Process v. Outcomes
This is very interesting, but what's the point of it all?
I mean, nobody asked how to record a hit.
Yeah, what is the point? Do you
want to record crap no one would ever want to listen to?
That's what I don't understand. When their product is mediocre or worse, why don't they want to get better?
Why don't they
want to focus on the stuff that would give their music a fighting chance to be heard by someone other than their long-suffering girlfriends?
And they really
don't. That's what floors me.
We are most of us amateurs here, at various levels of development. That shouldn't stop any of us from recording and enjoying both the process and the product.
You've hit (however obliquely) on the central problem that kills or at least fatally stunts virtually every musician's career, something I call "Seductive Process," which is some interesting (to him) sidetrack from his professional path into which he wanders off and wastes the rest of his career...like obsessing over his guitar tone (in a performing vacuum where it doesn't matter) or sweep-picking nuisance shredding or having the biggest collection of microphones or trying every compression VST in the universe. Look at any music forum -- they're filled with people rabidly obsessing over crap that shouldn't take up 0.02% of anyone's attention.
Sidetracks into seductive process are undemanding and they don't reveal failure of outcome (though in fairness, some few musicians become successful in going pro
with the particular seductive process that derailed their musical careers because they find their true calling in it somehow...but these are rare).
If you get sidetracked into the seductive process of finding the "best" overdrive
dirtbox, you can for a couple of years delay the realization that you're a lousy musician who writes awful songs and who has no aesthetic sense and can't get along with a band and have a couple dozen other fatal problems that require
REAL work and painful personal reassessment to advance as a music act.
And if you don't want to meaningfully advance as an act -- whatever that means to you when you set down and think about your goals -- why don't you sell your gear and drop the charade?
Successful people
HATE process.
Process is only the foul muck you have to wade through to get across the swamp to dry ground and home. Process is something you delegate to others if you can (which brings us back to the Division of Labor).
Losers
LOVE process because they can escape into it and hide their inadequacies from themselves. They never have to face the fact they failed because they never had any clear
outcomes defined in the first place.
When I was doing broadcast playlisting and format development, I (and about six or eight helpers) determined whether a new recording was good enough to go into national heavy rotation, light rotation or into the landfill forever. People who did that were literally the most powerful people in music in terms of generated revenues. My decisions meant millions of dollars -- or zero dollars -- to the record companies, and I was
good at my job. How much influence did, oh, kcearl's insights have on the industry?
In most cases, I can tell you -- instantly -- what's wrong with a finished recording and what's holding it back from being something more people want to listen to. Isn't that the point? If making something that more people would want to hear
isn't the point, and apparently it isn't for a lot of process-oriented people, then what is?
If home recording is to live up to its promise, and there's no technical reason why it can't, it will require networking of specialized, competent amateur talent working in concert with each other to match the professional-grade outcomes the big-$ acts have with their army of specialists. The Internet makes this freely possible, and that's the greatest thing in terms of potential -- you
don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you take up recording.
But this isn't what I see happening. What I see is the predictable one-man-does-all (badly) situation where the guy has ten cents worth of anything to contribute to music and a million-dollar load of defensive ego, and instead of seeking out those who will work with him to get something done, he gravitates to what are effectively social-networking forums for those just like him to mutually support that awful mindset.
Upon much urging, I sat down and listened to three hours of Reaper Radio in a good listening environment.
During that painful time, I did not hear one song I would ever want to hear again under any circumstances. The engineering was professionally adequate, some performers had some individual talent, but the recordings had awful production and awful material. And yes, I
do know the difference.
On their forum, I would have never said that, but when the subject came up, I did say, "There's more to a great record than the absence of gross engineering errors."
Though obviously, blatantly true, it was met with sullen hostility. They didn't want to hear it. They wanted to stay in some circle-jerk about seductive process rather than maximizing their access to willing listeners.
That's why serious pros (who often really do want to help) blow these people off and leave in disgust. Why break your heart over people who are that willfully stupid and doomed?
) givin advice and invaluable experience and some new clown is flippin shit.
