Democratization versus Ye Olde Days

PaulBrewer

On the face of it one would think that the democratisation of recording is a good thing ...... but in terms of adding to the canon of music is it ?

What got me thinking is we've been working with a band who are ok.
They're a rock band, but in order to get anything anyway usable we have to go through the whole Beat Detective, Auto-Tune route and even sneak in the studio after hours and replace a few parts that just don't cut the mustard.

Consider this -

In ye olde days that band's only option would be to make a bad recording - because that's only what the technology of that time would allow ( I'm talking Tape days here ) - if you couldn't make the right sound at the right time you're phucked ( we used to refer to the ability to do things well as 'talent' ! )

So, the most likely thing to happen was the recording would be bad - the universe ignored them and they broke up, not clogging up the galaxy with their useless tripe.

Now we have a scenario where said band can rattle on for a couple of years under the impression that because their recording sounds ok , so are they.


I'm making these points based on my and my peers experience, not just a random flight of fancy.

Is that good for Music in any way ?

Welease

PaulBrewer wrote: »

In ye olde days that band's only option would be to make a bad recording - because that's only what the technology of that time would allow ( I'm talking Tape days here ) - if you couldn't make the right sound at the right time you're phucked ( we used to refer to the ability to do things well as 'talent' ! )

So, the most likely thing to happen was the recording would be bad - the universe ignored them and they broke up, not clogging up the galaxy with their useless tripe.

Now we have a scenario where said band can rattle on for a couple of years under the impression that because their recording sounds ok , so are they.


I'm making these points based on my and my peers experience, not just a random flight of fancy.

Is that good for Music in any way ?

Depends on how you view the process/business..

A band still has to (in general) make money to survive. If they suck.. they suck and their fanbase (therefore income) will be limited regardless of the quality (or lack of) of their recordings. Moving to todays market where the majority of income should be generated by live shows/tours. People will need to like you, to make the effort to come and see you, so (imho) a very high quality track is less important when lower-fi distribution methods seem to be king (iTunes, YouTube etc.)

jtsuited

democratization of anything is a bad thing for whatever thing that is (in general of course).

Actually I find myself listening to a lot of older music nowadays and enjoying the way the timing's fairly ropey/the singer's clearly drunk/the bass player is only in the band because he's a nice guy.

Also there's a world of difference between artistic talent and being able to play in time and in key.

kfoltman

PaulBrewer wrote: »

clogging up the galaxy with their useless tripe.

NTTAWT! (speaking as a creator of what someone might easily call useless tripe)

It's probably worse if it ends up released on CD - bad for environment and all that. But if you compared the impact on environment of all the bad music in the universe to one of all the bad consumer products (see: "Keep It Real Fake" category on Endgadget blog) - it's probably much less bad. After all, you need much less natural resources to press a bunch of CDs.

Also, some music couldn't possibly have been created without using all the fancy studio stuff.

But I think I sense a sort of deja vu...

kfoltman

jtsuited wrote: »

Also there's a world of difference between artistic talent and being able to play in time and in key.

Artistic talent or creativity is one aspect of it. Being able to play "correctly" is another. But neither implies being able to create an enjoyable end result. Otherwise, jazz and classical would be much more popular

Seziertisch

PaulBrewer wrote: »

On the face of it one would think that the democratisation of recording is a good thing ...... but in terms of adding to the canon of music is it ?

What got me thinking is we've been working with a band who are ok.
They're a rock band, but in order to get anything anyway usable we have to go through the whole Beat Detective, Auto-Tune route and even sneak in the studio after hours and replace a few parts that just don't cut the mustard.

Consider this -

In ye olde days that band's only option would be to make a bad recording - because that's only what the technology of that time would allow ( I'm talking Tape days here ) - if you couldn't make the right sound at the right time you're phucked ( we used to refer to the ability to do things well as 'talent' ! )

So, the most likely thing to happen was the recording would be bad - the universe ignored them and they broke up, not clogging up the galaxy with their useless tripe.

Now we have a scenario where said band can rattle on for a couple of years under the impression that because their recording sounds ok , so are they.


I'm making these points based on my and my peers experience, not just a random flight of fancy.

Is that good for Music in any way ?

I don't think what ye're doing is anything new, some of the tools you have at your disposal are, but having someone else replay parts after the talent couldn't cut it is nought new.

Otherwise, in terms of editing, the whole beat detective thing means that you can get it sounding passable though not particularly organic. In the olden days, the band would just have been confronted with the fact that they needed to hit the rehearsal space again. Nothing like hearing the naked truth of your own shortcomings as a player to wake you up to what needs to be done.

A lot of these issues can be avoided with pre-production i.e. having the band rehearse to a metronome for a few weeks before coming into the studio, having the band properly rehearsed, taking the time to see who is playing what and how (poor technique can go undetected in rehearsal space with everyone playing but can be a real ear sore in the studio).

Beyond all these things, in the old days, studios cost serious money and the only way you were going to get a recording made was that you had a record deal, and getting one involved being able to deliver an impressive live performance (which brings us back to the rehearsal space).

splitrmx

The democratisation of recording *is* a good thing. It means anybody who wants to can make a recording of pretty much anything, hence equality in the world of music. Yes this means that the canon of music sees more amateur additions but nobody's forcing you to listen to them all!

You could take this same argument and move it backwards in time. Surely the invention of a means of recording music was the real democratisation. Before that you had to hire a full band and make them play any time you wanted to listen to music.

Back in the 1800s if you wanted people to hear your music you had to win the patronage of a king and then write everything down as sheet music for an orchestra. Surely that was the ultimate wheat/chaff filter!

Aridstarling

I think its a good thing, people like me or many of the bands I listen to on a regular basis would probably never get a serious chance in this industry otherwise. It gives far more power to independant labels and self-released records and I'm a firm believer in the DIY approach so its all to the good in my opinion. Sure there is more crap to filter through, but its not particularly hard to do so, in many ways thanks to the democratization of music journalism. And theres always been crap to sift through to find the gold, hindsight is great at that though.

madtheory

I agree with Seziertisch. What ye're doing is nothing to do with democratisation. Even the Beatles material has some serious editing done- they were flying in parts and editing to improve timing. Not to a huge extent because mostly it was quicker to just play it again, but they still did it. Beat Detective type editing is do able on tape- the Metallica "A year and a day in the life of..." shows a good example, where they go edit all the drum parts ON TAPE to tighten the timing before overdubbing.

It depends on how bad the band is. If they can connect with the audience live, the technical nuances don't matter.

Also, there's production v engineering. I would be inclined to get out the whip and make them rehearse. That's assuming the band had the sense to work with a producer in advance of studio time. This is a nice way to work, because the studio experience is a matter of capturing the existing energy, and then playing around with technology in a creative way.

godfrey

jtsuited wrote: »

Also there's a world of difference between artistic talent and being able to play in time and in key.

oh dear, I think I'm gonna blow chunks!!

I'll do my best to be brief... if you mean artistic talent being the ability to entertain in a general way, then maybe. I however, would argue that ability to entertain is just one element needed in order to be considered talented in the overall music sense.

here are some things I consider necessary to be called talented:
*sense of timing
*sense of tuning
*ability to play an instrument or sing to a level of proficience well beyond that of a beginner
*communicating well with the audience (from the stage or the website)

here are things I consider to have nothing to do with talent, but seen to be the important ones to LFWalsh and his ilk:
*prickly hairdo
*spots
*Billy Barry dance moves
*inflated sense of adequacy
*belief that you can, in fact, be whatever you want to be

now back to Mr. Brewers issues, while keeping a keen eye on the above...

'the old days' actually served many useful purposes, in my opinion.
they sorted out the recording engineers from the wanna-be's. these days, everyone with a laptop is a recording 'engineer'? no you're not, you're a beginner recording enthusiast at best. at worst, you're a bloody sheep, being led by the B.S. magazines full of weak-willed editorial and equipment adverts lightly veiled as reviews.

'the old days' also meant that a musician or band wouldn't even consider approaching a studio without having their ducks all in a fairly ordered row. the cost was such that they couldn't afford to learn their instruments on studio time, or waste the time of the real engineer of real producer. you could say that it was a sort of preliminary culling of inadequate people and music. now I'm not suggesting that that's the best thing for music or creativity, but that was it's effect.

the fix-it-in-the-magic-box approach favoured nowadays quite often is an excercise in turd-polishing. the act leaves with anything from a very nicely rendered improvement of their excellent performance, to a highly manipulated and 'fixed' version of a bloody awful racket.

in the case of the latter, this is now hailed as marvellous by a few muppets who themselves can neither play nor hear, the band expects a €500 fee from every venue in the country, only to turn up either A: unable to pull off the gig to sound anything like the recording, or B: as a solo act (with or without dodgy tracks) on the basis that they can't afford to tour the full band. since when is the singer and his poor guitar playing a representation of a band OR value for money for the audience??? that's for another rainy day.

that was brief? oh well, I swear I tried my best...

above all - keep music live!!

g

Rockshamrover

I asked a question here a good while ago about how you professional producers/engineers can listen to mediocre bands from day to day and not go mad. I would imagine that mediocracy is the norm in the music biz.

From your own vast experience Paul, is there more crud now than when you started out? Or is it that the crud got filtered out more efficiently in days of yore?

dav nagle

It's all about the here and now if you ask me, people keep bringing up the old days but there was just as much cheap plonk floating around then.

So crazy this thread. The way I see it is music makes people happy regardless of the fact that most people are not going to be liked or make it.

So what if the band you recorded suck, don't fix their material up then if it's such a big deal, you chose to work with them, you can only blame you. God the Kings of Leon rock and they are a relatively new band, Nirvana rock and they weren't 'back in the day' when all you had was a penny farthing to your name, a slit knife for your tape and an old bag of used 24'' yamaha audio tape.

What the Fuk was this thread about anyway? Dewhatmicrosuculationmac?

madtheory

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Now we have a scenario where said band can rattle on for a couple of years under the impression that because their recording sounds ok , so are they.

I disagree. If they're that bad, then they won't be able to perform well live. So no one will go to gigs. Records are sold on the back of gigs these days, not the other way around.

Maybe you're spending too much time in the studio Paul!

It's different for manufactured pop acts, it's accepted that they might not even sing live, definitely not play instruments.

RealEstateKing

It's all about the here and now if you ask me, people keep bringing up the old days but there was just as much cheap plonk floating around then.

Not true. In the year 1965 there was somewhere in the region of 300 albums released to the American public.

In 2009 that figure is closer to 370,000

Thats more than a thousand times more plonk (and thats not counting all the **** on Myspace.)

And secondly, every one of the players/singers on those 1965 albums would have had to work their butts of ffor years to get good enough to be let anywhere near a recording studio. Now any dickwad can record an album.

That said, I wouldnt have access to all the wonderful toys and trinkets that I do know if it was 1965, so yay today!

kfoltman

RealEstateKing wrote: »

Now any dickwad can record an album.

And where's the problem?

Seziertisch

The lesson to be learned from all this is that bands need to rehearse. If you are the kind that feels the need to go beat detectiving parts to make the band sound like they can play (even if its just that you don't want **** associated with your name) then you need to weigh up your options.

Do you take the extra time to go and see a band rehearse, appraise what they are doing, give them feedback (warts and all) and tell them what they need to do, or do you end up taking the time to fix it afterwards? A lot of times guys don't realise that they are doing something wrong. You are the producer, you are being paid to notice stuff that needs fixing. Based on the fact that the fixing that's being done is being done on the sly, it seems that the band would have a problem with it. I'm sure they would prefer that someone tell them in advance rather than having stuff fixed behind their backs. They might grumble initially, but if you put it to them that the other option is to use studio trickery to fix it, they should fall into line.

From my point of view as a guitarist, there is a lot of stuff that I have had to learn recording myself that I wish someone else had laid out for me in advance. On the most basic level, the shape, thickness and material of a plectrum make a huge difference to the sound you're going to get. The way you hold the plec will also have a big impact. The same goes for strings (what kind you are using, what gauge they are, where you pick the string) and just about everything else from the finish on the guitar to the dimensions of the guitar cab. I never worried about stuff like this before I started recording, I just plugged in and it sounded fine. The same applies to every other instrument. All of this is before even playing a note. And don't get me started on technique, playing too hard, playing too soft, uneven playing, the list of stuff that could be wrong is endless. A producer worth his or her salt will be on the look out for these issues in advance, and will try and treat the problem as opposed to the symptoms.

PaulBrewer

Seziertisch wrote: »

I don't think what ye're doing is anything new, some of the tools you have at your disposal are, but having someone else replay parts after the talent couldn't cut it is nought new.

Otherwise, in terms of editing, the whole beat detective thing means that you can get it sounding passable though not particularly organic. In the olden days, the band would just have been confronted with the fact that they needed to hit the rehearsal space again. Nothing like hearing the naked truth of your own shortcomings as a player to wake you up to what needs to be done.

A lot of these issues can be avoided with pre-production i.e. having the band rehearse to a metronome for a few weeks before coming into the studio, having the band properly rehearsed, taking the time to see who is playing what and how (poor technique can go undetected in rehearsal space with everyone playing but can be a real ear sore in the studio).

Beyond all these things, in the old days, studios cost serious money and the only way you were going to get a recording made was that you had a record deal, and getting one involved being able to deliver an impressive live performance (which brings us back to the rehearsal space).

Will you tell them or shall I ?

Exactly ! So there's a natural law of the jungle at work afore it hits the pressing plant ....

Natural Selection as it were.

PaulBrewer

I asked a question here a good while ago about how you professional producers/engineers can listen to mediocre bands from day to day and not go mad. I would imagine that mediocracy is the norm in the music biz.

From your own vast experience Paul, is there more crud now than when you started out? Or is it that the crud got filtered out more efficiently in days of yore?

Good question Rock -

No I don't think there's more shyt that before but I do think it's made by people who are more shytheads.

Talking in terms of rock bands that I've experienced in person there seems to be an even greater gulf between expectations and possibilities - I'm wondering is it a by product of above mentioned democratisation ?

To quote the Cranberries, Everyone is (appears to) be doing it, so why can't we ?

That is, of course, the spirit in which most bands start and should start in my opinion - however when it's time to shyte or get off the Rock Pot thats when the trouble starts.

Don't get me wrong - Ye Olde Days also stopped many a possible talents that never got any further so it's not all rose tinted shades - but have we gone too far in the other direction and EVERYTHING is suffering - songs, music, playing, sounds, engineering, production etc etc ...

Has Music been demoted to being primarily a Hobby as opposed to a Lifeforce or even Raison d'être ?

Is it the case that the fastest runner doesn't get to cross the finish line first because he can't get through the pack ??
Is that the way we want the world to be ?

PaulBrewer

dav nagle wrote: »

It's all about the here and now if you ask me, people keep bringing up the old days but there was just as much cheap plonk floating around then.

So crazy this thread. The way I see it is music makes people happy regardless of the fact that most people are not going to be liked or make it.

So what if the band you recorded suck, don't fix their material up then if it's such a big deal, you chose to work with them, you can only blame you. God the Kings of Leon rock and they are a relatively new band, Nirvana rock and they weren't 'back in the day' when all you had was a penny farthing to your name, a slit knife for your tape and an old bag of used 24'' yamaha audio tape.

What the Fuk was this thread about anyway? Dewhatmicrosuculationmac?

Someday Dav I'm sure Ryanair will schedule flights to your planet and we all can come and visit ....

eoin5

Itd be great if the listenership left no space for poor music that doesnt excite or make you think or even be fun. Where "decent" isnt good enough.

PaulBrewer

eoin5 wrote: »

Itd be great if the listenership left no space for poor music that doesnt excite or make you think or even be fun. Where "decent" isnt good enough.

Everyone has a part to play in that.

studiorat

democratization may equal the playing field in terms of accessability towards making music it certainly does not make the outputted music equal.

Recording music, as well as playing it requires a deeper understanding of the process than mere knowledge. This is true for current times as well as it was for the analog days.

Whether music is seen as a hobby or a raison d'étre becomes meaningless if we imagine a world where really true democratization of music did exist...

...in terms of presenting a song with all the trappings of a large production one can easily imagine a system where someone could manipulate a recording where they could impose their own performance on a recording of world class players. Yamaha are working on a system where vocals can be made to sound like famous singers, we'll see people extracting elements from one piece of music and playing it with another. Maybe, way in the future we could just describe what sort of music we'd like to hear and the computer could just make it up on the spot!!!

Would you still want to hear someone elses composition then?
Don't forget, as with any tool from a simple hammer to the most convoluted computer program, it can lead to disaster in the hands of the inexperienced.

With all the auto-tune and the like, people will always want to play an instrument well even if they don't have to. So I dunno, people who make music will always make music. I don't know if there's any more now than before, I doubt it. People would write songs and perform them for their friends or play gigs once a year, they'd write them out on paper or whatever. Today, people still write songs, only the medium of storage has changed to a recorded performance as opposed to an idea in someones head or a page in a notebook.

PaulBrewer

studiorat wrote: »

democratization may equal the playing field in terms of accessability towards making music it certainly does not make the itself music equal.

Yes , but lads seem to think it does!

Rockshamrover

Again I think X Factor is a useful tool to demonstrate what Paul is saying.

The amount of people that go on that program convinced that they have talent only to find that it's all in their heads. Do these people accept that they have no talent? No. The rejection just spurs them on.

The democracy thing is good for the individual in that they can polish their turds to a very high shine (I include myself in this:D).

I can see though how it can be bad in general as there is just a sea of turds with the odd golden nugget. The golden nugget count is probably the same as it ever was.

madtheory

RealEstateKing wrote: »

Not true. In the year 1965 there was somewhere in the region of 300 albums released to the American public.

In 2009 that figure is closer to 370,000

Interesting figures! Where did you get them?

The population of the USA has gone from 200 million to 300 million in the same time frame. That's an increase of 50%, compared to a 1000% increase in albums.

So clearly there is more music available!!

But how do we decide:
1. how much of it is crap, and
2. how do we allow for the fact that people have more money to spend now than they used to?

jtsuited

i always wondered about these sort of questions until i saw how dance music works re. the labels etc.
Rock music needs active labels who act as a sh1tfilter. If I want hear about new acts, I don't even know where to start in rock music.
But in dance music, I know my labels. They put out new music regularly and if you like one track on a certain label, you most likely will like whatever else they put out as they tend to have a certain 'sound' and standard and general consistent aesthetic vision.

Aridstarling

The same is true of many independent labels, you know you're going to get something particular when you look at Warp, Jagjaguwar, Frenchkiss, Fierce Panda, Secretly Canadian, Arts and Crafts, Merge and many more. I think NPR did a podcast about it lately, on All Songs Considered.

PaulBrewer

Aridstarling wrote: »

The same is true of many independent labels, you know you're going to get something particular when you look at Warp, Jagjaguwar, Frenchkiss, Fierce Panda, Secretly Canadian, Arts and Crafts, Merge and many more. I think NPR did a podcast about it lately, on All Songs Considered.

When I were a boy it was Factory, 4 AD, Northern Ireland's Good Vibrations, Rough Trade, Go! Discs, Stiff etc - I still liked the Jam who were on Polydor though.

Stiff used to have a great T-Shirt 'If it ain't Stiff it ain't worth a Phuck'

The mere fact a label could have a a T-Shirt says something in itself.

Nothing new in indie labels then.

Aridstarling

Rough Trade are still totally in the game, some of the best music of the last ten years has been released on Rough Trade. They are almost too ubiquitous to mention really, kind of the template for all that's come since. 4AD was a great label, I don't know if its still up and going. Actually, was Low's last album released on it? Maybe. Domino are a huge player now, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and now Villagers as well, certainly up there with the likes of Rough Trade and Merge in the US. Hyperdub too, though that could be considered more of an electronica label than the others. Still brilliant though. There's loads more like the aforementioned that people don't seem to be aware of. Awareness of labels in general does seem to have kind of evaporated in recent times, certainly in any mainstream sense.

PMI

Paul I trust this recording doesnt have the J90 name on it...

I think years of playing playing and playing live is what most bands are lacking, i mean 250+ gigs a year for many years, and then record

PaulBrewer

PMI wrote: »

i mean 250+ gigs a year for many years

There's 2 ways of looking at this fact ....

1. Ye must be at the top of your game !
2. Yez are probably not going to get any better ....;)

PMI

I think everyone can get better.... its just them guys that polish their guitars because they have a gig coming next month, they shouldnt have time to... they should be playing somewhere, anywhere just to build up their skills

tweeky

PMI wrote: »

I think everyone can get better.... its just them guys that polish their guitars because they have a gig coming next month, they shouldnt have time to... they should be playing somewhere, anywhere just to build up their skills

I know many guys who are always gigging when maybe they should really take time off to listen.

Seziertisch

tweeky wrote: »

I know many guys who are always gigging when maybe they should really take time off to listen.

+1

If only it were so easy as just playing loads of gigs.