As the year wraps up, it naturally feels like a good moment to pause and reflect. Not exactly on big wins or new gear, but on the smaller things that quietly shaped how we listen, record, and create - the day today stuff.
Over the past year, our Tone Tip Tuesdays have touched on perspective, space, tone, and intention. This is a simple look back at a few of those ideas we’ve discussed in our community - the ones that stuck, and the ones worth carrying forward into the new year.
Thanks for being part of the journey. Here’s to listening a little deeper in the coming year ahead.
1. A Perspective on Perspective
Looking back, most of the meaningful lessons in life aren’t dramatic breakthroughs. They usually are small shifts in how we think, listen and how we approach sound - just like building blocks that make up a solid foundation on which to further build upon.
One of the strongest themes this year was perspective. Stepping away from the speakers, listening from the next room, or narrowing the frequency range to focus on the midrange all reinforced the same general idea: changing how you listen changes what you hear.
Our ears adapt quickly, and familiarity can blur judgment. In fact, it will. Think of an album you love musically, that sounds harsh or thin - after a song or two, it won’t bother you anymore, as your ears will have adapted to the sound. The same thing happens when mixing. Even a small reset can reveal balance issues, energy problems, or tonal clashes that were hiding in plain sight.
If you ever feel stuck when mixing, don’t hesitate to switch things up - Anything that will allow you to have at least some degree of an “outside view” will help. Throw on some headphones or earbuds, play the mix through a bluetooth speaker, go listen in the car or even listen to the mix on your laptop speakers while doing the dishes - each of these scenarios will reveal something you might have missed while working at your desk.
2. Interaction > Isolation
Another big takeaway was a reminder that tone lives in interaction, not isolation. We’ve all heard a guitar tone that sounds fantastic by itself, but in the mix it falls apart or gets completely lost. The same principle works for all elements of the mix.
Driving a mic preamp for character versus keeping it clean for precision, experimenting with phase between two mics on a guitar cab, or pushing a piece of analog gear into gentle saturation all point to the same truth: sound is shaped by relationships. Sometimes, it’s smart to play it safe and avoid any adventurous tone shaping, but as history shows, most of the legendary tones we hear on our favorite classic albums have one thing in common - the engineers were using their equipment outside of the parameters intended by the manufacturers.
Running the preamps hard, pushing the console hard, even using things “wrong”, like the famous “all buttons in” setting on the 1176 compressor, where all of the ratio buttons on the unit are pushed in at the same time. This creates a unique compression sound that is really aggressive and full of character - super useful on drum room tracks, for example. The result might be too blown out by itself, but in the mix it really fills out the space between the drum hits. Once again - interaction beats isolation.
The same idea goes for microphones - they capture how energy moves through air, circuits, and space. Often, the most interesting tones come from subtle imperfections and choices made before the mix even begins. Listen to how the microphone hears sounds, and try to move things around - sometimes the best tones are not where you think they are - a guitar in the corner of the room will sound different than in the
middle of the room. It never hurts to try a couple of different positions before tracking.
3. The Sound of Space
Space itself became an ongoing teacher. Every sound we record exists inside an environment, whether that space is a room, a hall, or a reverb return. When you think about it, apart from being in an anechoic chamber, have you ever heard a sound that is completely free of any reflections? Every space, real or simulated, shapes the tonality of a sound.
De-essing reverbs, offsetting delay times, or simply listening to how a room responds to a voice or a drum kit reinforces the idea that ambience isn’t an afterthought, it’s an integral part of the instrument. Bigger spaces invite slower, simpler musical decisions. Tighter spaces reward clarity, rhythm, and detail. Once you start noticing this, it naturally influences how you play, write, and record.
Even historically, the native music of different cultures has evolved in different ways due to the sound of space they are used to playing in. For example, Middle Eastern music prefers longer, sustaining notes with silence as part of the sound, as traditionally it is played in mosques and courtyards - acoustic spaces with a reverberant quality. On the other side of the spectrum is African music that’s a lot more moving, participatory and rhythmic, less reliant on sustain, as it is often played in open villages and savannas.
4. Managing Creativity
Creativity also revealed itself to be far more practical than mysterious. Getting into a creative state often didn’t mean forcing ideas, but preparing the ground - listening to music, absorbing sound, letting the ears lead the decisions. Once momentum has kicked in, it can last for days. That reminded me that creativity behaves more like motion than inspiration: hard to start sometimes, but easy to keep going.
One thing to note though, it’s completely normal to not feel creative sometimes. There are times when it needs to reset, and it takes as long as it takes. Sometimes the smallest things can spark a new wave of creativity, just like sometimes you just need to step away from creating to recharge the creative battery, so to speak.
It’s a finite resource that needs to be replenished.
5. Staying on Top of Things
There was also a renewed respect for the less exciting parts of the process. Solid cables, healthy connectors, careful phantom power habits - these details don’t feel artistic, but they protect the moments that are. A stable signal path keeps attention where it belongs, which is performance, tone, and efficiency. Every now and then spend a couple of hours and take note of what needs fixing in your studio, so none of your sessions are interrupted by a dumb failure that could be easily avoided.
This year also reminded me that data storage is the most vulnerable position if not managed properly. Keeping backups of your sessions in multiple places is crucial, if you don’t want to lose your data as a drive fails or as you delete the whole contents of your main drive (don’t ask me how I know).
Final Thoughts
As the year turns, these lessons feel less like conclusions and more like reminders - ones worth carrying forward into whatever comes next. 2025 has been an exciting year for JZ and our community - let’s hope that 2026 will be even better!