Are the Studio Tricks We Use the Equivalent of Fake News?

[RockViolin]

 

 

 

 

 

That was someone being creative with a pan knob. BTW, I saw Billy playing at NAMM. He's just as solid as ever.

 

 

 

That's at home though, right? The nice thing about working on music at home is that you have unlimited time; in a project or commercial studio the clock is usually running, people are waiting and you have to sometimes make the tough budget and time management decisions - should we keep trying to improve this one vocal line or keep trying to punch in that one tricky guitar lick, or should we 1) simplify the part (it's always fun trying to get the lead guitarist who's obsessed with the lick to go for that... ) 2) "settle" for a sloppy take (not really an option IMHO) 3) cut into the time needed to overdub the vocals and do the percussion overdubs in order to keep trying to get a good take or 4) let the engineer have 2-5 minutes to try to fix it and then decide on one of the other options if you don't like how the edit sounds... a lot of the time, it's a matter of expediency and practicality.

 

Everybody has occasional times when they struggle in the studio, even if they've done a good job of preparing in advance. IMHO a good producer and a good engineer's job is to support them and help get them through those times. You certainly don't want to lose sight of the larger goal and let the recording suffer because of them.

 

And then there's the bands that just aren't ready, and haven't done the work needed in advance of going into the studio. If you're not the producer you can tell him or her that you think the band's not ready and you'd recommend they reschedule and come back after more rehearsal, but you usually can't force the issue of pre-production, and sometimes you wind up recording people who just were not ready. Every engineer does. It's never my idea of a good time.

 

 

 

Again, IMO that's creative. You're trying something different, and using it in your own way for your own thing.

 

I did know that was panning, actually. But thanks for not assuming I knew that.

 

 

Yes, it's at home. As I am it's hard for me to prep the way I used to, let alone do lots of retakes. My time then is always limited too, but for another reason. I'm glad to read that you weigh the matter carefully Phil. Most of us out here with home studios, (I've been at it for about 25 years now) don't have the same considerations, I understand. I got to where I was getting pitch correction to not be apparent, but the way I was using it I could hear the converters. And then I found a way around that, but, it was too late. I just came to the conclusion I'd found a point I wouldn't go beyond. It's easier for me to change the music I write to suit my situation, as you alluded too. I'm 54 now so doing more with fewer notes does suit me and increases my averages.

 

But I really do think that in a world saturated with recorded music, we don't need recordings of folks who were not ready to be recorded, or perhaps had no business being anywhere near a studio.

 

And I've been a piece of meat on the altar of the recording a few times and found it quite distasteful. The Glen Gould treatment. People groaned, eyes rolled, offense taken, but I've heard that the recordings are quite good. I wouldn't know, though I have them.

 

We all have a point, hopefully, where we won't go beyond.

 

But yeah, for the purposes of the thread, it seemed like it might do to point out the difference between creative use of the studio and using it for triage.

[Phil O'Keefe]

My apologies - I wasn't trying to suggest that you didn't know what panning was. Sorry if it came across that way!

[Phil O'Keefe]

But I really do think that in a world saturated with recorded music, we don't need recordings of folks who were not ready to be recorded, or perhaps had no business being anywhere near a studio.

 

I agree, but the thing is, now that the tools are widely available to anyone, we can't prevent people who aren't ready from recording anyway - they can do it themselves if they're really determined to do so.

 

That's another thing every single studio owner has had to deal with at some point or another - people who are self-deluded about not only their preparedness, but their overall talent. Sometimes it seems as if the least talented "musicians" and "songwriters" are the most likely to be convinced of their own greatness...

 

In general, I'm a big proponent of the home studio revolution. Like you, I'm 54, and I started recording as a teenager in the 70s as soon as those tools started to show up. But one of the definite downsides of the wide availability of recording tools is that they give people the means to produce their own work - and that's a double-edged sword. It's great for talented artists and it gives them considerable freedom, but it also allows the less talented to do the same thing... and now with the Internet, they all have the means of distributing it too... but that leads to mountains of dreadful dreck that we have to dig through in order to try to find the occasional gem...

 

[onelife]

The Beatles, along with their studio guide and mentor Sir George Martin, used the technology of the day to facilitate some fabulous recordings.

 

I find it interesting how they often recorded acoustic piano then used studio tricks to make it sound like something different. The solo from 'In My Life' and the warped bits at the end of 'Magical Mystery Tour' immidietly come to mind.

 

The Moog synthesizer appears on a few tracks on the last album they recorded as a group.

 

They pushed the technology far beyond what it was designed for but everything was done to support the songs.

 

Today we use 'fake' pianos (as one of my friends calls them) and try to make them sound like acoustic pianos.

 

We now have what seems to be unlimited options available via drop down menus but how many of us come close to using all of the technology that is availble to us?

[RockViolin]

No problem. I don't get offended much, and found it amusing.

[RockViolin]

 

I agree, but the thing is, now that the tools are widely available to anyone, we can't prevent people who aren't ready from recording anyway - they can do it themselves if they're really determined to do so.

 

That's another thing every single studio owner has had to deal with at some point or another - people who are self-deluded about not only their preparedness, but their overall talent. Sometimes it seems as if the least talented "musicians" and "songwriters" are the most likely to be convinced of their own greatness...

 

In general, I'm a big proponent of the home studio revolution. Like you, I'm 54, and I started recording as a teenager in the 70s as soon as those tools started to show up. But one of the definite downsides of the wide availability of recording tools is that they give people the means to produce their own work - and that's a double-edged sword. It's great for talented artists and it gives them considerable freedom, but it also allows the less talented to do the same thing... and now with the Internet, they all have the means of distributing it too... but that leads to mountains of dreadful dreck that we have to dig through in order to try to find the occasional gem...

 

And we have ARTISTS. Arteeeests who practically demand Grammys. *Artists* who would have no place in the discussion at all without the many ways the studio goes about making them something that warrants any notice at all.

 

OT maybe-I did some reviews for Broadjam a while back. There was 1 person above all that blew my mind. The music was utter nonsense. Not just bad, or not to my taste. Utter nonsense. Yeah somebody probably said the same thing about Stravinsky. No, it was not music in any recognizable way. And I told him so.

 

I asked him to puuhhleeeze give me some sign in the future that there was a human involved with something to express other than an entirely disorganized mind. I think he reported me. But that's OK. It needed to be said.

 

I hope that there will always be things that tech cannot do, that Jaco could do, that Prince could do, and that music made by people who have some right to call themselves musicians will rise above.

[onelife]

Rhetorical question...

 

What do you suppose Beethoven would have done with a MacBook and Ableton Live? (besides turn it up really loud so he could hear it too.)

[RockViolin]

Rhetorical question...

 

What do you suppose Beethoven would have done with a MacBook and Ableton Live? (besides turn it up really loud so he could hear it too.)

 

Based on some of his manuscripts...he'd have used UNDO a lot.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

Based on some of his manuscripts...he'd have used UNDO a lot.

 

I was going to say something similar - basically the first thing he would have used IMO would have been a scoring / notation program.

 

Maybe later he would have gotten into sequencing, virtual instruments and recording, but I'm pretty sure, as RockViolin said, he would have really appreciated the "undo" key.

 

[dboomer]

We are storytellers.

[onelife]

 

Based on some of his manuscripts...he'd have used UNDO a lot.

 

 

I was going to say something similar - basically the first thing he would have used IMO would have been a scoring / notation program.

 

Maybe later he would have gotten into sequencing, virtual instruments and recording, but I'm pretty sure, as RockViolin said, he would have really appreciated the "undo" key.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of what Hendrix did with a Stratocaster - take it somewhere it was not initially designed to do.

[RockViolin]

 

 

 

I was thinking more along the lines of what Hendrix did with a Stratocaster - take it somewhere it was not initially designed to do.

 

​Beethoven didn't take the piano anywhere it wasn't designed to go, or any other instrument that I'm aware of. Maybe they added an octave. That's pretty mild though. The size of the orchestra expanded and iirc he was the first to use trombones. The battle was in his head, his minds ear, which was obviously enough to carry him on quite well after he went deaf. ( I love late Beethoven. ) But he didn't come out of a vacuum. He was a student of Haydn's, and for quite a while spoke very much within the musical language of the times. He expanded on things though. Considerably.

 

 

If your point is that rules are meant to be broken, I won't argue, save to say that those that know the rules and know them well are much more adept at breaking them, IMO.

[Ernest Buckley]

Fake news is produced to lead people to believe something that is not true. Same goes for most modern music production today. So yes, the analogy is pretty accurate. However, I would just add that music production does not have the same impact on people`s lives that politics does... so its a bit of a stretch... but yes.

 

 

[onelife]

Beethoven didn't take the piano anywhere it wasn't designed to go, or any other instrument that I'm aware of. Maybe they added an octave. That's pretty mild though. The size of the orchestra expanded and iirc he was the first to use trombones. The battle was in his head, his minds ear, which was obviously enough to carry him on quite well after he went deaf. ( I love late Beethoven. ) But he didn't come out of a vacuum. He was a student of Haydn's, and for quite a while spoke very much within the musical language of the times. He expanded on things though. Considerably.

 

 

If your point is that rules are meant to be broken, I won't argue, save to say that those that know the rules and know them well are much more adept at breaking them, IMO.

 

Beethoven broke pianos which contributed to an update in the way they were built - but that's not really where I was going with the Hendrix / Stratocaster comment.

 

Yes he was a student of Hayden and I also hear a lot of Mozart in his music. Before I knew the repertoire, I sometimes wondered if I was listening to Beethoven or Mozart - until the bits were the music got really heavy - sort of like "Mozart on steroids" which I attributed to his growing deafness - the same reason he used to break pianos.

 

The Hendrix analogy is about how Jimi took an instrument that was capable of much more than emulating a pedal steel guitar in Country Music and showed us what else could be done with it.

 

 

btw, If there is indeed a God who is in control of everything, Beethoven going deaf was either a cruel joke or the catalyst needed for him to take music to next level - no pain, no gain. I do find it sad, however, that we all get to listen to his music but he didn't - which brings up the question of whether he got it right when he wrote it down since he never got to check his work aurally.

[RockViolin]

 

Beethoven broke pianos which contributed to an update in the way they were built - but that's not really where I was going with the Hendrix / Stratocaster comment.

 

 

 

 

btw, If there is indeed a God who is in control of everything, Beethoven going deaf was either a cruel joke or the catalyst needed for him to take music to next level - no pain, no gain. I do find it sad, however, that we all get to listen to his music but he didn't - which brings up the question of whether he got it right when he wrote it down since he never got to check his work aurally.

 

OK, fair enough, but he didn't play them behind his head, light them on fire and junk.

 

 

 

I think deaf Beethoven got close enough for jazz.

 

Even I can hear music that I read from notation in my head. (And I've dreamt music too.) I can hear the notes in my imagination as surely as if I had a violin in my hands and was playing them and could hear them for real. I've practiced at times that way and still do, out of necessity though, and notation isn't involved now. Not that it is a substitute for ears when others are playing your music for real and I wouldn't know what it's like to hear in no other way.

 

I'm not sure what musicologists have found, but I've heard no 'wrong notes' in late Beethoven.

 

 

And given his tack, I think we can assume it sounds as he intended.

 

[onelife]

I'm not sure what musicologists have found, but I've heard no 'wrong notes' in late Beethoven.

 

And given his tack, I think we can assume it sounds as he intended.

 

I've thought a lot about that. I always check my work, whatever it is, by listening to it

 

When you consider that, in Beethoven's day, the only way to record music was to write it down, they must have become really good at it.

 

 

 

[RockViolin]

 

I've thought a lot about that. I always check my work, whatever it is, by listening to it

 

When you consider that, in Beethoven's day, the only way to record music was to write it down, they must have become really good at it.

 

 

 

Well, it's how the a lot of the most beautiful, profound, emotive music ever made is conveyed...by those who can read. And it has always amazed me how some can bag on notation so in light of that fact. Or think that their music is somehow above being conveyed in such a way. Sure there's no notation for some things modern, but words make it into scores too.

[RoadRanger]

"Sweet Jane" with a studio intro tacked on to a live recording is an interesting example of something most think is real:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoytmVwcsB4