Was talking with Zenarcist about analogue synths,software emulators etc. and its quite funny how dull and unoriginal modern EDM scene is.
Pick a shitty preset and lets go and then you have an army of copy-paste producers doing the same.
On one side you have true analogue beasts,hardware or software emulation,sounds that hit you in the guts,pure power and heart yet they choose the shittiest boring flat synths.
Is it lack of knowledge,not knowing what is out there or just pure laziness?

 

Its a market, people just cater to the market, people who dont wanna listen to shitty edm simply dont. In this case its corruption fed by big corps to spoonfeed "hits" to the radio and other "popular" outlets. I would say its simply laziness on the most part of the consumer, and it isnt even on the analogue vs digital comparison; its the lack of sound design or ability to explore the unknown, or cross genres in both the analogue and digital realm, i mean i could list example of digitally made tunes to prove this, but im assuming you have heard both sides of the spectrum (good digital tunes, good analogue tunes/ bad digital tunes, bad analogue tunes). Markets just go for the safe option. There are way too many artists that just do cookie cutter shit. I personally try to refrain from that. This is speaking purely from an artist standpoint, caring more about the music then any of the surrounding shit that poisons it (Marketing/Labels/etc). After all isnt music a form of an expression for the creator, for it to then be enjoyed by many? Then again i think people are always gonna be lazy but then there are those who are gonna explore their passion to the fullest, and try to ascertain or implement that information in their art projects before they pass.

 

Yep,yep,yep.
I look around and see people who mostly want it all to be handed to them,material things,knowledge or opportunities.
Music is a huge world to explore and the rewards are astonishing.
People need to grow some balls.

 

exercise: name one producer in the past century who actually was original.....

I can't name any

synths where invented to COPY real instruments, the unoriginality dull sounding music started there and never ended..

 

Change, the unknown, uniqueness, they can all be very scarry to the masses that are spoon fed the pablum offered as the staple offering on the mass market scene. To lead is many times too a bit hard for the masses of creators looking for a like on some mass media outlet. Unique is good, and it should be, could be rewarded if we are to actually grow as a species. As it is in general, there seems to be a fight to be the first to the bottom of the barrel, a race towards sameness and indistinguishability. I hope this changes.

 

Synths didnt just copy,they introduced a plethora of new unimaginable sounds.Its still a tool,you need to make it work.
If you view things in that way you can then say that only the caveman that hit the skull of his dead friend with a pair of wooden sticks was the true original producer.
I think we have invented pretty much every instrument possible,covering the whole frequency spectrum,theres only so much you can expect from humanity

 

That is just a reflection of how things are I think. But happened in all times I guess, in the 70's prog bands were the thing, in the 80's glam bands and so on, difference is at least that was good and there were certain sound differences (not every band sounded the same), not to mention the way more music quality. I hear to EDM or similar and damn, it's all the same, same goddamn sounds over and over and over, you downloaded an EDM preset pack and basically you have them all already.
But people eat shit and the ones that makes the music eat money, and if that shit means more money then they're gonna keep doing it, that's how it is.

 

EDM is a registered trademark, a marketing concept. The music released under the tag EDM is just a small fraction of the whole of electronic music. To quote Wikipedia: "By the early 2010s the term "electronic dance music" and the initialism "EDM" was being pushed by the U.S. music industry and music press in what was largely an effort to re-brand U.S. rave culture." In terms of genre classification, EDM would be categorized under dutch house or electro house.

Don't make the mistake and take EDM for all of electronic music.
There are A LOT of artists and record labels out there who really do care about sound.
Take labels like TRAUM Schallplatten, Herzblut Recordings, Innervisions, or artists like Sebastian Mullaert, Audiojack, or Kollektiv Turmstrasse...
Actually, it's the majority of artists and labels in electronic music that are quality driven. At least from my perspective.

 

EDM (I am referring to Electronic Dance Music including USA's EDM/Bigroom and regardless if we talk about mainstream or underground) is at this point pure industry. Pretty much any kind of product that brings bread to the table is industry, even if we like it or not. And in like any other industry, there is no place for mistakes. I mean, there is, but established producers don't want to risk losing audience and newcomers want to reach said audience. As always, things evolve at a relatively slow steady rate aka the speed at customers (listeners) are ready to accept and absorb new sounds.
In my opinion, the best productions in electronic music sound better and better with each year passing. I mean, vast majority of the tracks I like starting from the 70's, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s are way thinner and narrower than the ones that I like the most these years. So yeah, it may be a majority of "preset" music out there, but the good tracks are greater and greater with each year.

PS: By the way, so many iconic producers and pioneers in electronic music used shitty or cheap gear through the years - and that can be listened in their productions. Beatles had always the biggest audio technology break-througs at their disposal and I don't consider their sound as being substandard by today's standards. In the end we listen what we like and pretty much that's it

 

If we consider EDM as the present mainstream of pop music, then what Pat Metheny said in 1986 is truer today than ever before:

 

Back in the days whan I was young EDM was really enjoyble, at least form me, it had even some lyrics. Today EDM is just a matter of copy/paste as Von_Steyr said, the reason of this I think is today everyone can have access to virtual powerful instruments without having any kind of knwolegde about music theory...c'mon man let's pick a preset and make some noise. Take a listen to some tracks from the past...

 

... but we like what we used to listen.
I'm sure there is some great Chinese traditional music, and maybe I'd end up loving it... if someone would force me to listen to it 7 hours a day during 10 years .
So, to me, the main culprits of the shit we are now inundated are radios, labels and big marketing machinery (ID&T in the first place) which transforms and advertises non talented PPIs (Push-Play-Idiots) into authentic living gods.
NO, God is NOT a DJ.

 

Last edited: May 31, 2016

Modern electronic music can still be interesting ..

 

@Zenarcist
Oh yea the underground electronic music is doing great,i was aiming more at the popular EDM genres.

 

What hasn't been done though? In the last 10-15 years, I've yet to hear anyone say, "listen to that synth!!" Outside of maybe the dub steb wobble basses and sawtooths. Like what are you expecting producers to create that's new with such finite tools in synthetic music?

 

I've listened to underground EDM. On the beat making production side, there's nothing groundbreaking or "new". It's all recycled. I think as a species we've pushed the limit on shapes, filters, detuning, oscillation and tonality regarding electronic music. Only thing I can think of that would be really groundbreaking is maybe like experimental music done in crazy time signatures, using synthesized samples from hair clippers, dildo vibrators, washing machine swooshes and dolphin's sonar...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

No man,i agree with that.Its about the tools that are used,instead of quality powerful synths, producers choose lower quality boring flat synths.

 

Say what?!

I don't know about from 1916 to the present, but In chronological order, between circa 1950 to circa 1990, these producers were rather innovative: Les Paul, Sam Philips, George Martin, Berry Gordy, Paul Rothchild, Eddie Kramer, Tony Visconti, Konny Plank, Steve Lillywhite, Chris Thomas, Ralf Hutter & Florian Schneider, Brian Eno, Nile Rodgers, John Leckie, Rick Rubin, Hank Shocklee . . .

Synthesizers were invented to sound like instruments which had not yet been invented, and have been significant elements in innovative, exciting music which you obviously have yet to hear.

 

Ah, the joys of computer music, and one of the reasons I moved to hardware. I can't even save presets, so the only equivalent I have as a preset is the machines preloaded samples. You have to twist those around a bit.

Not doubting what your saying, but could you post a couple of examples of what you mean side by side for comparison. I don't live in the west anymore, so the only time I hear western music by chance, it's usually the kind that makes you want to physically vomit in your mouth.

So what your saying is there has been no original music for 100 years. Wow!

So that's what people like Gary Numan, Kraftwork, Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby, and the others were doing all that time; copying the sounds of real instruments.

Nice idea, but making music in odd time signatures is one thing, making dance music in them is a whole different ball game.

Someone, somewhere probably already has

 

This is pretty interesting.