Less Time Can Mean Better Problem-Solving ⇥ wired.com

Adam Savage, in a piece for Wired:

Any cursory perusal of a fan/maker forum on the web reveals two distinct kinds of projects: the long, meandering, inconsistently updated but impressively detailed effort and the hell-bent-for-leather, tearing-toward-a-deadline build. Solutions to problems of the first type are often methodical and obvious. Solutions for the second type are much more likely to be innovative, elegant, and shockingly simple.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to watch “Sound City”. Even when it became de rigueur, the studio refused to buy a Pro Tools setup. There’s a great line in the film where they comment that “when you’re using 24-track tape, you’re committing to that format”. Constraints have the ability to produce some impressive and innovative solutions that likely wouldn’t arise in a comparatively constraint-free environment.