The Rise of the Technical Producer and the Fall of Chaos
I started reading the book 'The song machine,' by John Seabrook and it made some interesting connections in my thoughts of the music landscape. Which is hardly a landscape, more like a morphing 3-deminsonal primordial ooze. The Song Machine book is not the topic of this article, and a good thing too, because I'm only in chapter two, and I lost the book. What it is about is the rise of the technical producer era in music.
I was talking with an engineer friend the other day. We were talking about the chaos of music. And how that chaos might just be that little something we feel is missing in this music era. We're not alone, and it's not just the older generation dream'n of them good o'l days when rock was rock and lead men wore lipstick. No.. there is something going on. Such a cataclysmic event that there will be no turning back the clock. Or.. well it will be really hard.
The Fusing of Engineer and Producer and Producer and Artist
Let's take a stroll back in time. I'm no expert. I guess I know a lot about the evolution of studios ONLY from growing up in them and then continuing on through life until my ripe age of barely over ?? :)
There have always been Producers/Engineers and Engineers that Produced but what was quite rare up until recently were Musicians who engineered and produced. Some of the early groundbreakers in that territory were bad ass motha's like Todd Rundgren you might know some of his work by Bat Out Of Hell which he produced and recorded and played on.
If you are not in the space of getting the visuals between the roles of Producer , engineer, and well musician:) Watch some OLD VH1 behind the Music.
So we used to have the big complicated looking mixing boards (counsels) which really are not so complicated. You will still see these in studios, but very doubtfully they are now being used for more than eye candy. I just sold one to a studio, tried to show him how to hook it up and he laughed.. "oh I'm not using it, this is just for show."
NEVE 8801 CHANNEL STRIP .. now you don't need that big honking board.
Some studios still use nice classic boards for the sound you get through the preamps and the channel strips. And I don't want to focus on technical stuff.. but basically, if you could build it with wires and transistors then you can program it.. and they are and they're getting close to perfect replicas in plugins. But where is the chaos? More on that later.
The Engineer & Producer of Yore
The engineer knew that board, and all the outboard gear like a science. Usually, that was enough learning for a lifetime so though every engineer would tell you he was also a producer. It was kinda rare that he was a good one. Though not unheard of. And really it was not that he was not a GOOD producer, it was that he was too close to it, too close to the hundred other bands sound he did the week before... just as the musician was too close to IT. So you'd bring in a producer. That producer may or may not have started as an engineer. But he probably cut his teeth as one, OR as a musician. There were the rare ones who were just pure producers. I think the Beatles George Martin would be considered a pure producer, even though he was also a musician.. he was just in a time where they actually really used pure producers, and he wore it well.
The struggle of the perfect vibe
An engineer a producer and a songwriter walk into a studio... and all the way up to mid-2000's this was still pretty much what was going on in studios. Maybe minus the producer. Bands did start producing much more win the 90's their own work. But if you asked the engineer if some of them really did produce it.. they might just chuckle.
All these egos in a small space–what happened was chaos. The Producer's job was to first understand the core essence of the Choas, then shape it and minimize actual chaos to create 'a product.' The musician's job was to live inside the chaos and make more chaos. The engineer's job was to try not to kill someone. In the smaller set ups, it was usually just the engineer and the artist. But even more, friction was possible in those situations with no buffers like producers or A&R agents.
My friend that I had the conversation with earlier, he records to Analog Tape. He talked about the chaos of music on tape, that it was unpredictable of how it fuses to the tape. In the digital world... not so. It's absolutely predictable. So predictable that you can bottle and sell a sound formula a million times over. Even some of the very complicated tasks done by engineers, such as side-chains configurations and other fun words, are now being Plug-in-ized. So that a freckled kid who's balls just dropped can hit a button and get the exact sound in his garage band vocal that many a great mix engineer has gone to his grave with.
Chaos Lost Forever?
Back to my mix-engineer friend and the book The Song Machine. So he and I were talking as musicians do, and kinda bashing what's going on, but not really, just more questioning it. There is something up. Something that we're losing and it's not just that everyone can be their own engineer, record label, producer, therapist etc.. and land a big hit. It's not a jealousy that we had to work so hard, walk uphill both ways to the studio. No, we're loving the digital age. It's something about the music. I personally have tried to listen to albums created in the last 5 years, but am bored really quick. Even if I love what it sounds like. Kinda like Pop music could do to me in the past sometimes. "oh that's cool... snore."
We both deduced that for sure, we were hearing the same sounds, over and over in all music coming out. But not just 'sounds-like' , but actually the exact same sounds. The same room verb. The same kick drum, like it was recorded on the same drum set. The same snare and even room sounds.. etc.
That is easy understood. Because of the way mixing is done now. It's done a lot of times, I'd say 80% of times by mail order (as well as band musicians parts). Used to be you might tell the producer or engineer you want a snare that sounds like Tom Petty post The Heart Breakers. Now you'd be lucky to get that sound, even with the same engineer, at the same studio, with the same drum set and Tom Petty. Now.. if you tell someone you want it to sound like this snare. Well, they might have that snare right there on their hard drive. Then they will do a replace function, so even if it was played live by a drummer, they will replace every single hit with a perfected sonically to your pleasure sample. This type of magic generated sonics can be done with guitars, vocals, even the exact sound of a certain studios room. So, of course, we're hearing the same thing over-an-over.
After reading in The Song Machine I kind got a broader picture of what the fuck is going on. And though that book deals with more of the mainstream music ... It really affects all music. I forget names... But in this book, and it's kinda known anyway, you'll learn that across genres, most music put out is really the work of a few people. A few songwriters. A few producers. So it's Mcdonalds out there. They do hide the names otherwise, your hour long radio broadcast would announce 'this song is by some Swedish dude,' on half the songs played.
In Conclusion, Nothing I said is the Problem.. this is
Here I'll lay out two things that I identify as real problems for the future of music. All that democratization of technology and music is awesome. I love it. I love having a half million dollar studio on my laptop. But this is where my nipples get tweaked. (And I don't like my nipples tweaked... if you were confused. Some people do, that's their thing)
One: The loss of friction and chaos identity
Things can get hot around the collar in a studio with various people who just met a month earlier. Tempers can flare. Ego's flare. Makeup kissing and therapy sessions in the vocal booth. Drummers are fired, girlfriends tossed aside, experiments go wrong and lots of money is lost, causing stress and an anxious confused melody on tape. This is how music is recorded and made. This is becoming extinct in many ways. And in more ways, than you might pick up right off. Of course, it's happening because We (the musicians) are rarely allowed in the Mix anymore. Tracks are sent off, and it's the rise of the technical producer. The producer-engineer is now a part of the band more than ever before. And now more than ever before being paid peanuts... so cares less about unique chaos and beauty now more than ever before.
i.e. a song that cost me on the cheap with a great engineer to mix 12 years ago would run about $900-$1500 (per a song). Now the same exact engineers you can grab for $150-400 per a song. usually about $250. So what are they doing differently? That was still digital 12 years ago. What's changed is, when I paid that amount. I usually sat there with him. Or at least visited him a lot and things got tense. Every time they got tense. We would quibble. Our imaginations would give his imagination impossible problems to solve, then he'd solve them (sometimes begrudgingly) in a way that was truly unique. Because he is incapable of doing what's in our head only what's in his head. It was the perturbing of his comfort zone (and vice versa I might add) that shit out something new. This can not happen over email. Just can't.
Two: Musicians, songwriters artist are becoming the hollow PRICK Salesmen
Musicians, songwriters artist are becoming the hollow PRICKS that the music industry used to be. Hollow is a good word. All day long on my stream of vomit that runs down my twitter and facebook page, musicians big and small speak to me like corporate clowns. Sometimes they do the un-marketing corporate clown sometimes just full of shiny white teeth and a heart full of greed corporate clown.
Have you experienced this new phenomenon that musicians are suddenly all very happy (OMG!!) and very polite (LOL) and very gushy grateful for your little like. I tell you the truth, those musicians would cut off your hand if they needed your fingerprint to share their post. This is the worst of it to me. I try to do it, cause it's a little shocking to act like what you feel like in a moment online when you are trying to sell an album so you can run up the street and buy some rice crispies for dinner.
I don't know if the next generation of mix engineer
s/producers/musicians will even know how to sit in a room with a group and fight the good fight for the cause of reaching beyond themselves. That's sad. That's where magic is made.
what DJ's Do These Days
Give me your bartenders, your huddled salesmen, your McMusicians..
We, the musicians have been given a great gift. One never imagined. Like a secret magic sparkle sauce, we can sprinkle over our music and sound like we know what we're doing. But it came with a price. We have become the corporation. Each one of us. At one time a musician wouldn't allow certain advertisements to use their songs.. not now baby. It's not even really a choice. I have ads running on my music and I have no say if it's selling 'do-it-yourself bomb kits' or worse 'Bank of America' or a political ad... good God!!! .
It's a very awkward place for musicians who have in the past been able to distance themselves from the scum industry who went out and exploited their music. We now are that scum. We are salesmen. But you know.. I have been a salesman all my music career. A bartender to be exact. I played in venues to sell beer. That's the truth of it. Yet, like we had from the corporate music sales machines, we had a separation. The patrons didn't suspect we were just bartenders with guitars... hell I didn't either. So maybe that's going to be the last straw when we have to serve beer from the stage. They'll just put a draft right there on the drum head and we'll work for tips.
Hey Follow me.. @ezravan I got a free mp3 for you.. oh please... take my mp3 goddamit! take it. take it! eh.. how about a beer instead?