Recording Revisiting old recordings you've made

[jbtsax]

I am becoming more and more aware of the fact that when listening to recordings I made of my playing in the past, they no longer sound as good as I thought they sounded at the time. Does this happen to anyone else?

Does playing a recording over and over mixing and adjusting the levels somehow dull one's objectivity to what they are hearing. I would be especially interested to hear @Pete Thomas address this question from his experience as a professional player's and professional recording technician.

 

[Nick Wyver]

I find the opposite. I thought they were rubbish at the time but now I can see some merit in them.

 

[Pete Thomas]

I would be especially interested to hear @Pete Thomas address this question from his experience as a professional player's and professional recording technician.

Yes and no.

I have heard recordings of stuff I did in the past and cringe, and at other imes I am pleasantly surprised (or rather less pleasantly if I think "Oh dear, I was better in those days."

I do think I can do better mixes of some things as my engineering skills improve, but that can be a double edged sword. Since the last few years I have the ability to "correct" intonation. What I found is that 99% of the time I did that it actually made things worse, and that the original technically out of tune recording was actually better IMO so I mostly stopped messing with that stuff, although it was interesting for a while.

 

[Colin the Bear]

I find both ways too. There's the "OMG what was I thinking" moment and then occasionally there's the "I wish I could play like that" moment. I have a clean out on sound cloud every now and then. The ones with the most plays aren't necessarily keepers. In my paranoid moments I wonder if people are playing the tracks as an example of how not to play. At my egotistical worst I believe they are right to keep playing it. 😉