I blame Disco!!!
I blame Disco!!!
yeah, but we must always keep in mindOriginally Posted by Nijinsky Hind
PHIL COLLINS RUINED DISCO!!!
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
it is indeed hard sometimes to make "new mixes" out of different takes. I've been wanting to take Banco's Metamorphosis epic from the Italian album and the 'best of' album (two different studio versions) and combine them into an even longer epic, but the mastering is completely different so the edits are obvious unless I go back and do extensive remastering to try to make the tonal qualities match up.
The computer should be used only when necessary IMO
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
The argument will always be that they are tools and people use them. But because they do, it becomes a completely different process of thinking, practicing and performing.
Surely the genie is out of the bottle and things are not going backwards, but in some way I think the music made before the computer age will have a lock on a feel of authenticity that the modern era will never be able to capture, even if an album was recorded the old way. The impact music has on people has changed and their expectations have changed.
But I think the old way kind of forced a few issues... that ultimately made music sound more cohesive and natural... even if multitracking on the older machines.
I don't wholly disagree with this. But multi-track studio recording was never really "natural" to begin with, so I'm not sure the change in technology makes that much difference, as long as it's done with care. I think there are a lot of albums recorded digitally that took good advantage of digital editing that sound as natural as a lot of the great 70s analog albums, maybe even better in some cases.
But there are lots that don't, and this I think is where the issue lies. It absolutely can be a different way of thinking, composing, and performing. On this we agree. But I think multi-track analog recording was as much of a game changer in its day as the digital has been on today's recordings. Looking back, some of those albums sound great, others not so much. Not all analog multi-track recordings are audio masterpieces. Same is true with digital.
Sometimes the technology gets in front of people's ability to use it wisely. I think that happened in the 80s and 90s. Slowly, some artists have come back to what matters most in music (to some listeners). And the technology has become more adept at rendering that. So I'm not sure the final word is out on digital/computer recording.
No question it's not going backwards. The hope is that there will still be enough demand and people willing to pay to make it worthwhile for artists to continue to produce studio recordings, particularly those far outside the mainstream. Maybe the ultimate driver back to "authenticity" will be the collapse of recorded music generally and a return to strictly live music, for all but the most marketable music. Won't that be great?
Bill
No doubt it can be done correctly in the digital world, but that is taking a very hands off approach. Not using all the tools available, and I think many feel that because these digital work stations are quite expensive, artist feel like they need to be getting their money's worth out of it and try to embrace the possibilities of what Pro Tool type software can offer. One could spend years trying to learn all the ins and outs of the programs. I think they could also be spending those hours on their instruments instead.I don't wholly disagree with this. But multi-track studio recording was never really "natural" to begin with, so I'm not sure the change in technology makes that much difference, as long as it's done with care. I think there are a lot of albums recorded digitally that took good advantage of digital editing that sound as natural as a lot of the great 70s analog albums, maybe even better in some cases.
But there are lots that don't, and this I think is where the issue lies. It absolutely can be a different way of thinking, composing, and performing. On this we agree. But I think multi-track analog recording was as much of a game changer in its day as the digital has been on today's recordings. Looking back, some of those albums sound great, others not so much. Not all analog multi-track recordings are audio masterpieces. Same is true with digital.
Sometimes the technology gets in front of people's ability to use it wisely. I think that happened in the 80s and 90s. Slowly, some artists have come back to what matters most in music (to some listeners). And the technology has become more adept at rendering that. So I'm not sure the final word is out on digital/computer recording.
No question it's not going backwards. The hope is that there will still be enough demand and people willing to pay to make it worthwhile for artists to continue to produce studio recordings, particularly those far outside the mainstream. Maybe the ultimate driver back to "authenticity" will be the collapse of recorded music generally and a return to strictly live music, for all but the most marketable music. Won't that be great?
Bill
I should say that I went down that wormhole myself and it was hard to come back out of it. Computers are addictions to a lot of people, and it's hard to stop editing and fixing things when bands like Dream Theater are putting out these totally over the top crazy slick production stuff, and then artists in this genre see them filling arenas with doting fans who think the band is actually that good. The whole chops things has got so out of control for many of the fans in prog and I think many up and coming artists look to the DWS as the answer if not a necessity. Prog metal is the new popular prog, it's influence is everywhere in the genre, and the fast double kick drum, locked in bass and shredding guitar soaring over the music in digital perfection is a big craze. It's not about whether one likes this or not, it's about the process of putting it together in a more artificial way than how things were done before.
I think bands used to quite often sound much better live than in the studio for the reasons of unnatural sounding studio albums even back in the analog era. But I rarely find a band that blows away their studio output these days.
I think Bill Bruford demonstrated in an episode of Rockschool what could be done with electronic drums.
I agree. 'Automation' in music is bad in most of the time--and i agree it started with the drum machine--and once we entered the digital realm the "authenticity" you mention has been changed irreparably.
There's a lot of truth in this, I agree. But again, I don't see it as a fantastically different proposition from what Pink Floyd or Steely Dan chose to do in the studio in the 70s. They explored the reaches of precision and sonics with the best technology of their day. Artists today have these tools available to them in a single, relatively inexpensive box. Some of them are going to experiment around with what's possible, and some of them will take it too far. Over time, they will hopefully learn the very lesson you metntion above, that sometimes it's best to just do nothing, or do less.
The crux of the issue may be that all these fancy tools are now in the hands of amatures, who are learning as they go. In the 70s, you had to go to a studio to record, and you had to have an engineer, and most often had a producer independent of the band. So you had expertise and input that is often lacking today as the artists themselves are doing the mixing. So yeah, you're going to get some less than stellar results. But I'm not sure the technology is really the issue, rather how it is being used. And I still come back to the notions that without these tools, a lot of music would never see the light of day, and I have many albums recorded on computers that to my ears sound fantastic... maybe even better than many old 70s albums.
So while I agree there was a significant demarcation in what was possible with the introduction of computers and drum machines, and that this has had an impact on muisc, I don't actually think it has all been bad. it's been a blessing in some ways, a curse in others. The issue going forward is to minimize the negatives and highlight the positives, but that's up to how individuals employ the tools at their disposal.
I hear you, but again, if people dig this, what difference does it make how it's made? I agree with you, I think it's ridiculous, but I don't dig Prog Metal to begin with. What do I care that they lined everything up in Pro Tools? And if I did like the result, again, what do I care? Do I care that Steely Dan spent X number of years in the studio making Aja and that every note was parsed and that there are probably tons of punch ins and tape drops? It sounds good to me, so what do I really care? Ironically, they could probably have done far less and still gotten a product most would have been just as happy with. But this is what they did, and I think ultimately it is judged on how people respond to it, not so much how it was made.
I'm not sure I've noticed a huge difference except in one thing... live albums today sound far better than they used to. I think modern live recordings capture more of the power and electricity of an actual live performance. The old 70s live albums, with a few exceptions, always lack the punch and impact of actually being in the audience. Modern recordings get far closer to that to my ears. I'm not sure why that is, but that's been my experience.
But the bands I listen to that I see live largely sound good in both settings, though admittedly different in some ways. In this regard, for me, not much has changed since the 70s.
Bill
Are you asking me personally? Because I don't think so. The reality is that I am an amateur musician and have no interest in anything else. I went through my period of practicing a crazy amount of time when I was a kid, but at this point in my life, I just want to be able to get together with my friends, write some music, and create a recording that captures as closely as possible our vision (given the restrictions of ability and money). Digital editing allows me to mitigate some (not all) of the consequences of those two restrictions. I'm comfortable with it.
I suppose to some extent it is and yet...aren't these guys some of the most technically competent musicians around and fully capable of pulling this stuff off live? Sure, live is going to seem a bit different due to lots of little micro timing variations, etc., but I've never really listened to a Dream Theater album and thought "they will never pull this off".
If some dynamics in the performance goes missing in the studio I'm not sure we can blame the technology for that. Using the DT example again, I'm sure they are capable of getting dynamic performances if that is what they are going for. Lack of work ethic is not something I've ever seen the DT guys accused of...
I don't think there's any great, clearly defined line of demarcation anywhere - just some temporary (sometimes years long) bumps in the road while people tried out new technologies, some trends (which are not absolute) toward some practices as people jumped on various bandwagons or whatever. Really, there is just an ever-evolving use of technology. You can use DAW software like it was a 4-track cassette recorder if you want. It's not required that you hack the recorded material to pieces and massage everything to "perfection". Some will, some won't. For every person over-using the available tools there is someone else with a different strategy and vision.
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Ah...the great equalizer. Use the tools and don't let them use you.
Actually I think there is software now that allows one to PLAY like Neil Peart
I rather have software that write drumparts Ginger Baker. At least one doesn't have to be around someone who seems to be unable to be in a band for more than a few years.
I met one of the studio engineers who had worked on an Asia album at Rockfield studio (I think it was the third one, Astra, as he mentioned Carl Palmer) at a party about 20 years ago and he was saying how dissapointed he was that musicians of their calibre insisted on sampling and then sequencing absolutely everything in tiny portions. Carl Palmer was sampled drum for drum and didn't play live in the studio at all apart from a few fills which were isolated and then dropped in. He said it wasn't standard practice to be quite as artificial as that, and was surprised that musicians with the reputations that Asia had relied more on automation in the studio than a lot of "lesser" musicians.
There's one aspect I've not seen mentioned yet that, for me personally, is the biggest positive impact of the digital music age.
Midi sequencers, soft-synths, realistic sound drum modules, etc. makes it possible to go much further in the realm of Composition than was previously possible.
A band jamming out a few ideas and developing them, soon encounter a limit due to stamina in having to recreate ideas on the fly in real time.
A lone composer with a sheet of manuscript has to hear everything in context in their head, and has little opportunity for collaborative input.
With computer sequencers, you can start creating a piece which sounds 90% authentic virtually straight away. Ideas can be tried and discarded really quickly. File transfers and the internet allow collaboration on part-completed pieces, even if band members live on a different continent.
In practice this means that, rather than recreating well-worn music styles quicker and with more precision, you actually have the opportunity to develop further and explore more possibilities with the music you write.
Once written, you still have to learn the music as a musician and recreate for album/live, and that is often a challenge, but the technology has allowed you to go further than was previously possible with the music itself.
I certainly feel this personally, and I was an early sequencer adopter after years of frustration composing in a band setting. It's a key element in the music Thieves' Kitchen produces, and we feel that it's an exciting and enabling technology rather than an opportunity to fool the listener with an 'all too perfect' robotic record.
Many good points in the thread so far, and I certainly recognise the positives and the pitfalls cited thus far. I just feel so strongly about this particular aspect that I felt impelled to post it
Phil.
Digital editing has one pitfall that the old punch-in methods didn't have: you can just look at the waveforms on the screen and then decide that some drum hits need to be moved, or there is room for one more overdub in a particular frequency range. With analog methods, you could only rely on your ears and fix things that didn't sound right. Nowadays things that sound perfectly fine often end up getting fixed anyway.
And I'm sure classical composers were often composing parts they couldn't play. They had to rely on someone else. With Frank Zappa weren't there cases where he composed things he assumed couldn't be played by a human being, programmed them into a synclavier or whatever and later on someone learned to play them? So it comes full circle. It can take some time for someone to come along and be inspired to do what was previous thought impossible. I don't think it makes the original thought, the composition, any less inspired if it's not humanly possible to play.
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Quite right. And Conlon Nancarrow wrote stuff for playerpiano.
He also demonstrated on stage in 1991 at MSG what cannot be done with electronic drums. (See his timeline)
It would be interesting to know... was Conlon the first person known person to compose specifically for a machine?? It's the first instance I can think of, although there may be compositions for music box predating that. Conlon was almost certainly the first to do it based on the notion of his music being humanly unplayable. Music box pieces would just be for the sound of the instrument. I don't know if music was ever written expressly for music box.
I was trained in mechanical drafting the 80's, and became very proficient at this highly technical art form. Then computer-aided-design hit in the early 90's and that was the last the auto and aerospace industries heard of drawing on paper. I feel that a much lesser talent can now create what I can, and that has irritated many former pencil-on-paper guys for a long time, but the industry has a whole has benefited beyond comprehension by the arrival of computers.
Same for music. As a home-recording guy getting a drummer was an 'ain't gonna happen' thing. Now that computers and software have reached the performance/value level of today SO many more people can create good music.
I totally appreciate virtuoso artists and musicians, but the amount of appreciation they get suffers so that many more can participate in the artistic process.
Interesting thread, and a lot of great points being articulated.
But, no matter what equipment your using, if you don't have the tunes, you don't have a good album.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
So many more amateurs can create amateurish music.
Steve Howe pretty much sums up the problem with technology in this 1 minute clip
http://www.tubechop.com/watch/5019086
Last edited by Skullhead; 02-19-2015 at 01:01 PM.
Yeah, why not? You don't have to listen to it. Who are you to say they should be able to make music. And they always have. Nothing has changed apart from the fact that they now have tools that might actually help them improve their craft and put it out there for people to hear. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head to make anyone actually consume the stuff. And it's quite possibly the "amateurs" that are going to make the most interesting and unusual music anyway. What's the definition of amateur? Are Thinking Plague making a living from touring? Do they have day jobs? Are they doing music primarily for the fun of it? Is it good thing there is DAW software around so they can develop and record music?
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