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Bands Read This!


Stripey

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I don't think he would dispute that, he's only saying he's not going to play the game for the sake of playing the game.

Oh I'm not being argumentative, just pointing it out for the sake of anyone else who might be reading. I'm all for the idea of recordings which make beautiful use of dynamic range, but is todays consumer? I think the whole loudness thing is here to stay sadly, I don't see any realistic way to change the expectations of naive artists and casual consumers of music...

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Oh I'm not being argumentative, just pointing it out for the sake of anyone else who might be reading. I'm all for the idea of recordings which make beautiful use of dynamic range, but is todays consumer? I think the whole loudness thing is here to stay sadly, I don't see any realistic way to change the expectations of naive artists and casual consumers of music...

Nail on the head there I think.

One of the things I've noticed with musicians, those that I've seen develop over the years from a young age, is that dynamics tends to be the last thing they learn. Since it seems to elude most people with any musical leaning I don't suppose we can expect much better from the casual consumer.

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Nail on the head there I think.

One of the things I've noticed with musicians, those that I've seen develop over the years from a young age, is that dynamics tends to be the last thing they learn. Since it seems to elude most people with any musical leaning I don't suppose we can expect much better from the casual consumer.

I agree 100%

It's hard to learn dynamics in a band. Sometimes things are just so one dimensional

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Guest Jake Wifebeater
Yeah well admirable sentiments, u go girl, stick it to the man etc, but sticking up 2 fingers to the tangible, accepted and well understood science of audio engineering is doing you no favours.

Oh dear. It's not "sticking it to the man" or any of that nonsense, simply a case of doing what we want. Hardly rocket science. The style we play isn't exactly in hock to the "science of audio engineering" anyway. Why not let the tune itself do the talking? If you're going to spend day after day fartarsing around with the sound, it suggests there's a bit of camouflaging going on. I've never heard any of your output, not really interested, but people I know who've given it a listen say it's pretty disposable. Not a personal dig or anything, just what people have said.

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Guest Jake Wifebeater
There's nothing pretentious about what I said there, it's just stupid to shrug off processes that will clarify and enhance the reproduction of your audio because you think some shitty noisy tape is more underground.

Oh dear again. To our ears, the live 4-track does the job and if we're all happy with the sound, which is clear enough to us, then it's good to go. It's not about being "underground" (lazy argument), it's about having complete control over absolutely everything to do with the band.

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Guest Jake Wifebeater
why should Onion Terror or Spike Piledriver spend hundreds of pounds and hours and hours (over)producing their music when a live take in the studio and some fiddling with levels gives a fair and honest representation of what they are all about?

Nail on the head, Marsh. I'm wondering that myself. If most of a band's time is taken up chucking heaps of cash towards the sound/presentation or whatever, it kinda implies they're trying to cover up the weakness of their songs. The music should speak for itself.

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Nail on the head' date=' Marsh. I'm wondering that myself. If most of a band's time is taken up chucking heaps of cash towards the sound/presentation or whatever, it kinda implies they're trying to cover up the weakness of their songs. The music should speak for itself.[/quote']

Hilarious. This is not about "covering up" or "masking" anything.

Mixing and mastering is about uncovering, unmasking, bringing out detail and nuance and especially importantly, making sure it's a high quality reproduction which will sound "right" on a variety of playback systems and situations. I would have thought this would be really important to any musician who cares about their work.

I've never heard any of your output' date=' not really interested, but people I know who've given it a listen say it's pretty disposable. Not a personal dig or anything, just what people have said.[/quote']

What has my music got to do with this discussion? Fuck all, therefore you _are_ having a personal dig.

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Guest Jake Wifebeater
Hilarious. This is not about "covering up" or "masking" anything.

Mixing and mastering is about uncovering, unmasking, bringing out detail and nuance and especially importantly, making sure it's a high quality reproduction which will sound "right" on a variety of playback systems and situations. I would have thought this would be really important to any musician who cares about their work.

What has my music got to do with this discussion? Fuck all, therefore you _are_ having a personal dig.

Which again is all very well, but the way we do things sounds right to us, so there's no need to bother. I wouldn't be so pretentious as to call myself a musician, either.

And ooh, hark at you getting all precious about a perceived personal dig! It's not like you to hurl insults at people on here, is it? Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

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I am still largely wtih Stripey here.

I don't think I am alone in saying that I generally enjoy a band more if their recordings are 'clean' sounding, performance is tight and everything is 'pleasant' to listen to.

Some bands are 'overproduced' but I don't think this is really what Stripey is advocating or what you get by paying for a few more hours to allow your the engineer to mix the band to his/her potential.

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IMO some material is suited to being pushed a bit further in the "very-heavily-limited/compressed-at-the-expense-of-dynamic-range" sense, i.e dance music like techno and drumnbass

I agree completely with you. These genres do benefit from being squashed and hammered as much as possible.

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Which again is all very well, but the way we do things sounds right to us, so there's no need to bother. I wouldn't be so pretentious as to call myself a musician, either.

And ooh, hark at you getting all precious about a perceived personal dig! It's not like you to hurl insults at people on here, is it? Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

Right, if you don't consider yourself to be a musician, and you don't give a toss about recording, why are you even bothering to post your nonsense arguments? It's evident that you don't have a clue about any of this.

It's pretty telling that the only people who've given me aggro in this thread are unambitious people in joke bands who don't really give a shit about music. If you're happy in your ignorant provincial mindset pissing about in captain toms and drummonds, good for you, but why don't you leave discussions like this for the rest of us who actually take things a bit more seriously.

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Guest Jake Wifebeater
Right, if you don't consider yourself to be a musician, and you don't give a toss about recording, why are you even bothering to post your nonsense arguments? It's evident that you don't have a clue about any of this.

It's pretty telling that the only people who've given me aggro in this thread are unambitious people in joke bands who don't really give a shit about music. If you're happy in your ignorant provincial mindset pissing about in captain toms and drummonds, good for you, but why don't you leave discussions like this for the rest of us who actually take things a bit more seriously.

I never said I didn't give a toss about recording, it's that we don't consider spending loads of time mixing and tweaking to be a productive way to take things forward. If I wasn't happy with the recording, I wouldn't release it. Just because you spend more time on that side of things, doesn't make your way any more or less valid than mine. If you start a thread called "Bands read this!", then bands might read it and chip in with their take on it, which I did.

As for the rest of the rant, save it for someone who cares. I'm not even going to bother trying to refute what you think about what I do, got better things to do than get into a slanging match over the interweb. Just don't make the mistake of thinking you're any better because I've seen no evidence that you've managed to achieve any more than the rest of the two-bob toss round here.

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I never said I didn't give a toss about recording, it's that we don't consider spending loads of time mixing and tweaking to be a productive way to take things forward. If I wasn't happy with the recording, I wouldn't release it. Just because you spend more time on that side of things, doesn't make your way any more or less valid than mine.

It's not a matter of opinion, you are wrong. You don't consider spending time "mixing and tweaking" to be productive because you simply don't know any better, consequently you are happy with recordings that don't sound as good as they could with even minimal processing.

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It's not a matter of opinion, you are wrong. You don't consider spending time "mixing and tweaking" to be productive because you simply don't know any better, consequently you are happy with recordings that don't sound as good as they could with even minimal processing.

thats not really fair tho. If they choose not to use technology to their benefit then it is their choice there is no right or wrong in the matter.

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thats not really fair tho. If they choose not to use technology to their benefit then it is their choice there is no right or wrong in the matter.

Spot on, we should have you stuffed.

I could wheel out the good old 'polishing a turd' argument, but I really can't be bothered: this thread is the internet equivalent of violently smashing your head against a brick wall, just like most of 'Stroppey's' threads are.

Out!

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I get a lot of bands in who simply want to capture as much of the raw power and vibe of their live set as they can. Lo fi is quite in at the moment, perhaps as a reaction to the ultra clean, super editability of the pro tools environment.

Some of the most enjoyable sessions of late have been sticking up a couple of mikes in the live room, mikes in front of the singers, having the band play and running everything straight onto 2 inch tape on the studer.

Of course you have to stick it into a computer at some point if you want a CD, but the ambience and the analogue warmth is still there.

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Some of the most enjoyable sessions of late have been sticking up a couple of mikes in the live room, mikes in front of the singers, having the band play and running everything straight onto 2 inch tape on the studer.

Unfortunately there are people around who think you can acheive the same thing recording straight to DAT and dumping out to CD.

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Guest Jake Wifebeater
It's not a matter of opinion, you are wrong. You don't consider spending time "mixing and tweaking" to be productive because you simply don't know any better, consequently you are happy with recordings that don't sound as good as they could with even minimal processing.

We are happy with the recordings if they sound good to us. If we are happy with the sound, then we don't fuck with it, end of. You're a bright guy, I shouldn't have to dumb down like this.

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We are happy with the recordings if they sound good to us. If we are happy with the sound, then we don't fuck with it, end of. You're a bright guy, I shouldn't have to dumb down like this.

That's what it's all about really. If you're happy with the end result, that's what counts.

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We are happy with the recordings if they sound good to us. If we are happy with the sound, then we don't fuck with it, end of.

Right, so mastering engineers, mix engineers, producers and consumers(commercial and private) who appreciate and expect audio of a certain quality are just being pretentious and somehow involved in a conspiracy to mask deficiencies in the music itself because amateurs like you and your deaf mates are happy with the pish that you come away with from a couple of hours in a badly equipped provincial studio? Brilliant. Fuck good audio and the people who strive for it, as long as your happy, the science behind audio reproduction is just a bourgois lie anyway!

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Right, so mastering engineers, mix engineers, producers and consumers(commercial and private) who appreciate and expect audio of a certain quality are just being pretentious and somehow involved in a conspiracy to mask deficiencies in the music itself because amateurs like you and your deaf mates are happy with the pish that you come away with from a couple of hours in a badly equipped provincial studio? Brilliant. Fuck good audio and the people who strive for it, as long as your happy, the science behind audio reproduction is just a bourgois lie anyway!

There can be a happy medium. There's no point in an unsigned band who're happy just to play a few gigs and put a few songs on a CD paying hundreds for mastering and post production work. I don't feel it's important to have your material mastered if it's never going to be commercially released or played on radio.

Personally, I master everything I record and mix either for myself or any of my clients because it's part of the service we provide. But it's not a religious requirement for music.

There's comes a point in any band's career, should they be lucky enough to have a career, when things have to be done to a certain standard. Until that time they don't need to worry too much.

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There can be a happy medium. There's no point in an unsigned band who're happy just to play a few gigs and put a few songs on a CD paying hundreds for mastering and post production work. I don't feel it's important to have your material mastered if it's never going to be commercially released or played on radio.

Personally, I master everything I record and mix either for myself or any of my clients because it's part of the service we provide. But it's not a religious requirement for music.

There's comes a point in any band's career, should they be lucky enough to have a career, when things have to be done to a certain standard. Until that time they don't need to worry too much.

Bravo....some sense at last.

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It's pretty telling that the only people who've given me aggro in this thread are (i)unambitious people in (ii)joke bands who (iii)don't really give a shit about music. If you're happy in your ignorant provincial mindset (iv)pissing about in captain toms and drummonds, good for you, but why don't you leave discussions like this for the rest of us who actually take things a bit more seriously.

Replace your adjectives with mine and you might actually understand why other people get into music. (Although with your track record, I doubt you will)

i) Realistic - because some people realise their music / band will NEVER be mainstream or have large-scale success.

ii) Having fun - Making the most of it, because some people personally think having fun is one of the biggest aspects of being a musician.

iii & iv) Playing live gigs - Because to some people, music's about more than sniping everyone else from your wee fortress.

I wasn't going to take your bait but your one-track, narrow-minded, dogged and rigid approach - and opinion - as to what 'good' music is, and now, how it should be presented, is just so irrational (and ignorant) that I wouldn't expect anybody else to post such spaff. As I said earlier in this thread, you need to get your head around the fact that other people don't meet your industry-standrd (not just in recording, but performances, musicianship, songwriting & everything else you try to calumniate) for whatever reason.

Another thing you should consider is that most of the bands you're constantly trying to sully are out there walking the walk, playing gigs, to paying punters - most of which don't mind parting with a couple of quid to watch 3/4/5 bands in a night. Even though this situation probably isn't your interpretation of what music is 'about', it probably sits fair with a large percentage of this website.

And what Stupot just said, perfect.

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drivel

Fair enough if you've decided that you will never make anything of your music, that you're happy doing the odd gig in some venue in aberdeen and whatever for fun, great, go for it, I'm not knocking that.

Do you think that because you yourself feel you aren't going to be "a mainstream success", that you can get away knocking out any old shite in the name of your "having a laugh"? That you don't have to make an effort? This suggests a pretty contemptible attitude towards people who listen to music.

You complain that I've got "too high standards". Well maybe if you got the fuck out of the permissive culture of mediocrity (which you are helping perpetuate) that permeates Aberdeen you would realise that what people like you do just doesn't cut it in the real world. You accuse me of sitting at home hiding behind a computer etc, when really it is people like you who are hiding behind the safety-net of an insular community of ignorant, provincial, cultural cripples, rather than having the balls to better yourself and deal with the real world on it's own terms like a fucking man.

If people like you have resigned yourselves to mediocrity then who the hell are you to start having a go at me for being educated and ambitious?

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