But that's what I said! We have much better gear than any producer of the past. We also have free access to much deeper knowledge about composition, arrangement, tonal balance, mastering standards... My point was precisely that we have so many great gear, so many ways to learn about complex playing/recording/mixing stuff, so many tutorials to learn how to produce any genre that you like, that it gets overwhelming. Theoretically it should be much easier to create amazing music, but it's not.

Again, there's no "gatekeeping" when it comes to start making music and there's never been (apart from the material conditions). If you could afford it, in the 60s you could record yourself in your bedroom with a crappy tape recorder, and in the 2020s you can record yourself with a hi-fi mic; and in both cases you can create an amazing piece of music. But there's always been obstacles and barriers. They are different in every era, but they exist nonetheless. In the 60s they lacked the access to gear and knowledge, nowadays we lack the focus to know what to do and how to do it (apart from many other factors, like: the standard of what is considered "professionally-produced music" is much higher now)

Even this forum is an obvious example: the simple question "which is your favorite reverb" has spawned 54 pages of answers. By itself it's an amazing source of knowledge, you can find pretty much any reverb you'd ever need and most of them are good and useful. But if you were just a beginner and saw those >1000 posts you'd be SO confused.

 

Yes it is. The incentives to do so are just not there.

 

I mean, I agree. It takes time and effort. A lot of time and effort. My point is that I get why someone who is just starting could feel like there's something that the pros do and they just don't share. Specially when most popular tutorials, and thus the ones a beginner will probably watch, are useless "best 10 tips & tricks for sounding like a pro" and "this new plugin is all you need for getting that analog tone"

 

Exactly, I know...only if the incentives were right, you'd be poppin' symphony after symphony & an album in between each better than any heard in the past...Like a hen laying egg each day...Ah...Only if the incentives were there...the only thing stopping you are the incentives...

 

True :') There's so much great music nowadays, and so many interesting genres; and it's definitely because it's much easier to create it.

idk it's too complex of a topic. In these last years the music industry has changed, the standards have changed, the ways in which we listen to music has changed, the ways in which we make music have changed. We can't just talk about making music as a general statement because that includes both producing an inconceivably expensive Taylor Swift album and sharing some dungeon synth album in your 3-followers bandcamp profile.

 

@eli91

Irronicaly I have gatekept Dungeon Synth from successfull synthwave/metal French acts for years

 

Then why is everything they did after The Wall absolute shit?

And Piper is a masterpiece.

 

I agree, the issue with the idea that making music (or any kind of art for that matter) is just a skill that can be learned through hard work is that lots of musicians reach a peak when they are young-ish and then they either become stagnant or just terrible.

(Also - A Saucerful of Secrets isn't their best album but it isn't half bad either)

In fact (going back to the tangential conversation you were having before) Coltrane is among the few musicians I can think of that kept an stable level of quality and innovation through his whole life. Most of them belong to the jazz scene, actually, and it makes me wonder why.

 

they also changed guitarist around that time..

 

I love when people think they can overcome some really terrible gear just because someone else could. It never means that they can; because that is always some example used, who is never them. There are people who are exceptional at things, and where that talent comes from is beyond all our understanding. Just because DaVinci could draw aircaft in the 1480's does that mean that everyone could do that? 500 years later, and some hack technicians at Boeing can't even keep all the parts connected to the plane during flight.

For every one person who could do that, no-one ever takes into account all those who could not, or did not. Exceptional people have done exceptional things. That's why they are the exceptions, while everyone else you won't even ever hear about were just barely mediocre.

 

Which time, Piper or The Wall?

Heh, there are tons of people who think Coltrane lost his mind when he went avant-garde. Not me, I think his latest stuff is his best.

As to why most of the continuously innovating musicians are jazz cats :

a) I'm not sure that's true, there are plenty of others who kept searching for new ways to approach music, it's just that often people think their peak belong to earlier in their career.

For instance David Bowie kept reinventing himself all throughout his life, but most people agree his best albums came out in the 70s (even though people also agree Blackstar was a masterpiece, I wonder if it would've been received the same way had he not died just after).

I also think Radiohead keep getting better, to name a very mainstream band. Ok Computer might be their most popular (thanks to every Rolling Stone top 500 list) but every single album that came after it is as good or leaps better.

b) In the instances where it is true (that jazz musicians are the most continuously evolving) I think it depends on the listeners' taste too. For example if you dig avant-garde stuff, the career trajectory of someone like Coltrane who started out as a much tamer musician and set himself completely free is perfect, but you might want to forget the last two decades of Miles Davis' career Also, although not jazz, Jerry Garcia was extremely influenced by jazz and approached rock guitar with a jazz musician mentality, and his playing just kept getting better. However The Grateful Dead's music became shittier and shittier after the mid-late 70s, unfortunately, so you gotta dig into his side projects to hear it. To me The Dead between 70-75 is peak music, nothing has the same affect on my soul. But when I listen to him soloing with JGB in 1990, it's crystal clear that he's unlocked the secrets of the fretboard and can express himself on a whole another level.

Why, then, this thing with jazz? Perhaps it's because no other genre -at least those with some degree of popularity- requires such a devotion to the craft, so you can't settle or be lazy with it. And unlike guitar shredders, you can't just be content with having a good technique either, you gotta know your theory inside out. Also jazz is always a conversation between musicians, and older musicians often play with younger generations, so they both learn from each other, keeping the vocabulary fresh.

On his Dick Meato interview Pat Metheny was talking about an album he did in the 2000s or 2010s as his masterpiece, like the one where he finally was able to reach the peak he'd been aiming for his entire life. I don't like Metheny to begin with but I recognize his talent. I listened to the album and... Idk, must've went right over my head. He probably hears things I'm not capable of.

 

Ok Computer is far better than Kid A or In Rainbows... Give Climbing up these Walls another listen.
Muh Jazz... I'd take Ágætis byrjun over any Jazz Album

 

Last edited: Mar 31, 2024

I love the arrogance of youth. I've listened to that song more times than you touched yourself

 

Maybe it's because everyone has access to the tools now and a huge number of those people feel entitled to talent.

 

It's too far-reaching to even mention talent. Most people can't read 4 bars of Score or have even tried to re-create a song. It's just too easy to have a 1/4 million grand as plugin or thousands of dollars of shiny plugins & instruments. It's too easy to collect. To play them is a different story.

 

Well...I did just buy an Audioscape Opto Compressor because of the non shite sound which will be fed by an 1176 for it's not shite sound which both will be fed with an M7 capsuled microphone (a Gefell UMT70S) which was created (the capsule) even before 1942, both compressors which were used and manufactured in the 1960s. A Neumann U47 or U67 are fantastic microphones which if one has an original can go for 5 digits and which are meticulously cloned and can also go for large benjamins (though cost does not always mean quality, in this case it does). A Chandler Limited REDD.47 is a great sounding preamp which recreates the preamps that the Beatles and Pink Floyd used on records that they made. Of course these are the creme de la creme and there were 2nd tier recording studios without the means to buy and use the best, but the records that we listen to from back then mostly came from places like Electric Lady, Capitol Records, A & M, Sun Studios, Trident, Hitsville USA, Hansa Tonstudio and the like. That stuff sounded amazing because the people who engineered those records knew their stuff and were intimate with the gear which was musical in themselves. Noise was an issue but never seemed to hurt the inherent quality of those recording and some (not me) use all kinds of noise in plugin form and even tape recorder wow and flutter as a production value in the present.

But I do know what you mean...with exceptions (not the "mostly" part though).

 

Let me just say that if you aren't enjoying the journey and the learning process isn't interesting or exciting then you might want to reconsider continuing. It may be very frustrating but you should still enjoy doing it.

 

I like in rainbows better. Have you ever seem they play live from the basement on youtube?
its even better than the album!

 

See, OK Computer was when they went 'let's see if we can be weird and get away with it'. Great album, but that was just the beginning, sounds like an experiment still. Kid A is a fucking masterpiece, and sorry for all the haters but, In Rainbows is one of their most solid records from start to finish. I saw them so many times live between 2004 and 2008 that by the time the album came out, we already knew all the words to the tracks from seeing them play them 1000 times already. I didn't think they could top Hail To The Thief, but they did it with a bang..

Pink Floyd got super boring and turned into elevator music when Syd checked out of reality.. Id rather listen to The Madcap Laughs and Barrett than anything post Saucerful of Secrets.

 

and yet pink floyd sold out so many stadiums and did 5 sold out shows in london in a row and sold so many records. How could so many people be so wrong, for so long? quite a puzzle..