It is useless to say certain facts without being able to change them. This is an indisputable fact. The reasons are very simple. In the past, people used to learn something first, then they would get access to the tool to implement the things they learned with that tool. But now, without the need to learn, the tool is available to everyone. Like someone who doesn't know how to use a gun or a tank and their uses, but because he saw a tank in the movies, he went and bought a tank from a store and sat behind it. This person will definitely damage buildings and other people.
Music is like a tool. When a person does not have the necessary education and tries to produce it, they will cause a lot of damage to themselves and their family and other people, and it will cause the destruction of musical culture.

My best advice is to disarm music producers. Because as long as these music producing tools are in their hands, nothing but destruction will result in everything. One way is to send an email to R2R and ask them not to crack the music production software so that the access of many producers to these tools will be cut off. Because music producers have shown their incompetence in using musical instruments in the last few years.

 

Can you change your "fact"? Then it is useless. Also how is something a "fact" if you can change it?

What a foolish, self-refuting statement, Foster.

 

But it's not fine.

If you value your life and your family and those around you, get out of your bedrooms and leave the music production tools and think differently. Because the thoughts that are formed and expressed in the bedrooms are not worth much.

 

Old and embittered people are so original.

 

Who? What evidence do you have that studio guys are worse than bed producers?
They are all artists just like us, struggling in their own way.
There is no reason to disparage them, and your unfounded confidence will only bring you shame later.

 

But isn't that precisely what tanks are manufactured to do...destroy what they are pointing at? A pro-tanker is just more efficient at killing and breaking. I'd rather amatures behind the wheel and guns. They might not know how to start it, how to even load it with diesel and as well have no access to ammunition.

 

You know what I mean.
It is true that they are made to destroy the targets, but the person sitting behind the tank must know how and where to destroy and not to harm the people and his own forces. If you give a tank to an amateur, they are more likely to destroy their own bunkers and military installations than to reach the enemy lines and target them.

 

That just means he gotta practice before going to the front lines lol
is not like he is doomed to be a bad tanker for life

 

Current users of music production tools are like an amateur tank commander who doesn't know what he is doing. They imagine their bedrooms as a tank cabin and goofing off and messing about with with buttons and levers and think that by doing this the enemy will be destroyed.

 

Only Foster could compare Music Production to Advanced Armament Warfare.

 

"I'll give you my warez when you pry it from my cold, dead hands"

 

Foster, you are back !

 

Foster? Welcome back man hehehe...
Seriously though, musical tools are not weapons of destruction. So please spare us the simplicity of this low intellect afterthought. There is a saying that goes: "What you don't know you don't need". Nobody will pick desktop music production without the urge to learn something in this domain. Because it's all about a learning curve which never goes flat and this becomes obvious very soon for anyone involved in this, even the dumber ones. And i can argue it can be increasingly more difficult than learning to play a few songs on a guitar to make an impression on your neighborhood's gals.
If there is a problem it's certainly not the availability of tools. Too many people paint their house, i suck at it. So although i have the tools, i choose not to do it and get someone who's a professional at this. Getting to the music subject, i have finished over 200 mastering jobs the last 20 years for various artists and labels. Most likely i don't suck at it. However, my own music i choose not to master it and i 'd rather have someone else i trust do it. So, it always takes a certain degree of accumulated knowledge to arrive at what should be a virtually optimum "destination" where there are none or very few "grey" areas in music production. But from there, it takes maturity and some wisdom to understand that it's not always the best choice to be a "one man show" just because you can. To me at the end of it all, it is all about the choices we make that will eventually define us as individuals and as artists.
This era right now, is the one-person-does-it-all and sadly but true not everyone is Jacob Collier. That's why the OP's "anger" is understandable and somewhat viable. The thing is, it has always been like this, even in my pre-internet days as a pro musician. Midi 's arrival little before the mid 80s, was the start of the bedroom producer really. And anyone who's been there will tell you that the amount of crap we heard back then was unbelievable hahah. It is one thing being a musician, another being a dj and another being a producer who plays/programs it all and this didn't stop during the 90s. The majority of house, techno, trance, dnb, rave and all other dance music records including a good part of hiphop too were mainly produced at home studios. And everybody able enough to make what people now call "beats" would have their own label releasing their stuff. London alone was home to 5000+ indie labels in the mid 90s. What all those people didn't have though is the means to expose themselves or their work to a broader audience.
But now, we live in this age of over exposure. Everyone and their dog are overly present with photos and/or videos in all social media platforms. I used to get really angry with this especially when it came to music posts. I soon realized this is going to be the norm, so to maintain sanity i don't give more than 5-10 secs to stuff i press play on platforms like Spotify or YT. If i like it i 'll let it play if i don't i quickly switch to something else. I have come across tracks that i really like on yt that have just a few hundred plays, mostly made in home studios. Needless to say i couldn't care less for the majority of big studio pop productions, although some i do enjoy.
So really, we shouldn't generalize,there is good and bad in all directions.
True story, back in 2003 i met a young man, a university student who made what i found as cool tribal tech and prog house and his only instrument was the cheapest Celeron comp with FL and nothing else. I did like what i was hearing. He had this, sort of unique percussive but hypnotic identity to his tracks, flirting with trance but never being actually that. I soon realized all his sounds came from free soft and samples. By definition a bedroom producer and DJ, i offered him a chance to meet with my label's (at the time) main funding executive and see if there is a deal for an album+single to be made. They did come to an agreement and i got a few bucks to produce his album, which i did. Soon after, he got a lot of DJ gigs playing/promoting his work. And although some years later he decided to keep it a hobby rather than going full on pro, he got the chance to release his music, something that was just a dream prior to our acquaintance.
The lesson from this story here is simple. It is never the tools that make you a producer! And certainly not the premise be it a bedroom or pro studio. It is talent and devotion to learning the craft and honing your skills, period-bar none. So like everything else, we shouldn't blame this and that but rather nurture the ability to be selective to what comes knocking at our ears, so to speak. I will leave you with a track from my friend's album, a testimony that any bedroom producer can be something more than just that, given the circumstance. And although as anything it 's far from perfect and surely not everyone's cup of tea, it's still a thing i remember fondly.
Cheers

 

wasn't homework by daft punk made in a garage?

i'd definitely be running a team if i had the money, and knew the people who i can trust my music with.
besides improving the beat, things go so much faster, you are able to focus more on your songwriting and release more songs.

But I payed top dollar to a few studios to produce my songs and believe or not, i'm getting better results at home.
Various reasons, one of them being time.
Another thing is those crazy unnecessary rules some of them have. I was produced by a dude who would not do ANY automation neither COMPs. I have nothing against using a great take without any comping, but if only half take is perfect, i have no problems with comping either. Automation, to me is just crazy to not have any automation in a track. Even though i've asked the dude multiple times to automate stuff like phaser effects, reverbs, he wouldn't do it.

Which brings me to control over your own music. This one is crazy, you lose control of your own song.

- i've actually argued with a producer because he wanted my track made in a piano with a sad vibe, and i wanted with a distorted guitar with more agressive vibe (which was exactly like the demo). In the end we broke up and i've produced the song myself. This was the song that made most success with my audience. My friends were going crazy when i released the track. Strangers commenting nice stuff on youtube.

- the other producer, no matter how much i would ask for the stems of the track he would give me some excuse and not give me. Is like he was afraid of trusting the my song with myself. He spent like half hour cutting the vocals instead using a gate (which is fine, but using a gate is fine too), but spent like 15 minutes tuning the vocals. I like to tune my vocals word by word, feel the exact sweet spot for each and everyone of them if needed, well he didn't do that. I definitely could have improved his work, and this one i consider to be the worst song i've ever released. no one complimented shit.

- Intensity: Another one would do fine, but i would tell him turn the mix knob of the phaser up, he wouldn't do it. He wanted a more subtle effect, i wanted IN YOUR FACE, tame impala effects. The production was done with subtle effects, the effects are there but its a completely different vibe. Again

- experimentation, i had no space for experimentation with prodution like i do have in my house. The most you can do while being produced by someone else is to throw in some suggestions.

Bottom line: my tracks that were produced by other people, reflect more the taste of the producer than my own taste.
My tracks that i produce, they sound exactly like i want them to sound.
After bad experiences with 4 different producers, i've realize instead of keep paying thousands of dollars to have shitty songs, i can make better songs myself without spending a penny, and invest the money elsewhere.

finding a good team, that shares your vision of music is hard.

 

I know you know that I know you know and just taking the piss.

 

They are shit producers if they disregard your ideas, as for me it's all about helping the artist to achieve their own personal and particular vision. You're not working for them, they are working for you. If those knuckleheads don't appreciate at least three quarters of your inner process through your eyes and ears then boot'm to the curb and get on with it with someone who can.

 

Thank you, Lois! That's exactly how i feel about them.

 

Oh i believe you with all my heart and soul mate.
It is the very same reason that led me to become a producer and eventually studio owner myself. The same need on a different but interconnected expertise area, led me about a decade later to sit my ass down and learn how to build, brake to pieces and put back together a fkn comp, after having spent half my life paying absurd amounts of money to half knowledgeable technicians. At both occasions i thought fuck you all, i will learn how to do this no matter what it takes. I was lucky enough though, as i had help from friends and fam on my escapades.
Now, i couldn't agree more with anyone than Lois on this. A producer's role is to pinpoint the artist's main talents and make the best use of them bringing them to the forefront in the production process. And in the areas where an artist is lacking they should be able to complement with their knowledge and experience. I 've said this before and some people will never actually feel this, but there is a certain "glow" to talented people. If a producer can't find what's behind that glow, then the two parties cannot co-operate.
Some will argue songwriters etc., most of the time have a vague perception of what their "sound" is or should be. My answer will be that while this might be true, they surely can tell what their sound is not!
A good friend of mine and once producer of international fame (now 80 y.o., bless him) said : "There's one right way to do an album, and four hundred wrong ones." He was wise enough to know you can't always get it right. And he was keen on developing relationships with peeps he worked with, he would say to me: "If i can't understand what an artist is about, we can't work together". I know for a fact that in his heyday he turned down names like Joe Cocker, while accepting much harder production tasks with bands like Van Der Graaf Generator who to this day cannot really be genre defined. I met this guy on summer '99 about 25 yrs ago. I was tasked with the awkward role of assistant producer and for my own personal reasons i really thought i should quit this before it starts and i get the advance paycheck and then there is no turning back. 2 days later after our first encounter we were talking like we knew each other since for ever. That person's moral integrity along with his sheer passion for music of all sorts is what kept me going, in that, very difficult for me, period. And it actually revived my career, eventually landing me with remix and production deals with EMI, Sony and Universal.
My advice if i can give any, is work as hard as possible and be regular with your release presence. Respect your audience and they will cherish you.
Cheers
PS: There always comes a time when you meet a soulmate. Being open and letting people in, is the only way to expand building a broader team with a common goal. Which also means getting out of the studio often. Friction (with people that is) produces energy and energy is never lost, if you know what i mean. I wish you best of luck.

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2024 at 10:47 PM