Bands Read This!

[Hugh_Jazz]

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?

[FatHand]

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?

Have your own ambition yes, that is a good thing, but don't expect everyone to share it. There is always going to be a wide range of talent and aspiration within a community, you'd be best just accepting that.

Would you not have greater satisfaction living in a city that caters more for your taste in music?

[TR!ΔNGL€ T€€TH]

Why don't you go knock model plane makers for not being aeronautical engineers in their spare time.

...bunch of unambitious cunts.

[Hugh_Jazz]

Have your own ambition yes, that is a good thing, but don't expect everyone to share it. There is always going to be a wide range of talent and aspiration within a community, you'd be best just accepting that.

Would you not have greater satisfaction living in a city that caters more for your taste in music?

.....but then he'd have nothing to bitch and moan about.

[Stupot]

All music ultimately comes from grass root scenes, where a multitude of young bands and acts join together using the most basic of gear and knocking out the rawest of sounds. It's a big melting pot where commercial attitudes don't count and nothing has any need to be perfect and polished. It's all about fun and enjoying the music. Kinda like a carefree childhood or never never land where you can play whatever you like without worrying about whether it will sell, whether radio will play it, whether you'll sell enough albums to repay your advance or fret about your record label dumping you because you're over. There's no PRS, no MCPS and no overbearing producer screaming for your next album.

Here you don't care about 24 bit 96KHz or not being able to sing your lead vocal cos the engineer put up a SM57 instead of a U87. You don't need to worry about the settings on your compressor cos you don't have one anyway.

Sun reporters don't go through your bin and you can fart and get drunk in public because your ass belongs to yourself and not to the likes of Simon Cowell.

There may come a day when it's important to have some material mastered to a commercial standard but it's probably not yet and most people have enough savvy to realise that it may never be, but they can still have a lot of fun finding out.

Remember...all this super duper digital technology is relatively new. It wasn't so long ago we were editing with razor blades and glue and still made some of the finest music ever. It's the talent, not the tools that count.

[Stripey]

All music ultimately comes from grass root scenes, where a multitude of young bands and acts join together using the most basic of gear and knocking out the rawest of sounds. It's a big melting pot where commercial attitudes don't count and nothing has any need to be perfect and polished. It's all about fun and enjoying the music.

Here you don't care about 24 bit 96KHz or not being able to sing your lead vocal cos the engineer put up a SM57 instead of a U87. You don't need to worry about the settings on your compressor cos you don't have one anyway.

Today these grass roots scenes pretty much bear no relation to geography thanks to the internet, and you will find that thanks to software and the sharing of knowledge/experience people generally *do* have access to quality audio processing tools and the knowhow and desire to use them. "Bedroom Producers" these days really know what they are doing.

There may come a day when it's important to have some material mastered to a commercial standard but it's probably not yet

That day has well and truly arrived, at time when self-publication and internet distribution is becoming increasingly important. You've got the situation where serato/final scratch/ableton live has widespread adoption, DJ's are getting tracks straight from the artists and playing them out in clubs (in some cases even paying out of their own pocket to get dubs cut of unsigned tunes they really like so they can play them out in the traditional way).

I realise that sounds very specific to a certain type of scene and a certain type of music, but anyone can put their material on the digital distribution bandwagon now, and there is a tradeoff at work here. You can cut out the middlemen, the big labels, but who is going to bring your audio up to commerical quality if you don't get with the times and take responsibility for it yourself? The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

[betamax]

That day has well and truly arrived, at time when self-publication and internet distribution is becoming increasingly important. You've got the situation where serato/final scratch/ableton live has widespread adoption, DJ's are getting tracks straight from the artists and playing them out in clubs (in some cases even paying out of their own pocket to get dubs cut of unsigned tunes they really like so they can play them out in the traditional way).

I realise that sounds very specific to a certain type of scene and a certain type of music, but anyone can put their material on the digital distribution bandwagon now, and there is a tradeoff at work here. You can cut out the middlemen, the big labels, but who is going to bring your audio up to commerical quality if you don't get with the times and take responsibility for it yourself? The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

That all makes sense to me. Exiting times ahead. Especially if all the middlemen are cut up so badly they die in the gutter buried under a pile of big labels. It will hopefully trancend all genres in time.

Ive had my own stuff bootlegged by club DJs and its a lovely feeling. Fuck the money Im not getting. Seriously. Its how music should be shared. Like oxygen, love and germs.

[Stichman]

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!

A record doesn't have to be technically perfect to be succesful. Take Bright Eyes, their early stuff isn't recorded or mixed particularly "well", but in the end it all adds to the charm of the music. Obviously, that doesn't work for ALL bands or musicians, but it is perfectly valid to not spend time and money on YOUR music if YOU don't think it's worth it, or if that's not what you're looking for.