Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[j.hall]

i think the answer is that there really isn't an extreme opposite to editing without listening.

[craig boychuk]

Dennis the menace wrote on Thu, 19 May 2005 12:12

I beleive it is in the musicians best interest to actually know how to play thier instrument.

Shit yeah.

[lord]

This is not an answer to the original question, but a reaction to a lot of the comments so far. It is sure is fun to constantly blame musicians who can't play or seem to be hapless in a recording situation.

I believe that most rock musicians are hapless these days because of the enormously complex filter between what they play and what they played sounds like on a record.

Really, there is next to no resemblance between what someone hears out of their amplifier and the wall of 8x double-tracked processed-to-hell shit that some goon like slipperman will cook up. How is a guitarist supposed to know what the fuck he should even be doing?

It is even worse for drummers, as not only will the final sounds be radically different from what is hitting his ears, but the actual placement of the hits will be moved too.  This is an even bigger filter.

And you wonder why some are lost, or seem not to feel responsible for what they play anymore? Unless you have a LOT of experience at it, the whole thing is an abstraction.

Never forget that this is ultimately the fault of ENGINEERS, not musicians, that things get done this way.

[Fibes]

I agree and the prob is hyper-reality is the new reality, fuck that. back to a recent project... Although they are young (16-18)with the inherent problems of inexperienced youth, i'm digging the rawness/reality of this band that tracked everything live (they asked for it that way)and refused to do any overdubs. sure, they sound like badfinger mixed with Bad Company but so what, it's real. Mixing it is a breeze because it's an actual performance (albeit flawed)and there isn't any trickery involved.

"If you close your eyes and can imagine the band playing on top of the console in front of you, congtatulations, you've made a recording."---Stephen Paul

Things just aren't that way anymore.

[lord]

Fibes wrote on Tue, 24 May 2005 12:19

Things just aren't that way anymore.

Not in rock.

Think the level of interest in electronic music these days might have something to do with the fact that musicians are in direct control of the sound production?

Think new genres are on the way where people can regain some semblance of musicianship, without regressive nostalgia. (Bluegrass. Southern rock. Whatever!)

I am not hung up on "reality" nor the "old way", so much as what it means to return the actual means of sound production to the musician.

[wwittman]

I tend to believe that the reason many musicians "can't play" today (or at least cannot play TOGETHER like a band) is that they way too soon get caught up in RECORDING.
They buy an MBox and start worrying about buying mics and effects and plug-ins and worrying about how so-and-so got this-or-that sound and which mic pres they "need" for metal and so on...
instead of being a MUSICIAN for a good long while and getting good at it.

But the basic question isn't answerable.
How much is too much overdubbing? Shouldn't the band play live?
How much is too much arranging? Shouldn't they play intuitively?
Too much of anything is possible... but it's really only taste as to how much is too much and how much is helpful.

[Fibes]

I agree.


The bottom line for me is the performance which has been turned into an afterthought. You can make bad good but you can't make it scream. being patient and waiting for that moment is a hell of a lot more fun than the lonely game of digital editing. I guess that's why i like fishing, it's the thrill of the unknown. Y'all can have your processed fish, i take mine raw with soy sauce...

I've been recording and mixing a lot of bluegrass lately, some trad and some with the jazz aesthetic and i'll be damned if everyone of those mofos isn't burning down the house without batting an eyelash.

Hearing Sam bush, Dave Grisman, tony Williamson, Don steirnberg, tony trishka, David greer and a host of others playing the Russian Rag was mindnumbing. 6 mandolins, a mandocello, guitar , bass and fiddle all playing that tune killed me. Metal dudes couldn't hang.

 

[NelsonL]

Bluegrass is certainly alive and well. I've also had the privelage of hearing Grisman up close lately and its an absolutely amazing experience.

Isn't electronic music just nostalgia for the future instead of the past. I almost think its a false distinction.

Honestly though, originality is only one part of the equation. The world is full of highly original art work that doesn't speak to me at all. If it's not engaging then I have no use for it.

Don't mean to sound close-minded, I just don't think genre should define taste, that's the cart leading the horse to me.

[lord]

Rattles, I think you read me wrong. I did not mean to denigrate bluegrass (I did mean to denigrate southern rock).

But I would love to see more 10-piece bands with mandolins and banjos not doing 80 year old tunes about trains.

There is trouble with anything is that it is so steeped in the tradition that it is hard to escape the "old ways."  I would argue that bluegrass is sometimes recorded with one mic for the same reason that rock drums are edited now. (HA! I did it) Because, that's the way it was done. And we all have a pretty good idea in our heads of what that should sound like.

For me, originality is about escaping that limitation of conforming to the tradition. It's about what you can accomplish if you don't -- not just being different for its own sake.

In this case, I'm talking about escaping the tradition where the engineer is more responsible for the drum part than the drummer. Because we've fucked up rock so badly, it might take a whole new commercial genre for that to become acceptable again.

[NelsonL]

I think I know where you're coming from-- I don't mean to contradict you.

I just chimed in because Bluegrass is so refreshing compared to the trappings of rock these days. I certainly won't be defending southern rock here any time soon.

I'm realizing more and more that not every musician is meant to be a song writer. So I guess when you get 6 of those guys in a room you pretty much have to lean on genre convention.

I mean, although we've (us as a group at J's joint) never all been able to agree what Indie Rock means-- I think we all end up at this forum in particular because of our mistrust of any "that's just the way it's done" type solutions.

Rock is a mess. A friend of mine, who makes his living playing in a rock band, predicted a few years ago that Rock will eventually descend to the level of Jazz in popularity. I think he has a point, I also think that might be good for the genre in the long run. In fact sometimes I think that's what Indie Rock really is, the decay of "Big Rock" into something on a more appropriate scale. Although, it does need a name less evocative of ringer tees IMHO.

I think a lot of people like music, but I'm less and less convinced that that many people really love it. I guess that's ok, there are too many horrible bands as it is. I can't imagine feeling this way about music and not wanting to play, that's beyond me.

I think Originality is really only a horizon, you can't really ever get there without moving the line. And I don't think history always remembers the people who do things first, more likely it favors those who do things around the same time and move the most units or have the best publicist.

Oh man, I'm rambling here. Sorry folks.

[lord]

rattleyour wrote on Tue, 24 May 2005 17:31

I think Originality is really only a horizon, you can't really ever get there without moving the line. And I don't think history always remembers the people who do things first, more likely it favors those who do things around the same time and move the most units or have the best publicist.

No, that's fantastic. You are right. Original music with a big 'O' is obviously an apparition at best, a delusion at worst. I have wondered where it comes from.

I can only conclude that it is hard-wired into some musicians the same way that the compulsion to perform is. The need to evolve or push things forward is a basic instinct. It's got to come from somewhere, cause in this day and age, it certainly doesn't seem to correlate with sales.

[rdwilkins]

Also good to remember that while originality "resides" in many folks there are dramatic differences in those who exploit this to the fullest and those that are just able to harness it once in a while.  Witness a prolific artist like Dylan who's been able to write 100s of songs versus (many) people we all know who have maybe one or two good albums in them and spend the rest of their career trying in vain to capture the feeling of said albums again.

[maxdimario]

Originality is not as important as being able to make a sound that will entertain and hook the listener.

the quest for originality at all costs is just a result of the onset of mass marketing and a flooded marketplace.

What we need is more general-purpose 'desert island' type bands.

changing fashions are meant to create demand for new product, but music is not clothing, or automobiles.

Innovation in itself is harmful to music, if it means throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

[bloodstone]

j.hall wrote on Wed, 18 May 2005 16:40

hahahaha that's funny.....i just mentioned it in passing... and i knew i forgot to talk to you about something.  this was the topic. oh well, i was busy looking for baby oatmeal....stupid gorcery store. i'm looking for an example of the opposite end of editing and chopping out of habit. it's like all the rock records today have a dogma attached to their production.  no matter what the material is the engineer just instantly starts chopping to a grid.  there is no forethought, it's a blind impulse driven by what the think is the "rule" for production. i think there is an opposite to that.  some one who intentionally makes records that push the line between happy accident and straight up bad playing because they feel so convicted by their own thoughts and ideas about what "art" is, they have been blinded to what is happening in the tracking rooms.

Toward the happy accident end of the spectrum, Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones comes to mind.  To a lesser degree, Let It Be by The Beatles.  Most of Pavement's recordings might fall in that category, but probably more from a lack of proficiency than intention.

[Guasp]

You should definitely check out GIANT SAND or anyhting Howe gelb related. Definitley exemplifies the "otherside" of the spectrum....the albums are mostly built on these happy accidents. I believe John Parish produced and played on the last one.