For The Music Snobs

[odims_sphere]

Ah yes the equiment/technical snobs...

I remember when we finished the Nightside Eclipse CD, and I showed the finished product to another "musician?".... *sigh* basically he started talking about how the compression ratio on the vocals seemed a bit less than optimal, and that the synth used should have focused more on the analogue aspects, as well as the precussion sounding more metallic then normal, etc... Finally I had to say, "can you stop? and tell me what you think of the music?" he more or less was speechless... and didn't understand why I would ask... finally he was like: "Oh um, yeah.... the music is cool"

yeah....

I do that with just about everything I hear, mostly because I AM an equipment/technical snob. I think they are required to make musicians sound good. The best musician will sound like crap with a bad engineer, conversly they best engineer in the world, *cough Greg Reely cough*, can't do anything with terrible source material.

Further more, and this will definatly stir a hornets nest, there is NO software version of any synth that will ever equal the quality of their hardware counterpart. With musical equipment I have experianced that you definatly get what you pay for. There is a reason why SSL mixers are so expencive, and every major professional studio uses them. There is a reason why Mackie costs more then Behringer even though they look nearly identical. If the cheaper versions were truly as good, then the more expencive versions simply would not exist.

[glc]

ahhhh. that's what I'm talkin about!

Plugins definitely have their place, but I do most of my processing outboard. it just sounds sweet.

I've got a Manley mid eq (same circuitry as a pultec meq5) and it is SOOOOO much nicer than the plug in version. but I do use plugins for surgical eq, it's pretty good for that.

[Der Nister]

Sabian makes the best cymbals.

Good one Spook (Zildjian rules)

Sorry dude, I'm an equipment snob. There's just nothing quite like listening to the sound of a 6 thousand dollar preamp. try getting that experience from a behringer!!

Ok - I worded myself wrong (it was late-I was tired) what I meant was people that have to have the latest/newest everything on the market. As if that will make their band sound better. In some ways I'm more old tech vs. new tech.

I love the way old tube amps sound compared with the computer board amps (to give an example). As far as studios go - I'll admit I have no clue between this mixing board or that mixing board so long as the end results are good. And honestly I don't care (unless I'm starting up my own studio) my philosophy on that is what ever works works. Get the job done (meaning make an awesome recording) cuz I don't care which microphones or cables or processors ect are used.

[n0Mad]

Get the job done (meaning make an awesome recording) cuz I don't care which microphones or cables or processors ect are used.

A lot of the Beatles stuff was recorded on a 4-track even crappier than something you can get at Radio Shack today and look how huge they were and how sweet a lot of their music is. Some of my favorite jazz was recorded from a single mic hanging over the whole band and it's awesome! An awesome band playing on awesome music on crap technology is way better than a crap band with crap music in a multi-million dollar studio.

[glc]

Man, the Beatles could have farted into a microphone and make it sell! They were unstoppable!

I think you're right Der Nister too, people seem too interested in getting the newest magic product, without bothering to even listen to what they have already. People think that good equipment will make them better engineers, or musicians, but it won't.

[glc]

for Der Nister

[the eternal]

Cix, I feel you man.

I think people are so busy with their lives, they have "no" time, but yet they make time for so-called big event concerts.

Those same people will still say "Hey come play, come play" but your band is STILL not an "event" for them, so if they're free that night, they'lll come out to see you, but if the kid acts up, or they get a tummyache, forget it.

I know it's BS.

Also, you have two things working against you:

1. They take your presence and availability for granted.

They know you and figure "Ah, I'll catch him next time" even if that next time never comes. Whereas Covenant doesnt live right down the block. They dont see Apop buying groceries.

I have friends in Chicago that only see the sites when people visit.

"Why bother I'm right there" Yeah, you're right there, but you NEVER take advantage of it.

PLUS

2. There's no money commitment involved

Because your shows are cheap and you don't have to get advanced tickets, it's much easier to blow off, than, say, $200 tickets to The Police you bought months in advance. Those tickets stare at you, they talk to you, "$200, $200, relive your youth, dont forget" whereas if your concert had tickets it would say "No cover until 8P $3 Labatts all night"

It's not that your friends, and other people don't want to honor local bands, it's just they're not as worried if they miss your show.

It sucks man, I know.

For the record, I missed a big event concert with someone I love very much.

Sometimes, just sometimes, life happens.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I try very hard not to view music as some sort of subculture-badge-of-coolness. If i like it, i like it. If the guy that made the music isn't "a good musician" or "isn't cool". So what.

One thing that i noticed at a fairly young age was this BS were if people didn't think the band/artist "was cool" then it was assumed, often before even listening to it, that the music sucked.

Works of art exist on their own and should be judged on their inherent merits not on how good the artist is at suckin cock (or not).

Maybe there should be a snobby anti-snob culture. We are SOOOOOOO cool that we are snobs , that look down on the normal snobs.

Ok having said that, most remakes/covers burn my ass for some reason, try as i might to make peace with the concept.

[Der Nister]

A lot of the Beatles stuff was recorded on a 4-track even crappier than something you can get at Radio Shack today and look how huge they were and how sweet a lot of their music is. Some of my favorite jazz was recorded from a single mic hanging over the whole band and it's awesome! An awesome band playing on awesome music on crap technology is way better than a crap band with crap music in a multi-million dollar studio.

I agree totally here - great music and a great band (plus an awesome producer like George Martin) will make the least tech advanced equipment work. Sgt. Pepper was recorded on an 8-track board - - - hellooooooooo.

People think that good equipment will make them better engineers, or musicians, but it won't.

Thank you - I almost thought I was the only person to think this way.

most remakes/covers burn my ass for some reason, try as i might to make peace with the concept.

Mostly I'm fine with remakes because a) sometimes it introduces me to a band I wasn't familiar with before and it makes me go and check out that band and b) sometimes (although not always of course) the remake is better than the original. Still, I have to say there are some songs that should never be remade by anyone. Those songs are just too perfect and get ruined by artists that think they have a better arrangement for an already perfect composition.

Like Lennon's Imagine - no one should ever redo this one.

[CixWicked]

Cix, I feel you man.

I think people are so busy with their lives, they have "no" time, but yet they make time for so-called big event concerts.

Those same people will still say "Hey come play, come play" but your band is STILL not an "event" for them, so if they're free that night, they'lll come out to see you, but if the kid acts up, or they get a tummyache, forget it.

I know it's BS.

Also, you have two things working against you:

1. They take your presence and availability for granted.

They know you and figure "Ah, I'll catch him next time" even if that next time never comes. Whereas Covenant doesnt live right down the block. They dont see Apop buying groceries.

I have friends in Chicago that only see the sites when people visit.

"Why bother I'm right there" Yeah, you're right there, but you NEVER take advantage of it.

PLUS

2. There's no money commitment involved

Because your shows are cheap and you don't have to get advanced tickets, it's much easier to blow off, than, say, $200 tickets to The Police you bought months in advance. Those tickets stare at you, they talk to you, "$200, $200, relive your youth, dont forget" whereas if your concert had tickets it would say "No cover until 8P $3 Labatts all night"

It's not that your friends, and other people don't want to honor local bands, it's just they're not as worried if they miss your show.

It sucks man, I know.

For the record, I missed a big event concert with someone I love very much.

Sometimes, just sometimes, life happens.

Yeah, I know.

Don't get me wrong, there was deffinatly some whine in that whole tirade. I know that people have agendas, and sometimes they simply can't make it, and other times people consider my friendship against their need to be there, and I would never walk away from a friend for not showing up.

I'm a little whiny because I do music -for- the audience, and for the people around me. I'm a pleaser, and forutuntely I'm used to people being pleased by my art, so when I don't get good gropings out to a show I become I whiney little bitch.

Even at Karaoke bars... I'm a pleaser. I don't get to pick my own songs, cause typically the people there (mainly ladies) are shoving in song after song that they want to hear me sing. I LOVE THAT, so if I don't pick a single song that night, I'm -still- happy.

It's just a sad state that in Detroit... once considered the music capitol of the world, we actually have venues that say they don't bring in live Rock bands anymore cause it's not worth it. When a venue doesn't consider the 80 -20 year old crowd viable, and when little hole in the wall venues require an EPK, and Demo to even allow you to play.

Music is one industry that we, both as fans and as musicians -CAN- and SHOULD help revitalize. I'm just seeing that Metal, and any other kind of Aggressive and Progressive music form in Michigan is dieing... It dosn't have to, and we will MISS things if we let it die.

I'm just pleading for people to get out there and make things happen.

If you like a local band, REPRESENT... start posting on myspace about them... when you hear about a show, tell others about it. If you're a DJ at a local bar, see about getting one or two songs by local acts into your rotation.

We should do any and everything to keep the scenes alive... all of em.

Who wants to do an Industrial Hip Hop side project? I think it could be sweet... that kind of stuff helps keep detroit music alive.

[Steven]

um, I like Power Source. just represent-en

[CixWicked]

um, I like Power Source. just represent-en

I've heard nothing but good things about you and Power Source, Steven. I'd be quite interested in coming and checking you guys out. When's the next show?

CixWicked

[LuluVox]

I don't really like the connotations that come along with "music snob," and anyway,

based on some definitions here, I don't even qualify (I know jack about music theory, I can't play a thing, etc.), so while perhaps I shouldn't say "music is my life," I can pretty confidently say it's a major love of my life, and I'm very passionate about what I like. If I'm into a band, then I pretty much am the person who tries to buy everything, and yes, I most likely know the members' names, and maybe even a few birthdays (perhaps more so with artists I've been passionate about since my teenage years, since that's when I was at my most obsessive). And there's nothing wrong with that.

Thats all I wanted to say.

[odims_sphere]

A lot of the Beatles stuff was recorded on a 4-track even crappier than something you can get at Radio Shack today and look how huge they were and how sweet a lot of their music is. Some of my favorite jazz was recorded from a single mic hanging over the whole band and it's awesome! An awesome band playing on awesome music on crap technology is way better than a crap band with crap music in a multi-million dollar studio.

This whole line of thinking is flawed. Yes a lot of the Beatles "stuff" was recorded on a 4-track, however that was top of the line equipment of it's time. I hardly think EMI used crappier than radioshack equipment even in 1962. Do you think that if the Beatles were going to record today they would use a 8 track board and a 4 track recording device? That was just the best options they had at the time. I aslo think that if you asked any of them they'd all say that the quality of recording now is way better that it ever was back then.

Epstein eventually met with George Martin, who signed the group to EMI on a one-year renewable contract and scheduled their first recording session on 6 June at EMI's Abbey Road studios in north London. Martin had not been particularly impressed by the band's demo recordings, but he instantly liked them as people when he met them. He concluded that they had raw musical talent, but said (in later interviews) that what made the difference for him was their wit and humour

further more:

The Beatles UK discography was released on CD in the late 1980s. However, the sound of the digital transfers of the current discs, produced by George Martin in 1987 and 1988 using the best equipment available during the early days of the format, no longer meet standards achievable using current techniques in Direct Stream Digital, HDCD, and others. The sound on the remastered catalogues of Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones, among other heavyweights from the 1960s, have been greatly enhanced utilising technological developments that have occurred since Martin's initial digital mastering, and as of 2007, similar work for the Beatles is long overdue.

However, many Beatles enthusiasts feel that the current EMI CD releases of the albums do not do them justice for different reasons. Since the music was mastered to be played on vinyl, the cutting and playback of which is widely believed to add 'warmth' to the recording, the current CDs are not able to compensate for the different medium. Given how important the sound quality of these albums was not only to the Beatles and George Martin, but also from a historical point of view, many purists still listen to Beatles albums only on vinyl.

Noise floor is noise floor, there is no denying it. The higher the quality equipment directly affects the level of the noise floor, making it easier to keep unwanted sounds out of the recording. Also higher quality equipment gives you more dynamic range and, (in the case of analog), more headroom. All things that are the benchmarks by which you measure how good a recording is, not how talented a musican is.

As for the Jazz recordings, isn't that the appeal of jazz, to have the pure, raw live sound? and I bet if the engineer is serious about recording, then that one mic is a high quality one, pluged in to a high quality mixer, going through high quality processors and being recorded on high quality recording equipment.

[Joey Deadcat]

Hell, a lot of posts(with the exception of any by Doug)here makes me and many others feel like music snobs.

[Rayne]

Ah yes the equiment/technical snobs...

I remember when we finished the Nightside Eclipse CD, and I showed the finished product to another "musician?".... *sigh* basically he started talking about how the compression ratio on the vocals seemed a bit less than optimal, and that the synth used should have focused more on the analogue aspects, as well as the precussion sounding more metallic then normal, etc... Finally I had to say, "can you stop? and tell me what you think of the music?" he more or less was speechless... and didn't understand why I would ask... finally he was like: "Oh um, yeah.... the music is cool"

yeah....

I know very, very little about music recording and production. Just what Odims and Phee have told me, but I've listened to the Nightside album a lot, I have a copy in my car and I do find that one of the tracks on it - the vocals are much quieter ... to the point where I can't understand but maybe two words she's saying, but maybe that's the point? I don't know.

I do love that CD.

[Homicidalheathen]

Personally I don't like samples and/or loops......that are not written yourself....or are stolen.....even if payed for. We sit here writing our own stuff even if its just a small something we will dub over and over...and vocals too.....sing your own or hire someone. I just think its a big rip off. Not only are you not being origional or creative, but your taking work away from someone. I hear things sampled from 80's songs.....and used over and over......

We wish we could make a living doing music. You can't tell me people who can don't have time to write fresh stuff.

At first I thought it was cute, how in rap you will hear a sample from some old song. But then.....when you you put it together with a sample drum beat someone else wrote that sounds canned, and just talk over it......that is not music. Its taking a bit of this and that and slopping it together and talking over the top of it.

I like rap if they write their own beats. And hire people to do more.

[phee]

I know very, very little about music recording and production. Just what Odims and Phee have told me, but I've listened to the Nightside album a lot, I have a copy in my car and I do find that one of the tracks on it - the vocals are much quieter ... to the point where I can't understand but maybe two words she's saying, but maybe that's the point? I don't know.

I do love that CD.

[LuluVox]

Hell, a lot of posts(with the exception of any by Doug)here makes me and many others feel like music snobs.

Speaking of snobs....

[sinmantyx]

Personally I don't like samples and/or loops......that are not written yourself....or are stolen.....even if payed for. We sit here writing our own stuff even if its just a small something we will dub over and over...and vocals too.....sing your own or hire someone. I just think its a big rip off. Not only are you not being origional or creative, but your taking work away from someone. I hear things sampled from 80's songs.....and used over and over......

We wish we could make a living doing music. You can't tell me people who can don't have time to write fresh stuff.

At first I thought it was cute, how in rap you will hear a sample from some old song. But then.....when you you put it together with a sample drum beat someone else wrote that sounds canned, and just talk over it......that is not music. Its taking a bit of this and that and slopping it together and talking over the top of it.

I like rap if they write their own beats. And hire people to do more.

However much I agree that Puff Daddy is an elevator-music composer and has butchered everything he has touched; and I am completely annoyed by people who get after musicians and artists for actually wanting to eat and get compensated.

I would not go this far.

NIN would be completely out of the question: but so would a very large percentage of "classical" music (I put that word in quotes because I'm enough of a snob to really HATE the classical period and dislike using the word to describe anything other than the classical period.) Sometimes the end result of using existing work ends up working extremely well.

Then again: sometimes it makes me want to shove a 9-inch spike in my eye: like every bastard rendition of "Carmina Burana" ever mixed for club play. Then again, the "original" would never exist if Carl Orff didn't "steal" O Fortuna from the codex: Carmina Burana.

[BrassFusion]

sin, i'm growing ever more in love with you. ditch your husband and run away with me, we'll raise gabe together in arizona among tha cacti...

and joey, take about 10 years and try to learn an instrument, then we'll discuss your ignorant bullshit post... no offense, you know i love ya

[sinmantyx]

Alright: confession here:

I am a horrible music snob: as far as, I generally have strong opinions about what I like and do not like. I don't get all bend out of shape when I know more about something than someone else: I've been around *crazy* musicologist for long periods of time and have been sufficiently humbled. I can also deal with the fact that other people have different musical sensibilities than I do: and that's ok.

HOWEVER:

I'm a real bitch when it comes to lyrics. If given a chance 9 times out of 10, I will tear the actual "poetry" a new ass. It's gotten to the point where I go through a "grieving process" in order to enjoy music. If I hear the lyric: first I am in denial, then I get angry....a few steps later...I accept it.

It's gotten to the point where I prefer music that isn't in English or that I otherwise cannot understand: because then I don't have to listen to crap that I can't HELP but over-analyze.

NOW: there does exist musical poets/lyricists that I can appreciate - very much so.

Wall of fame:

"I am human and I need to be loved; just like everybody else does."

"If it makes you happy; why are you so sad."

"Kompressor watch you die because Kompressor does not dance."

Stupidest lyrics ever:

"What do I have to do to make you love me?"

"Am I dead enough for life..." or whatever he is saying. I even sing to this one when it comes on at the club: but the first time I heard it: I think a little bit of me died.

"..hard to be faithful: with the eyes of an angel.."

[glc]

Sin, have you got any more to complain about? this is fucking hilarious!! please continue!!

[sinmantyx]

sin, i'm growing ever more in love with you. ditch your husband and run away with me, we'll raise gabe together in arizona among tha cacti...

Hey: watch out about commitment over the internet: I wouldn't want to disappoint you.

But hey: can't my hubby just come along? He is very low maintenance and if you just put him in front of WOW he stops being fussy.

[sinmantyx]

Sin, have you got any more to complain about? this is fucking hilarious!! please continue!!

Phee opened the gate: I'm just walking through it.

PS: How could I forget: "HARD ROCK HALLELUJAH!" - but that's in the same music category as the movie category that "Manos: Hands of Fate" or "Plan 9 From Outer Space" are in. It's so bloody awful it's intriguing: like road kill or Sean Penn's famous metaphor about Bush's underpants.