The Irony of Perfection

I got my first music interface whenever I was 12 years old. It was an M-Audio device that allowed for my Christian Rock group F.A.C.T. to put together some of our original songs. It cost $100 at the Best Buy and we worked hard for that money that we all compiled as a unit.

With that single interface (that I eventually bought out from the group), I would spend years working on album after album, song after song. No matter how hard I worked or what steps I took, I could never get the pure, silenced sound that I wanted. It was, after all, a $100 interface from the Best Buy.

I only upgraded by the merit of my current church appointment, where we invested in a more expensive and higher quality Scarlett interface that has become the industry standard for online production.

While I have yet to attempt to produce an album using the device, I’ve realized that I likely still won’t achieve that perfection I long for - because it doesn’t exist. And even if it did, no one wants it anyway.

Since my daughter’s birth, I’ve discovered my new love of the Lo-Fi music genre. For those unfamiliar, these songs are designed to mimic the classic sound of live-to-tape recording during the second half of the 20th century.

That means that sound designers will install plug-ins and effects that recreate the sound of the tape scratch and crinkle. That vinyl tapping of the needle into the grooves.

I’ve been striving for aural perfection for over 15 years. And I’ve discovered that it’s the imperfect that sounds best to me in the end.

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March 8th, 2022