So, several months ago, due to computer breakage, software malfunctions, hard drive crashes, miles and miles of frustration, and the realization that i’ve been making some pretty poor audio files, i decided it was time to upgrade. i got a new computer, new microphone, mic-preamp, and even upgraded to new and superior audio software. i am the proud owner of my very own DAW. i even know what it stands for, digital audio workstation.

With all my new stuff there came a very steep learning curve, which, through the entire process, God began to speak to me about the way i see myself. i sat for a few hours everyday, watching tutorials, reading, watching, reading, taking notes, trying different things with all this new stuff. i tell ya’, i felt like i’d moved from the drivers seat of and old VW bus to a high speed, snap your head back, major horsepower road car. When i double click the audio software to bring it up, it’s like turning the key to a double A fuel dragster and listening to it rumble and cackle, shake, rattle, and roll. It’s intoxicating. i mean the options were endless in how i could wrangle my voice this way, and twist it that way, make it deeper, and sharper, far away, on this side then that side, or right in your ear. i made many recordings and deleted many recordings, over and over with new settings each time for bass, mid, and treble, close to the mic, far from the mic, to the side, and even behind it, with effects and without. i’ve even gone so far as to put up quite a bit of sound proofing to try and get a better recording. Why? All because i really and truly want to make a very listenable product which someone wouldn’t mind listening to, maybe even find it pleasant. i want to do a good job with what God has given me.

Well, i’ve been really struggling. i’ve discovered when i’ve made a recording and i thought it sounded pretty good, if i compared my voice to someone else’s, i realized i sounded like i was in a tunnel, or under a blanket. Without the comparison, i really didn’t know i sounded like that. Without the comparison, i thought it was pretty good. i was reminded of when i was a kid and my parents had a little Lloyd stereo with a fold down turntable and speaker boxes that unhooked from the left and right side. i thought that thing was an amazing sound system. i learned to play guitar using that stereo, lifting the needle and moving it to play the same part over and over till i drove my folks crazy. Then one day in my little town, my dad took me to Elmer Neil’s stereo shop where i heard a set of Klipsch Horns which were like a voice from Heaven…. incase you’ve never heard such a thing, i’m telling you that’s top of the line, blow your mind, world class equipment. Suddenly, i had some perspective about our little Lloyd stereo my folks bought at Sherman’s Sporting Goods.

The first part of all this is some insight about perspective. We can’t understand a curvy line unless we have gotten, somewhere, the idea of a straight line. i didn’t know what a bad stereo was until i heard a really good one. My simple line example is very similar. How would you know that a line is curvy unless there was a straight line to compare it to? According to the Lord, everyone born, comes into this world with the concept of right and wrong. We wouldn’t know we were wrong unless we had a standard of right. Whether we admit it or not, i believe everyone knows in the bottom of their heart God is the standard. They may not like it, or agree, or believe it, but it doesn’t change the fact that the standard is there. i thank the Lord for showing me how good my recordings can be by my realizing how bad they were. Now i see a standard. Now i can tell when the recording is good or poor.

The second part of this little endeavor, is that the Lord pointed out to me that the reason i was struggling so SO hard with my vocals was because i was constantly trying to sound ….like someone else, anyone but me. With all my new fangled effects and high powered processing, He pointed out to me that i was constantly trying to edit “me” out of the picture, because i didn’t like how i sounded. One night the Lord said to me in a dream, “It’s ok to be you, and it’s ok for you to sound and look like yourself.” So now, i’m learning to relax and simply be ok with how i sound, and i’ll say to you too, it’s ok to be you. It’s ok to look like you and to sound like you. Don’t edit yourself out of your picture and out of life because you don’t like how you appear and sound to yourself….it’s ok for you to be in your own story. Breathe man breathe. God loves you and He really really likes you too….right where you are and it’s enough.