Supercreep
Lizard People
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.
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?
This is a great post, and I thank you for your time in writing it. I urge others to see the value in it without letting some of the sharp edges turn them off.
Let me add something that may assist your understanding.
I love to write record music. I do it because it makes me happy. I make a little money at it, but if I had to make a career out of it, I'd have to write and record music that doesn't make me as happy. Does that make sense?
I'm not in this for money or success or recognition, although all of those things are nice. I do it because otherwise I'd just be a worthless drug addict.
However, I have never seriously dismissed a piece of music, simply because it was in a particular genre. I HAVE dismissed a piece of music or a band or an artist simply because I thought they were simply bad, regardless of the genre and regardless of acclaim.
