The Great Debate, when the Computer arrived....

[Gruno]

So the only valid path to artistic integrity is "prog bands killing it every night"?

Bands also must record an album in less than 6 months or they are considered silly.

[Skullhead]

And how good are all those synthplayers who use lots of sequencers, like Klaus Schulze, without all technical wizzardy?

I'm sure Klaus could get it done nicely on an acoustic piano. But those analog synths do sound better than the truncated digital dumbed down versions... at least to my ears. When you sample something, it's not that instrument making that sound, but something else.

[Skullhead]

I can go back to nearly every age of music over the last 100 or so years or so (I'm even before that) and you'll see the battle cries of the "old methods that were far superior" or "the musicianship just isn't there". Early Jazz musicians were painted as inferior to their classical counterparts, every era of rock music seems to get tagged with this, Bob Moog was told the synthesizer was the end of music, and the list goes on. If computer technology gives a person or a band the ability to record and publish music that 40 years ago would have never seen the light of day (good or bad people can decide). That's an awesome development that we should be celebrating, not regressing into the mindset of the curmudgeon and the "it was so much better back in my day" thinking.

There's a lot of great music out there these days, if your mind is actually open to listening...

I think it is much harder to find great music today. There is just so much garbage to sift through now. But I do think it was better back in the day because you had all this great music being embraced in the mainstream.
It was celebrated and it was everywhere. I don't see it being so great today with the good quality stuff being driven so deep into the underground. Bands can't make a living anymore. It's hard to find great music, the sound quality is inferior to properly recorded music of the past... mp3 files don't sound good ... do they?

[Skullhead]

Well, actually no, tape is never easier. Ever. Even the best recording engineers don't mix down in an hour. It's likely that songs aren't even mixed (and mastered) at the same studio where the band recorded.

And Live recordings...many bands go into the studio and fix up lots of mistakes on live recordings. Raise the crowd noise, fix solos, ect. If I recall correctly Deep Purple's MIJ was the best performances from a few days worth of shows.

As far as 'killing it every night', all of the bands you listed did not do this. I've seen plenty of clips of those bands definitely NOT killing it Live.

I think you would really enjoy reading some of the stuff on Tapeop.com. Lots of interviews with bands and recording engineers discussing this very topic.

That's all great, but all the greatest prog albums that most anyone comes up with in their top ten were recorded the old way. So there must have been something to the process.

But I disagree that digital is easier.. computer programs crash, files get lost forever, plug ins can sound un natural, the sounds and tone are often harsh to the ears, it's not easier if you play well onto tape and are done with it. It can be done quickly if you do it right. Miking things correctly is a good start. I agree with Jimmy Page in that if you mic things right the first time, you don't need EQ. You really don't. You don't need compression either if you have a proper room and mic placement.

This isn't meant to turn into an audiophile thread or sound engineering discussion, but there was validity to doing it the old way.

[Skullhead]

... I'll do a deal with you

I'll assemble a live gigging 5 piece prog band from the 100's of amateur (but pretty darn talented I assure you) musicians on this site. We'll turn up and play at least 100 gis in a year long period for you. At the end of which, we'll even pop into an analogue recording studio and cut a disc for you .... old school. I guarantee you'll like the result ... your very own kick ass live prog band.

For your part, you have to agree to pay the musicians the equivalent of their day-job wages for the year, arrange all the gigs, the recording studio, the travel, the food, and the accomodation. We'll let you pocket all the ticket receipts and all the sales from the album. I guarantee you'll hate the result ... your very own loss-making record label.

I do empathise with your frustration, I really do. The thing is, time has moved on. That strange aberration which was the 70's popularisation of explorative rock music has long since gone. All that money which fuelled the *scene* has gone. The audience just isn't there. For those of us that are left, and still feel the need to 'do music', we just have to adapt to the realities of the now. To some extent, the technology allows us to do this and, as I commented earlier, even expands on the possibilities open to us. If this leaves you feeling hollow, unfulfilled, and dissatisfied with the music of today, then I do feel for you and share this to some extent.... but honestly, it's nothing compared to the frustration felt by those 100's of amateur musicians I refer to who spend the requisite >10,000 hours of practice to be in a position to write and play this challenging stuff, only for someone to say "yeah, but you're cheating aren't you".

I'm not meaning to have a go, I'm really not. It's just that there's two sides to this story, and it's not the technology that's to blame here, it's just the business realities.

Phil.

History is a great teacher. Sure things changed, but so do waves in the ocean... but they usually come back.
I think prog should have come back by now to the mainstream consciousness by now. It hasn't, so something has gone astray.

What changed in the late 70's?

For one, didn't all the prog bands start making crappy albums? Love Beach etc.. everyone blames disco or punk... but I disagree.

Midi, drum machines, sampling, all this stuff came on about this time. Computers, and the promise of convenience over quality.

Every prog band doing their albums today with endless Pro Tools editing isn't working. No one is paying attention. Most of it sounds lifeless and souless. It's not connecting with people like it used to.. but it should. It should be better. I think it needs more of a live feel to it. We need pros back in the scene playing live more and connecting with an audience.

[Skullhead]

That was my first thought too, Bill!

The big labels are not interested because there is no fan base, because bedroom prog artists are not out playing live. No fans, no interest.

Proggers need to address this issue. Get out and play what you CAN play. Practice your instrument and kill it in front of people in a live setting. Play what you can play comfortably live.. if you can't do it live.. practice until you can.. just like all the great prog artists did. What Steve Howe or Wakeman in the 70's. Those guys killed it live, and the band was successful and had fans.

I don't think the brain size of the average human has shrunk to 1/4 of what it was 40 years ago.. but it will if people keep their heads cocked downward staring at their android.

[Skullhead]

Close to the Edge was done in sections.. you can hear it. No more than 5 sections. So you have to understand that you can't edit tape within the track. Everything has to go down in parallel. So CTTE might have had 5 cuts with the razor blade and a bit of tape. Each cut takes about 1 minute to cut and tape if you know what you are doing with a splicing block. 5 cuts give or take.. not 500 or 5000!

Try recording your music and only allowing yourself to click your mouse 5 times.

YES said they were writing while recording, and that is the reason for the cuts. Later they all learned the song and played it live, which really is much more compelling than the studio cut. It really flows in a way the studio cut never could. It had more time to develop and breath more also.

Not all albums were done like CTTE. Multi tracking on tape is just playing against something that was previously recorded. One still had to play it in good time, even against a click track.

Most of the tape cutting and splicing was just cutting the songs into individual pieces of tape and then arranging them into an order that would fit on one side of the record.

Think of the old saying... necessity is the mother of invention.

In the era before computers, it was NECESSARY to lay quality tracks live onto tape. Punching was dicey, but could be done of course. Best to get a fluid take across the track. It was necessary to be better.

So what computers did was to take away the necessity to be better. The necessity to go in and really nail a track keeping punching to a minimum was no longer necessary. It became easy to edit and fix and manipulate in a way that it was no longer necessary to have the level of mastery over one's instrument that was formerly necessary.

[N_Singh]

One small development that's huge in my quarters-a qualitative jump in amp modeling technology from Line 6 to the Pod to Fractal's Axe-Fx to the Kemper Profiling amp. (KPA). The KPA and Axe-FX make all previous modeling technolofies look like child's play. Between that and the revolution in VSTs-Auduo Units that capture amazingly every type of articulation and attack of real orchestral instruments, the technology available to ordinary schmos to create music is incredible.

[3LockBox]

Musicianship is as musicianship does. I've known a lot of good musicians who were proficient on multiple instruments and I know a few who are virtuosos. You've never heard of them though because either they've never written anything of note or they don't write at all. I'd rather hear something fresh and original and if that be from an "amateur" so be it. Wasn't it Richard Wright that said technical abilities are secondary to ideas? Not everyone who ever recorded music mastered their instruments nor did they really need to - it was either a good idea or it wasn't that makes a listener want to hear more. Yeah, you can marvel at a musician's skill but he's playing something that someone wrote, isn't he? Technology has allowed more ideas come to bare that might never have been heard otherwise. That can't be a bad thing.

[dnieper]

So what computers did was to take away the necessity to be better. The necessity to go in and really nail a track keeping punching to a minimum was no longer necessary. It became easy to edit and fix and manipulate in a way that it was no longer necessary to have the level of mastery over one's instrument that was formerly necessary.

First off, it was never necessary to have "mastery over one's instrument" to make good or successful rock or prog music. Look at virtually any 1960's band, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, the Beatles, the Ramones, etc. However much you might prefer 1970's music to today's music, the average musical skill level in the 1970's was not much higher than it is now. For every Bill Bruford, there's a John Mayhew.

But anyway...
Recording onto tape or computers both require musicians to *judge* what sounds best. Sure, you can edit more easily if you're recording onto a computer. But it does not logically follow that the result will be worse. It might not flow better, but that doesn't mean it would have been better if the musician had recorded onto tape instead. It probably would have just been flawed in different ways.

Of the many explanations as to why 1970's prog is "better" than modern prog (a statement I actually agree with, broadly speaking), the "computer" argument is a pretty weak one IMO. I'd say the rareness of genuinely good singers and a decline in melody/hook-based composition are better explanations.

This whole thread reeks of the pervasive "Everything about the world was perfect when I was younger!" mindset. The attempts to explain why are amusing, but well within the realm of opinion, often misguided opinions at that. I blame computers. If Skullhead were only allowed three sentences in a magazine's letters-to-the-editor section, I bet his argument would have been much more convincing.

[Plasmatopia]

Close to the Edge was done in sections.. you can hear it. No more than 5 sections. So you have to understand that you can't edit tape within the track. Everything has to go down in parallel. So CTTE might have had 5 cuts with the razor blade and a bit of tape. Each cut takes about 1 minute to cut and tape if you know what you are doing with a splicing block. 5 cuts give or take.. not 500 or 5000!

Try recording your music and only allowing yourself to click your mouse 5 times.

YES said they were writing while recording, and that is the reason for the cuts. Later they all learned the song and played it live, which really is much more compelling than the studio cut. It really flows in a way the studio cut never could. It had more time to develop and breath more also.

Not all albums were done like CTTE. Multi tracking on tape is just playing against something that was previously recorded. One still had to play it in good time, even against a click track.

Most of the tape cutting and splicing was just cutting the songs into individual pieces of tape and then arranging them into an order that would fit on one side of the record.

Think of the old saying... necessity is the mother of invention.

In the era before computers, it was NECESSARY to lay quality tracks live onto tape. Punching was dicey, but could be done of course. Best to get a fluid take across the track. It was necessary to be better.

So what computers did was to take away the necessity to be better. The necessity to go in and really nail a track keeping punching to a minimum was no longer necessary. It became easy to edit and fix and manipulate in a way that it was no longer necessary to have the level of mastery over one's instrument that was formerly necessary.

Let's assume you are correct that any given Yes tune recorded back in the day had not more than 5 edits. Still, those 5 sections represent how many full-band takes, exactly? How many were committed to tape and saved because they thought they were pretty close to THE take they were after? How many were simply erased, recorded over, etc. because someone sensed it was not the right one, someone made a small error, or whatever?

My point is that, in their own way, they were tweaking...and doing so in whatever way the technology of the day would allow.

As Dan already alluded to - someone has to make a judgement call. Whether that process is done with trial and error full-band takes or whether it was done with trial and error track by track makes no difference to me if the end product is good. The flow or lack thereof will be evident to the listener.

Just because a computer is used does not mean everything is quantized. Personally I think doing that is a pain in the butt. I'd rather leave in a healthy amount of imperfection, maybe too much, lol.

But if something sounds like it was played perfectly, how will you judge whether that was due to quantization or virtuosity? If something sounds too virtuosic, do you reject it out of hand as being artificial? Does a performance (or perhaps I shouldn't use that word?) have to contain a set percentage of imperfections to be judged as authentic, inspired, and worthy of merit?

[Skullhead]

But if something sounds like it was played perfectly, how will you judge whether that was due to quantization or virtuosity? If something sounds too virtuosic, do you reject it out of hand as being artificial? Does a performance (or perhaps I shouldn't use that word?) have to contain a set percentage of imperfections to be judged as authentic, inspired, and worthy of merit?

This really is exactly one of my main points of concern... if not for the simple fact that such a question could even come up. Regardless, it leaves doubt. And that doubt leads to a certain amount of "oh, that sounds cool, let me check my iphone, someone is texting me" and then they move on to something else. Why? because unless you are seeing or hearing it with your own eyes or ears, it's not a given that it is genuine.

[Skullhead]

First off, it was never necessary to have "mastery over one's instrument" to make good or successful rock or prog music. Look at virtually any 1960's band, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, the Beatles, the Ramones, etc. However much you might prefer 1970's music to today's music, the average musical skill level in the 1970's was not much higher than it is now.

But there is more to it than that. Tonality, and feeling the music in real time.. and one could argue I suppose that a lot of the true feel of music gets lost between the 1 and 0's.

[tormato]

This really is exactly one of my main points of concern... if not for the simple fact that such a question could even come up. Regardless, it leaves doubt. And that doubt leads to a certain amount of "oh, that sounds cool, let me check my iphone, someone is texting me" and then they move on to something else. Why? because unless you are seeing or hearing it with your own eyes or ears, it's not a given that it is genuine.

But hasn't this been an issue since the advent of recorded music? I can find instances in the pre-digital age of producers replacing instrumental and vocal tracks on recordings with other musicians to get a better sound. And musicians and composers routinely manipulated analog tapes to create new sounds, alter tempo, etc., so what is real in any era?

I also think correlating doubt with short attention span/distractions is a somewhat spurious exercise. A great deal of music that is selling a ton of albums and filling up arenas these days is the mass produced "pop" music that's been around for ages, and while not a huge fan myself, I know people who obsess over that music the same way people on this forum obsess over prog.

[Plasmatopia]

About 75% of this thread is a "spurious exercise" in my view. Lots and lots of ideas thrown around with very little specific information to back it up. Suspicions and doubt used as a way to damn an entire era (or three), etc. Too busy right now to tackle every instance where this has occurred...

[Skullhead]

But hasn't this been an issue since the advent of recorded music? I can find instances in the pre-digital age of producers replacing instrumental and vocal tracks on recordings with other musicians to get a better sound. And musicians and composers routinely manipulated analog tapes to create new sounds, alter tempo, etc., so what is real in any era?

Not so much with the great bands. The bands we call the great Prog bands where not doing this. They were spending a lot more time tracking together live than what is typically going on today. We are losing a lot of the music by amateurs over producing themselves.. or under producing themselves by not embracing other musicians out of inconvenience.

I also think correlating doubt with short attention span/distractions is a somewhat spurious exercise. A great deal of music that is selling a ton of albums and filling up arenas these days is the mass produced "pop" music that's been around for ages, and while not a huge fan myself, I know people who obsess over that music the same way people on this forum obsess over prog.

The pop music is a lot worse now than it has ever been. It lacks feel, creativity and musicianship. The band Chicago was pop music not that long ago. We've really fallen hard.

[Skullhead]

About 75% of this thread is a "spurious exercise" in my view. Lots and lots of ideas thrown around with very little specific information to back it up. Suspicions and doubt used as a way to damn an entire era (or three), etc. Too busy right now to tackle every instance where this has occurred...

Use your ears. Listen.... that's all you have to do to see what has happened.

[tormato]

Not so much with the great bands. The bands we call the great Prog bands where not doing this. They were spending a lot more time tracking together live than what is typically going on today. We are losing a lot of the music by amateurs over producing themselves.. or under producing themselves by not embracing other musicians out of inconvenience.



The pop music is a lot worse now than it has ever been. It lacks feel, creativity and musicianship. The band Chicago was pop music not that long ago. We've really fallen hard.

You remind me of a person I know who I attended a classical guitar recital with a few years back. It was mostly pieces composed since 1970 (Koshkin, Coeck, Dyens) and the guitarist was on fire. My friend, who is a really good player himself, turned to me and said "I wish she would stop playing this racket and just play the Spanish repertoire"

[rynnce]

Use your ears. Listen.... that's all you have to do to see what has happened.

SH - it would help if you gave examples A and B showing how the use of computers has ruined prog.

[Plasmatopia]

SH - it would help if you gave examples A and B showing how the use of computers has ruined prog.

Precisely!


(I do use my ears, and while they aren't the best and can always use a little more training to learn to hear new things, I really have no idea how anyone could think of modern prog as such a wasteland...either sonically or musically. )

[Skullhead]

Precisely!


(I do use my ears, and while they aren't the best and can always use a little more training to learn to hear new things, I really have no idea how anyone could think of modern prog as such a wasteland...either sonically or musically. )

Well, it's not connecting with people the way it used to. Why?

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

I saw Anglagard last spring and they killed. So, there's a Prog band that started in the 90s and are excellent live.
I saw KBB, a Prog band that started in the 2000s, and they killed.

there are plenty examples of new Prog bands that are great live

[Plasmatopia]

Well, it's not connecting with people the way it used to. Why?

I believe it's not connecting with you, but until I have a lot more information to the contrary, I will have to disagree that it's not connecting with people the way it used to.

And if that proved to be true, I think there could be a number of reasons for it. Number one being that most of us are no longer 13 years old. And some of us, by now, have heard lots and lots of music and are perhaps a bit more jaded these days. Maybe you should start another thread to ask that question first and find out if there is a reliable, across-the-board truth to your idea among the music fans here.

I can't relate to that thinking myself. There is a lot of music that resonated with me that comes from the '70s (and a lot from that time that I am still discovering), but there is also just as much that is current which I find myself latching onto. But I admit that I'm not buying and listening to hundreds of albums a year. I'm not exhausting the supply, so perhaps that's where my bias is. I haven't found myself running out of the good stuff and haven't been forced to go scratching around in the dirt for the work of "amateurs".

[revporl]

I agree, I think our experience of music gets a bit less as we get older. I remember when I first started to listening to prog back in the 80's. The records I liked I listened to over and over until I knew every last note, the spaces between the notes, and every little pop and glitch of the vinyl and tape. That was when I was a teenager, as an adult I simply don't have the time any more and I have other interests.

Because I don't listen to music as intensely doesn't mean I don't recognise that what is out there now is every bit as good, if not better, than in the 70's and 80's. It's easier to find and there's a load more of it. I don't think the technologies involved in making music now make music any worse at all, or any more artificial sounding. As people have pointed out, the first overdub, the first drop-in, meant that nothing need be recorded live as it sounds to the listener and it improved the art of writing and recording and pushed them both forward and continues to do so. Automation can free people up to be creative in other areas.

As with opinions on politics and technology, the only danger in the world of music is nostalgia. It only ever represents a lie and a brake on progress and uh, what was the name of this forum again??

[Skullhead]

I believe it's not connecting with you, but until I have a lot more information to the contrary, I will have to disagree that it's not connecting with people the way it used to.

And if that proved to be true, I think there could be a number of reasons for it. Number one being that most of us are no longer 13 years old. And some of us, by now, have heard lots and lots of music and are perhaps a bit more jaded these days. Maybe you should start another thread to ask that question first and find out if there is a reliable, across-the-board truth to your idea among the music fans here.

I can't relate to that thinking myself. There is a lot of music that resonated with me that comes from the '70s (and a lot from that time that I am still discovering), but there is also just as much that is current which I find myself latching onto. But I admit that I'm not buying and listening to hundreds of albums a year. I'm not exhausting the supply, so perhaps that's where my bias is. I haven't found myself running out of the good stuff and haven't been forced to go scratching around in the dirt for the work of "amateurs".

I'm not referring to die hard prog fans, but to the general listening public that once flocked to prog music. It's lost it's special quality I believe, because now nearly anyone can make it. The public doesn't require live performance for validation. They only require an internet connection and a pair of $2 ear buds.