective on why I fell in love with it in the first place.

that initial excitement gets buried underneath hundreds of tiny decisions.

is that synth right?

does the chorus need another layer?

should this section be four bars shorter?

and slowly, you're not listening to the song anymore.

you're analysing it.

that's when analysis paralysis starts creeping in.

and suddenly you're so emotionally close to the music that you can't tell whether you're making it better...

or just changing it.

I think every artist, producer and songwriter eventually reaches this point.

and sometimes the answer isn't working harder.

it's perspective.

walking away for a few days.

playing it to someone whose ears you trust.

working alongside another producer.

having somebody hear in thirty seconds what you've stopped hearing after thirty hours.

because they aren't emotionally attached to every decision you've made.

they're hearing the song.

and sometimes they'll point straight at the thing you've spent three days avoiding.

that's why I've increasingly come to value another set of experienced ears.

not someone who takes over your record or tells you what your music should sound like.

someone who helps you get back to the reason you loved it in the first place.

because the goal isn't to make every detail perfect.

it's to protect whatever made you think...

fuck yeah.

this is special.

the hardest problems to solve are often the ones you've stopped being able to hear.

and sometimes, all it takes is the right person to hear them for you.