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Author Topic: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?  (Read 14538 times)

maxdimario

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #105 on: September 08, 2005, 04:59:14 AM »

I am 200% with the fact that music artists are what it's all about. We need a new music 'prophet'or icon to wake people up. It's gonna happen, perhaps as an indirect result of the internet..ironically.

And I am not blaming people who honestly try their best to make things work. you can't blame them.

Thank god there are places like this forum, as they are a real indication that there are talented people who care and understand.

By saturation, I meant cashing in on a genre/trend and sqeezing every possible drop out of it, so that sound-alike records are favoured to an excess, and too many acts are signed because they resemble other acts.

when this happens almost any independent producer/team can manufacture something that will be acceptable, and fit into a genre.

too many manufactured acts upset the balance and reduce the number of artistic people, replacing them with practical hands-on arrangers/technicians, who don't focus on making any artistic statement but on following a trend in the most convincing way possible.


So you get a series of carbon copies that are too easy to market, too easy to assimilate by the record buying crowd, but only last so long before the whole wave of cookie-cutter artists changes the way the whole system works and creates formats that are too specialized.

when a genre is exploited too much, it loses value artistically and the whole genre becomes old-hat, eventually, never to be re-gained. The only way to get around this is to promote change and individual artistic work so that the genre evolves constantly and no-one can make the music fit into a box..innovators need to be able to make a living!

the consumers need to be educated to a point, to look beyond the superficial, and get deeper into the possibilities of music.. or at least not be bombarded with just ONE sound at a time, which makes them insensitive to new music.

when coke tastes the same every can you get, and the choices are narrowed to the same 5 soft-drinks, people will have a harder time adjusting to anything new, even though it may be better..retail and distribution won't see the need to push anything else either, especially since the work is assured if they don't go against the flow dictated by the major manufacturers..which provide them with steady work, eternally.

But music does not work like soft drinks, not forever.

this can all be solved with more live music, since that is THE way of getting the artistic message across musically and start a movement.

for example, the dance-pop music market in the 90's here in Europe was so over-exploited that most production entities that didn't have anything to do with it suffered, and a lot died off.

bands have less places to play because everybody catered to the 'new sound' (cheap to produce) in a way that it killed everything else.

now that it's been exploited to the point that everybody and their relatives has had a go, there is nothing left to say or do, and a lot of younger music professionals don't even know what a great live band is like.

meanwhile lots of musicians who didn't fit in that genre have been out of work for a decade, so there are fewer to pick from, less scenes etc. there isn't the same ability to market a real artist anymore. but it's going to turn around as a result of individual action.

You can't blame a corporation. Who would you point the finger at? It's just a money-making system. Razz


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Eric Bridenbaker

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #106 on: September 08, 2005, 07:34:47 AM »

Bob Olhsson wrote on Wed, 07 September 2005 21:55

maxdimario wrote on Tue, 06 September 2005 01:37

...what could the industry have done to make sure they didn't saturate the market, keep the quality of the music high, let it live?
Saturate the market? A tiny tiny percentage of the market has bought the biggest selling titles of all time. Music isn't a commodity or a widget. People buy specific records to enjoy or at the very least to impress their friends. You and I are "the public." You and I are also "the industry." When it comes to music, marketingspeak is and has always been pure BS.

A whole lot of us aren't very happy about most of what's popular today. I think we need to forget about all of the TV stars who are selling records and look more closely at up and coming music stars. Why are there so few of them compared with the past? What can we do about that?

I'm suprised that Donald Trump hasn't made a record yet, though they may be a good chance that he was approached about it somewhere along the way...

Part of the blame for the current issues of musical homogeneity and loudness resides with advertisers and program directors who want to keep thier audience from switching channels.... they do this by NOT deviating from their decided upon sound. Why confuse the listeners? They might go somewhere else. Boadcasters also try to attract attention by making sure that they are just as loud, if not louder than the other stations.

I've noticed over the last bunch of years, that local scenes and the support system for bands within a city has changed considerably. The internet has taken the place of previous grassroots vehicles like the fanzine, specialty broadcasts (although were starting to see more of those) and hanging out at the local indie record store.

I feel lucky to live in Toronto, and would say that we do have a thriving live music scene here. I've seen a lot of houses packed here by touring bands that do not have a major record label support, and there is a ton of world class local talent.

What I have noticed is that it's now close to impossible to stay local and make a living at it... Almost all of the relative Canadian successes got their start touring Canada, but you know, it's a big country with not that many large cities (lots of hours and a hefty gas bill just to play eight or ten shows).

We Canucks have FACTOR, which is a granting organization that is there to help with tour support, video money, master acquisition, manufacturing costs. There are also Canadian content quotas for broadcasters. I see these as vital, effective programes that ensure a constant stream of artist development in a business challenged by having loads of talent, but a small market base (one tenth the buying public as the U.S.), though the majority of it is eventually exported.

Most of the acts I can think of that are making a go at it did so by getting the support, leaving the nest, playing Europe, the States, Australia, China...wherever. Very few acts, if any, have sustainable careers entirely focused locally.

The reason I mention this, is to show how systems can be set in place to help upcoming music stars, and also how a music scene may not necessarily be tied to a particular location.

Cheers,
Eric

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Bob Olhsson

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #107 on: September 08, 2005, 04:17:25 PM »

It's always an artist who creates a genre. Then the fools rush in and the business people exploit it. I suspect we need to look strictly at the genre-creating artists in order to begin to find our way forward.

Eric Bridenbaker

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #108 on: September 08, 2005, 11:59:07 PM »

Bob Olhsson wrote on Thu, 08 September 2005 16:17

It's always an artist who creates a genre. Then the fools rush in and the business people exploit it. I suspect we need to look strictly at the genre-creating artists in order to begin to find our way forward.

Definitely on to something here!
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maxdimario

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #109 on: September 09, 2005, 07:16:48 AM »

Yeah!

To get rid of genre altogether is the ideal!

the less the better...without forcing it

...some 'investors' would be convinced that strange is where it's at instead of music, 'no genre' can be badly interpreted by people who aren't artistically inclined to mean 'weird as can be'.

A real artist sounds like him/herself no matter what.

it's letting the creative people do their thing, and catering to them as much as possible, and making more mistakes based on artistic merit in an effort to find the exception to the rules.

brenda lee was saying (on the bbc a couple of days ago) how the record company didn't want her to sing a very successful famous love song she did because she was in her early teens (like..12? yrs. old) and they thought the public wouln't find it believable.

luckily in those days a track could be recorded in less than half an hour on the fly because the musicians were so good.

so they took the leftover minutes of the session arranged and recorded the track on her insistance, and it was a big hit.!

so you see, even the way the record was recorded (live musicians, fast) contributed to the fact that it was a hit..



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Bob Olhsson

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #110 on: September 10, 2005, 09:53:41 PM »

maxdimario wrote on Fri, 09 September 2005 06:16

...so you see, even the way the record was recorded (live musicians, fast) contributed to the fact that it was a hit..
I'm actually trying to do something about this:

http://marsh.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/7602/?SQ=bbed4787d6 ae05b5ab3ee486e53c0266

bobkatz

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #111 on: September 11, 2005, 07:38:57 AM »

Bob Olhsson wrote on Sat, 10 September 2005 21:53

maxdimario wrote on Fri, 09 September 2005 06:16

...so you see, even the way the record was recorded (live musicians, fast) contributed to the fact that it was a hit..
I'm actually trying to do something about this:

 http://marsh.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/7602/?SQ=bbed4787d6 ae05b5ab3ee486e53c0266




Congratulations, to Bob O. and everyone else trying to make an effort for LIVE PLAYERS! And don't forget the string players! I mastered an absolutely beautiful acoustic-electric rock album last year that's still on my Ipod. Then today I listened to one of the ballads while working out in the gym and the band is kicking ass but I noticed that the "string" pads were the irritating "sizzly-synth" kind. In my musical head I knew how much richer and beautiful that song would have been with a set of live string players.

There's nothing like a string quartet or string orchestra to enrichen the sound of a piece. Everyone reaches reflexively for their synth pads and it's just not the same. Same for brass... I haven't heard a brass replacement in R&B that just doesn't sound "cheesy".
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Bob Olhsson

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Re: How does the Engineer/Producer fit into today's industry?
« Reply #112 on: September 11, 2005, 11:06:07 AM »

No cheeze allowed but I'm first-off trying to save Tom Dowd's Great American Rhythm Section where the whole equals far more than the sum of its parts or any of the producer's concepts.

These guys are so good that they listen on the headphones and "work" the mikes with their guitars! I'm such a gushing fan that I'm probably making a complete fool out of myself.
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