Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

[Jacew]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

The thing that Rick is speaking about requires such good natural groove / voice talent and a dead tight band that is pretty rare in the reality. Without that, the reality can be really ugly even if the actual band is pushed really hard. Even awesome performers can have issues as they are are scheduled to record at a certain time and if they have disturbing health issues or after a heartbreak they will be unable to run 100%. So what's the solution, then? Tell all people with good (great) music ideas with not so much time, talent or just not be in the form to **** off and sell vegetables instead of chasing their dreams? Or try to help them any way you can? C'mon. There is a balance of course, it is not necessary to turn a singer into a robot but these tools are necessary in a contemporary recording workflow.

Rock music killed itself by copying banal ideas too much / playing safe to please softtail people / pvssies with money and not to put more energy on creating true original content. It lost its point as soon as it stopped to think as a rebel.

The reasons why you don't feel rock as appealing as before... Well, around the age, do you really have the same desire for girs, fast cars, chasing your real dreams, just to name a few? The truth is, you and your passion erodes a lot. Believe me, you changed more than rock music did.

On the lifeless production, blame it on lazy musicians. Uh-oh, aren't you a normal guy, working like a dog, rasing kids, putting the energy of the Sun into sustaining your everyday life? Well, the majority of bands are normal guys too. Are they lazy? Not at all. Chasing their dreams for years as a background app, by the time they get their life together, they just have very limited spare time left to rehearse their music to play tight as death. And everyone wants a record finished as perfect as they imagine and not as they really are.

Before the age of editing there was someting like "spending 4 months in the studio" and "waiting for the perfect take". Now it is gone. Neither labels nor self-sustaining bands are willing to pay for the hard way and shooting 1 or 2 semi-acceptable takes then pump it up with sugar means 100x less time and money.

As a producer you balance between the side that wants the actual recording to be as perfect as the new Periphery and the side that says it has 60 hours of time (and money) cap. You can say 'no' of course, you don't need to make a living, never cared about money, it is all for honour. Only accept big scale art classy assignments by musicians who have so tight natural groove that they don't need editing (like Matt Cameron, just in case). You are straight to keep mastering levels low to preserve and disregard furiously complaining labels who give the money anway saying why this record risking just -14dBFS RMS while the new Nile sells well and it is -7dBFS RMS. You tell musicians that you don't use autotune and their meowing below the line one semitone is a beauty of human flaw.

So, yes computers kill humanity in music. Producers are evil. Bands are lazy. You are the very same rebel as you were 30 years ago.

And I am a princess.

Damn.

Producers view?

Thing is, perfect music sounds boring. 90 % of regularly practicing bar bands sound better than professional musicians work edited perfectly in time and produced to boot.

Music is not math. It's artistic vision drawn from mathematical concepts.

 

[LLL]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

*ranting gibberish*

Them grapes sure are sour, eh? :smoker:

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

Producers view?

Thing is, perfect music sounds boring. 90 % of regularly practicing bar bands sound better than professional musicians work edited perfectly in time and produced to boot.

Music is not math. It's artistic vision drawn from mathematical concepts.

If it was so, people would prefer / pay for raw bar band rehearsal recordings in a mass scale instead of heavy production tracks. Matter of fact, they don't. In the practice the market dictates production rules and not rhe other way around.

I speak of massive practical experience, not by general distant truth-like ideas and opinions of mine like, the sun is hot, black holes are black, robots are non human, evil people are bad, money doesn't matter really, all new music is boring, everything was better in the old days e.t.c.

Music production is a craft. It serves a practical function, sets a balance between the artist's ideas, the resources available and the demands of the market. At the end of the day, it must deliver what it was paid for.

 

[Securb]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

I get what the guy is throwing down despite the clickbait title. He did use to great examples of over quantizing. However, using digital tools or even quantization does not necessarily kill the groove or feel of the drums. The more course you use the tool the more mechanical or unnatural it will sound. If drums are quantized for a 1/8th or even worse a 1/4 note you will get the canned sound he describes in the clip. I am not Rick Rubin but when I quantize a drum track I start at 1/64th note, listen to it and then maybe go to 1/32 note, and so on. If that sounds too mechanical the undo button is your best friend. I will also quantize (or not) different drum tracks (kick, snare, toms) depending on the feel I want. Here is a clip of what I am talking about.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

I think the key is to “quantize” (align) to the quarter note or even whole note and let everything else breathe.

I’ve got an odd desire to “remix” my band’s album we recorded on Cakewalk in 2001. I’ve still got all the tracks (stubs today?) on a CD-R, if it hasn’t deteriorated yet. Bring them all into Logic, Auto Tune and harmonize the singer, quantize the instrumental parts, compress and reverberate the drums and limit the heck out of it to see if it sounds like all the pop punk albums I heard on the radio in the late 90’s to early 00’s.

Oh yeah, maybe some EQ to make it sound a little less “Recto” and “Insane” and a little more Marshall.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

If it was so, people would prefer / pay for raw bar band rehearsal recordings in a mass scale instead of heavy production tracks. Matter of fact, they don't. In the practice the market dictates production rules and not rhe other way around.

I speak of massive practical experience, not by general distant truth-like ideas and opinions of mine like, the sun is hot, black holes are black, robots are non human, evil people are bad, money doesn't matter really, all new music is boring, everything was better in the old days e.t.c.

Music production is a craft. It serves a practical function, sets a balance between the artist's ideas, the resources available and the demands of the market. At the end of the day, it must deliver what it was paid for.

Well that's 'cause people are mindless idiots who want stuff exactly the way the next guy wants it. Why? 'cause they're being programmed & force-fed **** that sounds that way by the pathetic excuse for a "music industry" that exists today. . There's no way you can play a modern metalcore or w/e rank ****e record & tell me that a real snare drum actually sounds like that. No ****ing way! That's the sad state of current affairs & the truth is it extends far beyond musical tastes & preferences...but that's another story.

There was a time when bands stood out for their music and even individual musicians within those bands stood out for their signature tone & style. Iommi? Bonham? Ward? Harris? Butler? Page anyone?

Those days are gone. Everyone sounds like everyone. The only saving grace is you know that a year or two down the line all the awesome modern "hits" will be forgotten forever :lmao: What a waste of ****ing time (all those hours, days, months spent quantizing **** :laugh2

Now let me go play some Powerslave

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

I’m not seeing how the complaint about quantization making music sound mechanical/killing music is late-breaking new information. I first heard that back in the 80’s/90’s from studio engineers using the earliest digital recorders.

 

[NecroPolo]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

Well that's 'cause people are mindless idiots who want stuff exactly the way the next guy wants it. Why? 'cause they're being programmed & force-fed **** that sounds that way by the pathetic excuse for a "music industry" that exists today.

A heavily processed track is just more appealing to the majority of people and that's it. Different eras had different principles but it's been always so. It is an open race today, more free than ever as no one is restricted to record shops and physical albums. Everything is online and everyone is free to check anything. There is a new breed of artists with great genuine attitude taking advantage of the online era, like Ola Englund.

Today no one is forced to listen to anything on Youtube or the like, you choose your heroes and favourite sounds freely. Then no one is forced to desire to sound like someone else, or buy gear or dowlnoad amp sim presets of their heroes. People want to match their heroes. It's always been that. Heroes just changed along with the general attutide. Also, everyone wants to play as safe as possible, to avoid small watchnumbers, earn more likes and followers. Pumping up statistics. Copying existing success stories. Not to take any risks. Does that really measure music itself? No - but it is clever to consider it for a band/label as the majority of listeners don't even check tracks with small statistics.

The present direction escalated from bottom-up as time went on, not top-down. Production is always steps behind demand, reflecting to the actual era. I've been in the industry since the '90s. Those days the bands / labels requested to "create a signature sound". Around the early 2000s it slowly transformed into "make it as loud and punchy as the new X album, just a little more" and by 2010s it was cut back as band members and label guys just send reference tracks with no or little description, like "match the sound". Of course I try to persuade them not to, but it's just 50% successful in the practice. No logical reasoning works against "Maybe you are right but I provide the money and I want it that way. Do that."

Back to the original thread - computers and their advanced tools are the best friends of a musician really as they turned music production into an open and almost free highway. If someone decides not to follow the trend, today it is easy to make a statement and create any sort of original record, free from any control. Now'days anyone can assemble a fully featured recording studio in the bedroom for virtually the price of a decent guitar. It will be light years more advanced than the stuff was available in sick pro studios around 2000, charging more per hour than the price of a decent audio interface today.

 

[LLL]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

Of course, since I use a DAW (prolly posted at least 50 clips here over the years), it naturally supposes that I enjoy the benefits that a DAW brings, and am not
pushing the position that we should eliminate computers from recording. But it's a fascinating expose by Beato on a powerful tool, and how people/the industry utilize it or abuse it.

BTW, here are Rick Beato's credentials:

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/rick-beato-mn0000357243

He also helped write a platinum single "Carolina" by Parmalee:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_(Parmalee_song)

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

Well that's 'cause people are mindless idiots who want stuff exactly the way the next guy wants it.

as band members and label guys just send reference tracks with no or little description, like "match the sound". Of course I try to persuade them not to, but it's just 50% successful in the practice. No logical reasoning works against "Maybe you are right but I provide the money and I want it that way. Do that."

^^ Well that's what we agree on right there :laugh2:



The bands/performers/state of the music industry today can be equated with things like the 'ice bucket challenge', 'selfies' & 'hipster beards'. ..it's as mindless, uninnovative, unoriginal, derivative & ridiculous/idiotic..

 

[Securb]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

A heavily processed track is just more appealing to the majority of people and that's it.

This right there. I noticed most of the tracks the video gave as an example had more of a dance feel, even the rock tunes. Stuff a d.j. can play in a club that is metered so simply drunks can bop around to it and it's easy to mix. It doesn't make them bad tracks or imply the engineer/producer did something wrong. It is called the music business because at the end of the day you got to make money. The easiest way to to that is "appealing to the majority of people".

 

[Jacew]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

A heavily processed track is just more appealing to the majority of people and that's it. Different eras had different principles but it's been always so. It is an open race today, more free than ever as no one is restricted to record shops and physical albums. Everything is online and everyone is free to check anything. There is a new breed of artists with great genuine attitude taking advantage of the online era, like Ola Englund.

Today no one is forced to listen to anything on Youtube or the like, you choose your heroes and favourite sounds freely. Then no one is forced to desire to sound like someone else, or buy gear or dowlnoad amp sim presets of their heroes. People want to match their heroes. It's always been that. Heroes just changed along with the general attutide. Also, everyone wants to play as safe as possible, to avoid small watchnumbers, earn more likes and followers. Pumping up statistics. Copying existing success stories. Not to take any risks. Does that really measure music itself? No - but it is clever to consider it for a band/label as the majority of listeners don't even check tracks with small statistics.

The present direction escalated from bottom-up as time went on, not top-down. Production is always steps behind demand, reflecting to the actual era. I've been in the industry since the '90s. Those days the bands / labels requested to "create a signature sound". Around the early 2000s it slowly transformed into "make it as loud and punchy as the new X album, just a little more" and by 2010s it was cut back as band members and label guys just send reference tracks with no or little description, like "match the sound". Of course I try to persuade them not to, but it's just 50% successful in the practice. No logical reasoning works against "Maybe you are right but I provide the money and I want it that way. Do that."

Back to the original thread - computers and their advanced tools are the best friends of a musician really as they turned music production into an open and almost free highway. If someone decides not to follow the trend, today it is easy to make a statement and create any sort of original record, free from any control. Now'days anyone can assemble a fully featured recording studio in the bedroom for virtually the price of a decent guitar. It will be light years more advanced than the stuff was available in sick pro studios around 2000, charging more per hour than the price of a decent audio interface today.

Really 90% people don't care about production in records. It's just that they like sounds they're familiar with: Market creates demand with marketing and serves that demand making profit. It has nothing to do with any musical value.

Of course I greatly appreciate the use of technology for artistic ends (Despite not necessarily liking the music). That's obviously different thing.

And completely agree with your last statement that there has never been better times to create music.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

Funny, but quite a few of these statements would appear to be equally applicable to the food people eat.

Sent from my Alcatel_5044C using Tapatalk

 

[greekdude]

Re: Pitched, Pocketed, Grided & AutoTuned

Funny, but quite a few of these statements would appear to be equally applicable to the food people eat.

and its a common trend in all fields not just music.

Many more fields I could add. Music is the least important.