garyb wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 6:45 pm
if the main requirement for great music is lots of toys to play with, why does present day music suck so bad? isn't equality the key to quality? hmmm...
When idea, composition, arrangement and planning of a production are bad,- this has to be compensated w/ SOUND.
When the singer looks good, is possibly already well known from TV or whatelse,- but cannot sing,- it has to be compensated w/ computer technology.
What they did BEFORE production in the past,- selecting the right musicians, the right singer, the right studio and carefully calculating budget,- they do today in "post production".
Post production became more important than production and performance quality.
Alone the stupidity of EDM drums is underworld for my ears, I cannot stand it for more that e few minutes and then it also doesn´t matter which "great" sidelines and envolving pads are in the ballpark,- at least for me.
In fact it depends where you come from.
I´m (relatively) old.
I like good rock- and blues-bands as well as 70s fusion, even pure jazz like Miles in the 60s,- simply the stuff where great players mastered their acoustic, electromagnetic and,- at 1st still rarely electronic,- instruments, wrote good themes and found interesting chord progressions, re-harmonized and such.
I remember how good Herbie´s early Mandwishi stuff wass and still is, with the real musicians, brass section,- and the genious Patrick Gleeson introducing the ARP2600 givin´the stuff some spice.
I also love Depp Purple for their timing and precision or Walter Trout´s virtuoso blues guitar playing.
Just only a few examples ...
It´s still existing and there are young musicians doing that, but main focus of the past decades was simplify beat, chord progressions, melody and even lyrics, make it interchangable for the radio and tv formats.
You know, when most pro composers/producers use Apple Logic and it´s content because it´s the easiest,- it all sounds the same because they all use the same presets.
That´s also the case w/ these VSTI collections, NI Komplete Ultimate, Omnispere etc. included.
Many 1000s of presets for the quick usage,- and all use,- and buy and buy more and more content.
It´s the softwaremanufacturer´s wet dream #2,- selling libraries all the time and #1 is subscription to their cloud.
Today´s music is a "track", not a tune.
A track is what we called a "playback" which was considered not to be finished.
In the past nobody produced tracks and beats and sold that as also nobody used "what other´s played" as samples so much.
Sampling changed that and I´ve seen it coming ...
Today those who can play make sample libraries and the "producers" buy their creativity in form of styles/MIDIfiles and samples of all kind!
The old electronica scene might have been the exception,- but what we got from Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and some others in the past was still better than what we hear in large quantity today.
And I think it was because they had to deal w/ the same limitations the others, creating different genres, had to deal w/ too,-
tape MTR machines, analog consoles, analog outboard, room acoustics, lots of cables, unreliable synths, hum, hiss, rudimentary tape editing.
Post Production and correction, autotune ... WHAT ???
well ...
Bud
