ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,107 
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Post by ericn on Nov 27, 2022 13:47:56 GMT -6
There's a huge mismatch in what people admire and what they actually put out. People idolize older records, that have personality, dynamics, interesting arrangements...and then they go tune all their vocals, put samples on all their drums, and compress and limit the living hell out of everything so they can try to get it as loud as the pop du jour. Peer pressure I guess we could call it. I see it all the time, people will talk about how they want to make records like Fleetwood Mac or Queen or The Beatles or whatever, and then they go and make records that...don't sound anything like that. Super loud, sausage masters with the standard sampled drums up the middle, never-wavering wide doubled guitars, tap delay vocals...the thing, the modern 'sound'. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ Not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but young, aspiring producer/engineers couldn't give a damn about Fleetwood Mac, Queen, or the Beatles 🤣😭 I played "Dreams" to my production class at Berklee a couple weeks ago to many virgin ears. Out of eight students, only one said they knew the song 😳 Worse yet, I had to explain to them what made the production so brilliant and effective. As much as I don’t want to believe it I kind of do, except on Friday I was in the used record store down the street and saw at least 4 kids in line with the latest greatest pressing of Rumors, Now nobody was looking at Tusk, That’s a tragedy. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Nov 27, 2022 14:19:18 GMT -6
Perhaps this is the end game with emulations www.wired.com/story/holly-herndon-ai-deepfakes-music/ In the end I think Dr. Bill is right, some of these advances are going to be regretted. I really hope there'll won't be a time when people brag about analog singing the way they do about tape and film That sounds awful. |
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Post by copperx on Nov 27, 2022 14:37:54 GMT -6
i think all the old classic gear will thin out, only a few remaining for those niche rock, alternative music. yes i am that pessimistic. Pessimistic about what, exactly? With the advent of streaming services, music is becoming ultra-specialized. There are musicians using top-notch gear, and some using only only digital samples without even a single analog input. Some fans care, some don't. I remember in the 80's reading an article claiming "in the future, everybody will be able to have a TV channel." It happened with YouTube. In the same way, today everybody can be a musician with worldwide distribution. There are successful YouTube channels with top-notch production, and some with dreadful production values -- and both can have huge audiences. It's the same thing with music. If all of this makes you scared, wait until you hear AI-autocompleted music. google-research.github.io/seanet/audiolm/examples/Scroll to the bottom and hear how an AI (AudioLM) can "autocomplete" a piano piece with intact ambience and tonality. |
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Post by copperx on Nov 27, 2022 14:59:02 GMT -6
I strongly believe ugly digital comes from digital compressors (and any non-linear process). Leveling, EQs, reverb, modulation, and delays are pristine ITB. Summing has little to no bearing on the final recording quality. I'm slowly transitioning to going analog for all compression, and the results are indistinguishable from console mixes (for rock).
If anybody gets heavy-handed compression right ITB, that'll be the next frontier.
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Post by ragan on Nov 27, 2022 15:10:32 GMT -6
There's a huge mismatch in what people admire and what they actually put out. People idolize older records, that have personality, dynamics, interesting arrangements...and then they go tune all their vocals, put samples on all their drums, and compress and limit the living hell out of everything so they can try to get it as loud as the pop du jour. Peer pressure I guess we could call it. I see it all the time, people will talk about how they want to make records like Fleetwood Mac or Queen or The Beatles or whatever, and then they go and make records that...don't sound anything like that. Super loud, sausage masters with the standard sampled drums up the middle, never-wavering wide doubled guitars, tap delay vocals...the thing, the modern 'sound'. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ Not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but young, aspiring producer/engineers couldn't give a damn about Fleetwood Mac, Queen, or the Beatles 🤣😭 I played "Dreams" to my production class at Berklee a couple weeks ago to many virgin ears. Out of eight students, only one said they knew the song 😳 Worse yet, I had to explain to them what made the production so brilliant and effective. Yeah, I mean it probably comes down to what crowds any of us is running in. My paradigm has always been full of a bunch of band dudes and various musician and recording types. That’s probably a pretty different set than the people who are setting out to become ‘producers’ by going to school for it. Or it’s just an age thing. Most of the people I’m thinking of (who share my adoration for a lot of classic aesthetics) are in their 30s/40s. |
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Post by notneeson on Nov 27, 2022 15:44:23 GMT -6
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Post by bgrotto on Nov 27, 2022 16:49:07 GMT -6
Not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but young, aspiring producer/engineers couldn't give a damn about Fleetwood Mac, Queen, or the Beatles 🤣😭 I played "Dreams" to my production class at Berklee a couple weeks ago to many virgin ears. Out of eight students, only one said they knew the song 😳 Worse yet, I had to explain to them what made the production so brilliant and effective. As much as I don’t want to believe it I kind of do, except on Friday I was in the used record store down the street and saw at least 4 kids in line with the latest greatest pressing of Rumors, Now nobody was looking at Tusk, That’s a tragedy. Oh yeah, don't get me wrong: it's not ALL doom n' gloom. Most of my students have *extremely* limited interest in 'old' music. But the ones that do, do because they love ALL music, and their appetite for the stuff is insatiable. They also happen to be the ones that show the most professional promise, which is not a coincidence, methinks  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2022 16:56:01 GMT -6
There's a huge mismatch in what people admire and what they actually put out. People idolize older records, that have personality, dynamics, interesting arrangements...and then they go tune all their vocals, put samples on all their drums, and compress and limit the living hell out of everything so they can try to get it as loud as the pop du jour. Peer pressure I guess we could call it. I see it all the time, people will talk about how they want to make records like Fleetwood Mac or Queen or The Beatles or whatever, and then they go and make records that...don't sound anything like that. Super loud, sausage masters with the standard sampled drums up the middle, never-wavering wide doubled guitars, tap delay vocals...the thing, the modern 'sound'. ¯_ (ツ)_/¯ Yes and the more diy or “play it live in the studio” the genre was, the more ridiculous the new artists claiming to be “old school” are also never ending mix revisions of stuff that doesn’t matter to the final product and expectation that everything is fixable including stuff baked in during tracking or they only saved the stems and not the sessions. Then it gets sample replaced, gridded, retracked and they want just as annoying of a reverb or something as they baked into the initial files |
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Post by christopher on Nov 28, 2022 12:09:10 GMT -6
25 year old Duster fans? Today? Wow.. I remember them back then, it was just another band in the sea of thousands up and coming bands |
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Post by notneeson on Nov 28, 2022 12:47:59 GMT -6
25 year old Duster fans? Today? Wow.. I remember them back then, it was just another band in the sea of thousands up and coming bands It’s surprising, right? I went to their show in SF a few weeks back and it was definitely a younger crowd. And so into it! |
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Post by svart on Nov 28, 2022 14:08:36 GMT -6
More automated mixing tools for sure, with less and less user input to get “professional” sounding results. This. I think the "doing it for you" type of thing is how software will head. We're already seeing it with mastering. There's audio analysis software for copying EQ curves already and I think dynamics analysis will come soon. They have software that can isolate certain things already so I think it's a matter of time before you get software that can analyze something like a guitar in a mix and then apply the same overall tone to your guitar track automatically.. Or perhaps a drum plugin that can analyze drums on a track and make your programmed beat have the same tone as a mixed track. |
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Post by ab101 on Nov 28, 2022 17:41:14 GMT -6
Maybe there will be one giant conglomerate plugin. For instance, a person pays a certain amount (say $1000) and has access to hundreds of plugins. Sort of like the UAD concept but without the UAD card - totally native. Each plugin manufacturer gets a percentage from each sale or is paid for licensing by the master provider, and all our advertised together. As far as the computer look in a DAW - it will look like when clicking on Universal Audio and a tons of plugins appear, though maybe it will be easier to view just the ones you want to use. And no more auditioning. They are all there for use. The conglomerate will have its own plugin magazine with reviews and advertisements for all sorts of gear that help raise money as well. Be nice if the magazine was a plugin!  Oh - and when it comes to changing computers, you only need to load the software and authorization from one company, just like what happens with UAD today - except as I said, no UAD card or the like. (Perhaps the authorization is the in Cloud anyway.) |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Nov 28, 2022 18:55:07 GMT -6
Maybe there will be one giant conglomerate plugin. For instance, a person pays a certain amount (say $1000) and has access to hundreds of plugins. Sort of like the UAD concept but without the UAD card - totally native. Each plugin manufacturer gets a percentage from each sale or is paid for licensing by the master provider, and all our advertised together. As far as the computer look in a DAW - it will look like when clicking on Universal Audio and a tons of plugins appear, though maybe it will be easier to view just the ones you want to use. And no more auditioning. They are all there for use. The conglomerate will have its own plugin magazine with reviews and advertisements for all sorts of gear that help raise money as well. Be nice if the magazine was a plugin! Oh - and when it comes to changing computers, you only need to load the software and authorization from one company, just like what happens with UAD today - except as I said, no UAD card or the like. (Perhaps the authorization is the in Cloud anyway.) Sounds like a plugin alliance. Hmmm… |
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Post by ab101 on Nov 28, 2022 19:18:31 GMT -6
Maybe there will be one giant conglomerate plugin. For instance, a person pays a certain amount (say $1000) and has access to hundreds of plugins. Sort of like the UAD concept but without the UAD card - totally native. Each plugin manufacturer gets a percentage from each sale or is paid for licensing by the master provider, and all our advertised together. As far as the computer look in a DAW - it will look like when clicking on Universal Audio and a tons of plugins appear, though maybe it will be easier to view just the ones you want to use. And no more auditioning. They are all there for use. The conglomerate will have its own plugin magazine with reviews and advertisements for all sorts of gear that help raise money as well. Be nice if the magazine was a plugin! Oh - and when it comes to changing computers, you only need to load the software and authorization from one company, just like what happens with UAD today - except as I said, no UAD card or the like. (Perhaps the authorization is the in Cloud anyway.) Sounds like a plugin alliance. Hmmm… Yes. Like plugin alliance on steroids! |
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Post by sirthought on Nov 29, 2022 12:16:36 GMT -6
It won't be the majority of new plugin releases, but I'm thinking there will be more specialized tools like the new Basslane Pro from Tone Projects. It's combining compression, EQ, and distortion in a way that makes something very complex easier to manage, whether you understand what it's doing or not. It's not an emulation, yet it's leaning on distortion models of the past. It's not AI, and you have full control of messing up/enhancing your project, but it is pretty damn easy to raise the options with tools like that.
Most of what is called AI is not really AI machine learning, but a limited selection of algorithms.
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