193 Quotes by Beck

There are a lot of technical studio things I’ve learned or figured out, and I feel like I could use those things to help other people with what they’re doing.

I’ve done so many albums where I’ve been in the studio for 14 hours a day for six months just trying to come up with things on my own. It’s a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I’m trying to do myself.

I know my own limitations. And if somebody says, “I need songs for a cartoon garage band – they look like this and they should sound like this,” it gives you a direction. I like having that kind of assignment.

I didn’t want to be on a major label. I wanted all the attention and the noise to go away because I wanted to be something a little bit more substantial.

There are certain records that you love because the songs are great, but you don’t go to them as an example of great production.

It was disturbing to me that an idea or a song could become something so different from what you originally intended. It’s like if a friend took a stupid picture of you at a party on their phone, and the next thing you knew, it was on every billboard.

Back then, Pro Tools only had four or eight tracks, so we couldn’t actually hear all the tracks. We could only hear eight at a time, so if a song had 25 or 30 tracks, we wouldn’t be able to hear it until we went into the studio an put it all on tape. The process was a little bit backwards.

I didn’t even have a computer until like 10 years ago. I was still using a typewriter until 2002.

When I pull out vinyl – which isn’t that often anymore – it’s undeniable that I get a different feeling. There’s a different physiology happening between the sound waves and the body that doesn’t happen with music playing off the computer.