In the early years of work, most of us are obsessed with tools, so obsessed that they become the focus of our attention, rather than sound itself. The desire to acquire the best tools, to master them, and to brag to others that we have them, all feel so important. So much so that we over- use the tools. We over-process sounds in the effort to try to make them “ours.” We pan too many sounds, and pan them too dramatically. We use too much artificial reverb. We remove so much of the noise that we take the life out of what isn’t noise, etc.
 
It’s interesting, I think, that twenty or thirty years into our careers our obsession with tools has usually waned, especially those of us lucky enough to have become somewhat successful. We use fewer tools. We spend much less time thinking about them. No doubt part of the reason is that we eventually have assistants who can do some of our tool obsessing for us. But I think that’s a minor reason. And despite what you might guess, it isn’t laziness either that causes the majority of us to eventually use fewer tools, and less often.

The major reason we go that way is that our ears have learned to serve us better. Instead of being intent on controlling everything with our gadgets we get better at knowing what needs and doesn’t need to be manipulated, and how much.
 
Maybe even more important, we get better at hearing the sounds coming from behind us. I’m not talking about the surrounds. I mean our clients, our collaborators. We hear more clearly what they say, and sense better what they don’t say but nevertheless feel, and want.
 
Most of us are commercial artists. We work for hire. That doesn’t mean we aren’t creative, or that we aren’t interested in making an artistic statement in our work, but it does mean we need to accomplish what our creative bosses want from us if we want them to hire us again.
 
Our ears are by far the most important tools we have, and they’re worthy of obsession at every point in our careers.