May 25, 2006 08:22 am I think it's the ability to look beyond the "music" and listen to the "sound" if that makes sense..."sound" is genre inspecific...allows one to be more effective in the big picture.
Most important thing about producing music to YOU?
Posted on May 25, 2006 08:09 am
jimmyboy
Member Since: Sep 08, 2005
Just curious what people think is the most important thing to understanding and producing good music on both a personal level and in a professional studio level.
For me I think and all around appreciation for ALL types of music from pop to gabba techno to death metal back to acoustic folk or clasical. I think that it espically imporating for professional studio producers as many band may need advice or a push in the right direction and obviously a guy who cant listen to 2 minutes of death metal is gonna be able to help here. I guess the same applies to your studio because I dont think too many small scale studios looking for business are going to say " we record pop and rock ONLY!"
In terms of bands i think it important so as you can come up with some fresh new ideas.
Obviously musical education is important (although not formal) but i think musical appreciation is more important.
Anyway just ranting and killing time at work!
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May 25, 2006 08:22 am I think it's the ability to look beyond the "music" and listen to the "sound" if that makes sense..."sound" is genre inspecific...allows one to be more effective in the big picture.
May 25, 2006 08:25 am jimmyboy...posting number 100,000...
I gotta see what I have laying around the ol' HRC office for some sort of prize...
May 25, 2006 08:30 am hahaha! SWEET :)
I guess my post was a bit vague and there are alot of answers for it but i guess I just meant the foundations to producing good music.
May 25, 2006 09:03 am I agree, maintaning a diversified ear is pretty important to keep things fresh in your head .
Personally, it's got to be the 'fun-factor' . Which could be dictated by any number of things involved... the piece, the artist, the process, even the location could set things off and inspire me to really get into things .
If the work starts to plod along, and peeps are not into it, rather than have the work suffer, I'll put it away until later . Of course some musics have fallen to the wayside, never to be picked up again via this filtration process... kind of a form of natural selection for what gets heard .
As far as professional agendas go... "intuitive ears" . The ability to listen and understand how parts in the work should be moving within it . There's actually a pretty tight relationship between these two points for me . If an artist listens to a recording that sounds like ***, and still smiles, then things have gone awry from all that is right with the world... so it's good to have a sense of these things, less you find yourself asking "How is it possible that this person likes what they're hearing ?" Know the sardonic nature of the work at hand... kind'a along what dBs saying .
May 25, 2006 09:08 am I guess when it come to that sort of thing honesty is imporant and as much as someone might not like to hear it, if something is bad, its bad!
edit: well i wouldnt go as far as calling anyone music bad, but i mean in terms of quality.
May 25, 2006 09:09 am oh was the prize thing a joke or is christmas gonna be coming early this year for me?
May 25, 2006 09:13 am depends what I have laying around the office, I meant to look for the last couple days, cuz I knew 100,000 was coming and wanted to give a prize of some sort to whoever posted it...
Gotta look through my pile of "stuff" I get from various vendors n' stuff...
Is that gmail account in your profile accurate? How about starting with a complimentary one year subscription to HRC Pro? Not sure what else I have, but I know I can do that :-)
May 25, 2006 09:15 am Ahhh yes, but then there is the very viable "very-good-bad" thing that sometimes occour . The "happy accidents", so to speak . Y'a got'ta acknowledge those when they pop up, as well .
Congradulations on being #100,000 !
May 25, 2006 09:15 am yea thats my email adress.
I was just blind luck that I was #100,000
May 25, 2006 10:14 am For me it's the catharsis of getting the songs out of my head (or from just an old acoustic) and onto "tape." Building the songs up with drums, bass etc. They take on their own life. Something in my head as a folk song can turn into a rocker, and vice versa. It's hearing the song create itself that is so important to me. Not for anyone else, just for me. So many of my songs are dysfunctional in content (sez my buddy), so I think that getting them down and getting them out is the cathartic part. Frees my mind. Also, improving as a musician. Nothing tells you that a part sucks like playing it back on SOLO mode!
Jimmyboy's comment about encompassing all genres is true too. I have songs that range from jazz to heavy rock, folk to pop, Celtic to soul.... I don't pigeonhole. If it works, it works. If it doesn't it doesn't.
May 25, 2006 11:54 am The most important thing to me is, don't lie to yourself or anyone your working with. Just cuz you have an idea, doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea. Sometimes we put a lot of work into something, and we don't want that time and effort to be a waste, so we make excuses for it, even though deep down we know it's not really very good. Or we don't want to hurt someone's feelings so we say stuff is good when it's not. Throw away the garbage, it's ok. It's part of the creative process.
May 25, 2006 11:56 am I agree 100%, no matter the engineer, musician's money amount or whatever, the old rule applies...garbage in, garbage out. Ya gotta have a thick enough skin to be able to admit "man, that sucks".
May 25, 2006 12:03 pm Yup, I gotta agree on that one. If it sucks, it sucks, you gotta get over it and move on.
Also, recognizing when a project is done can be difficult as well. Having the ability to say "it's done and I'm not going to mess with it anymore".
May 26, 2006 03:43 am I've never really produced, but ive worked with and been around producers a bunch. I think the most important thing to me is to remember that your a producer, not the band or musician, even though producers should immerse themselves in the music their workin on, you always gotta remember your tryin to make this band sound the best that they can, to really capture their sound no matter what it is. Coz theirs a reason their recordin a cd, its coz their fans want to hear them and ultimately its them that has to live with it and be happy with it 100%. So just listening to the band perform alot and watching them interact, tryin to really capture who they are and keeping them true to themselves, keepin them focused.
May 26, 2006 07:47 am got a surprise when i logged in to see Im now a HRCpro member.
Thanks alot for this! People here just keep getting nicer!
May 26, 2006 07:50 am Quote:
People here just keep getting nicer!
ah, shut the hell up!
May 26, 2006 01:08 pm Awww. dB-wan, you old softie.
May 26, 2006 08:01 pm Getting back to dB's original comment on sound.
I usually try to look for a sound that inpsires something. IF not an entirely new sound, something that is old but refreshed. Twisted up into something new. And by sound's I mean a synth patch, or a new gound I might get out of my guitar. Maybe a tweaked out drum loop I worked on and decided to add some odd FX. I try to start out with a rythmic type sound and then build around it.
But as well the comment on knowing when to quit is key as well. In my case there were many times when I piled on way too many sounds and ended up with sonic pudding.
Oh ya, congrats jimmyboy!
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