Early in my career as a sound engineer, I learned about shaping tones.  I searched for how to improve the aural qualities of an instrument or a room, by adding what my ears told me was missing.  Not enough rumble?  Reach for the EQ, crank up some low frequencies and voila, more bass!

As I gained experience, I learned a more effective technique that drastically improved my mixes.

Cutting, or the removal of frequencies, seemed counter-intuitive, but had more benefits.  It allowed hidden parts of the sound to reveal themselves, improving the overall tone.

Additionally, this tactic removes noise and unnecessary energy from the source, allowing you to boost its overall strength.  This can achieve the sonic qualities you’re after while making the sound more defined.  Allowing it to occupy it’s own space in the mix.

Similarly, life can be altered by both adding, or subtracting.  The world pushes us to add.  In fact, the adding mindset is deeply ingrained in us.  It’s much easier to think about what’s missing and decide “I need something else”.

It takes more effort, experimentation and experience to look instead at what to remove.

When people aren’t happy, they intrinsically look for what’s missing.  Some external occurrence or product that will serve as the magic bullet to solve their problem.  To make them happy.

But the secret is to focus on subtracting.

Imagine a horizontal line, with 0 on the left and 20 on the right.  I want to be in the middle, at 10.  Balanced.   But I’m at 17.  “What can I add to get to 10?  I tried adding 8 but that didn’t work.  Maybe 3 would help.  I should go all-out and add 50!”

No amount of adding will get you where you want to be.

Subtracting means changing something already here, something inside ourselves.  Not adding something out there.