A return to “produced” records…?

[miroslav]

First, to define my use of the word “produced”…

I’m talking about records that really focus on:
1.) Hi-Q sound quality
2.) Singing that is done by people who have good voices and can actually sing good without help from Autotune and editing
3.) Playing is done by people who can play more than simple basics and therefore only build music from that limited playing ability.
4.) The songs arranged and recorded using techniques that will give the product a polished feel

Now the question….

Recently the record “Is This It” by the Strokes was voted Album of the Decade in some circles. http://www.nme.com/news/the-strokes/48412
The album was all about recording with a very raw, unpolished, “garage band” sound which appealed to a lot of the youth and which also defines the way a lot of bands recorded in the last 10 years or so.

Without giving any specific opinion about that type of music or style of recording…I’m wondering if now that the home recording revolution has been raging for quite a long time and everyone and their mother has attempted to “record an album” in some “space” they call a studio…
…will there be a shift and return toward more “produced" types of records or will the whole “Lo-Fi” approach be the bulk of how records are made from now on?

I get the feeling that the Lo-Fi approach was some sort of liberation movement ushered in by new technologies that opened up recording to everyone…on the cheap….and also a segue off the “grunge” styles of music that had come a little before the digital revolution put a “studio” in every bedroom.
So now that’s it been with us for a good decade or more…will people start to refine their techniques or will they keep it Lo-Fi...for whatever reasons…?

 

[TheChikenMaster]

Do you mean less trash more music?

 

[miroslav]

I didn't really want to pass judgment on the music... ...but rather to consider/discuss if the focus on recording might shift from the Lo-Fi approaches?

I'm wondering is it's all been just a silly phase we're going through?

 

[TheChikenMaster]

There is an old man named Walter Sear he runs an all analog studio with all the vintage equipment. He believes digital is crap, and most music nowadays is also crap. He also says its a cyclical, it will all come around again.

 

[TheChikenMaster]

I stand corrected mostly analog
http://www.searsound.com/studio_a.html

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

*Everything* is cyclical, except for entropy.

The tricky thing though is that when something comes around again, it does not come around in quite the same way or form as it had the last time. Like mini skirts and square cars.

There is already a swing back to more painstakingly produced music. One can see it happening in hip-hop circles where the top producers of today (who were the hip hop stars of yesterday, like Dre, RZA and the like) are now creating far more lush, textured, and polished soundscapes, incorporating musical style and theory from all over the map, quite the opposite of the raw street rap sounds of the 80s and 90s which the home recoding community - which BTW is almost always behind the curve - are still struggling to work with.

G.

 

[Farview]

There still is a lot of polished sounding stuff out there, but it's in the pop music genre. I assume that that is where all the money is. Of course that doesn't address #2.

I see a lot of this as being budgetary. If there is no budget, you can't spend the time to do those sorts of big productions.

If those sorts of things aren't being made, what is going to inspire the youth to try it?

 

[TheChikenMaster]

learning to play instruments properly in a disciplined manner is lacking. Better the music and quality of the musicians will make a big difference.
first step is to kill mtv and disney.

 

[darrin_h2000]

Actually we are talking about people that work on a few projects at the same time...not folks that only work on one and drag it out for a few months...they dont get thier gear at guitar center.

 

[Greg_L]

First, to define my use of the word “produced”…

I’m talking about records that really focus on:
1.) Hi-Q sound quality
2.) Singing that is done by people who have good voices and can actually sing good without help from Autotune and editing
3.) Playing is done by people who can play more than simple basics and therefore only build music from that limited playing ability.
4.) The songs arranged and recorded using techniques that will give the product a polished feel

Now the question….

Recently the record “Is This It” by the Strokes was voted Album of the Decade in some circles. http://www.nme.com/news/the-strokes/48412
The album was all about recording with a very raw, unpolished, “garage band” sound which appealed to a lot of the youth and which also defines the way a lot of bands recorded in the last 10 years or so.

Without giving any specific opinion about that type of music or style of recording…I’m wondering if now that the home recording revolution has been raging for quite a long time and everyone and their mother has attempted to “record an album” in some “space” they call a studio…
…will there be a shift and return toward more “produced" types of records or will the whole “Lo-Fi” approach be the bulk of how records are made from now on?

I get the feeling that the Lo-Fi approach was some sort of liberation movement ushered in by new technologies that opened up recording to everyone…on the cheap….and also a segue off the “grunge” styles of music that had come a little before the digital revolution put a “studio” in every bedroom.
So now that’s it been with us for a good decade or more…will people start to refine their techniques or will they keep it Lo-Fi...for whatever reasons…?

Why do you record lo-fi?

 

[miroslav]

There still is a lot of polished sounding stuff out there, but it's in the pop music genre. I assume that that is where all the money is. Of course that doesn't address #2.

I see a lot of this as being budgetary. If there is no budget, you can't spend the time to do those sorts of big productions.

If those sorts of things aren't being made, what is going to inspire the youth to try it?

So you think it's mostly about budgets and not any kind of philosophy that exists with the younger generations?
Seems like some use better gear but still try to "mangle" the sound quality....intentionally.

 

[audio_leak]

id have to say it depends largely on the music.

in a nightclub, or a pub/bar... all the the females and probably alot of the less heterosexual men, dont care about if the music is actually good, they ONLY want sound quality.

a lo-fi song will pretty much never be played in that setting because its going to make people leave the club and walk down the street to one that plays the crappy music they like.

i have had arguments, like actual heated arguments with people (in real life, not on here) about how programs like melodyne and autotune can be used to fix these peoples voices, and the very small amount of talent their likely to have.

most are almost completely unwilling to accept that that singer could have little or no talent and that its a program that makes them sound so good.

younger females especially dont care what the hell autotune is, as long as the songs that they can put on the iPods sounds good, why should they care what the process was in creating that song?

some music HAS to be recorded at high quality to be sellable to the widest audience possible, and also so it can last through the tests of time.

take disney for example, when i listen to pretty much any disney musician from one of those annoying teenage girl TV shows, all i hear is a pip squeak on an autotune overdose.
as long as that person is goodlooking and sellable, the talent isnt important.

but to a 5 year old girl watching the jonas brothers or whatever, if that was recorded in LO-FI in someones garage i doubt it would captivate anyone at all, let alone a child who cant yet even comprehend what is involved in music production.

i also doubt most of disneys acts would sound that good in LO-FI quality.

im gonna wrap it up cause this is getting long but basically there are genres of music which will always be forgiving to any quality of sound.
it depends largely on the fans who listen to the music, and the talent of the band itself, obviously.

rock, grunge, heavy music, metal, death metal, hardcore ect.
these genres in my experience have all been fairly open to hearing music of any quality.

i have been a part of bands and also know many bands who made some pretty bad records and still managed to gain fans, even with the crappiest of recordings.

id like to see the public open there minds up to music of all quality, but i doubt it will happen, not with the way music has become now were talentless nobodys can be put through HI-DEF audio gear and come out millionares on the other side.
if that is the future of music it all seems rather bleak to me.

the only people left suffering is the talented musicians stuck in the basement, recording on a $200 mic and a $500 interface.

 

[bozmillar]

I don't think there is a lo-fi trend now any more than there ever has been. Bob Dylan is an example of someone who can't sing, can't play, had lo-fi recordings and is somehow considered a great musician. A lot of the 70's punk acts were lo-fi. Off hand, I don't know much about 80's because I think the entire decade was lo-fi in more ways than one.

A lot of people today can play instruments very well. A lot of these "pop" bands have extremely good musicians, they're just not up there trying to show how many notes/second they can play. There is no shortage of good musicians.

There are crappy musicians that make a living off of music, but that has always been the case. Styles have changed and people have changed, and there is a lot broader range of music made today than there was even 20 years ago, but that doesn't mean that good musicianship and good producing is gone.

Would Bach have thought that John Williams was a crappy composer because he doesn't play 10 minute harpsichord solos?

I think the issue is that there is a lot of overproduction today becasuse that's what people expect to hear. Even good singers have to use autotune because people have heard pitch perfect music and expect to hear it all the time now.

 

[WhiteStrat]

Actually we are talking about people that work on a few projects at the same time...not folks that only work on one and drag it out for a few months...they dont get thier gear at guitar center.

.............

what the...

 

[moresound]

Yes but as soon as that was accomplished some other big corporation would step up to bat.

 

[cavedog101]

So you think it's mostly about budgets and not any kind of philosophy that exists with the younger generations?
Seems like some use better gear but still try to "mangle" the sound quality....intentionally.

Yeah, I do.

Budget is everything. I produce, and sometimes there isnt enough money to get where the music COULD go so you settle for where it will.

A lot of the Lo-Fi is from self-producing on home recording( No offense to anyone.....mines at home too) level gear...ie: budget gear....and finding out that achieving that 'Sounds Just Like a Neve' thing isnt going to happen with a $100 mic, a $75 preamp, and an untreated room. At this point the passion for making their own music out-weighs the NEED for true high-fidelity and what-you-hear-is-what-you-get.

Theres really only so much you can do even with a decent digital setup.

But this is not meant as a criticism of quality, but simply a statement of the level the art has become thats available to the average person. And really, with the MP3 conversion, how much of a difference is it going to make to someone with untrained ears listening on an iPod while jogging or working out?

Recording something GOOD has more to do with the energy of the performance as well as some ability to play a cohesive line or two on your instrument, than the quality of the gear its being made on.

Of course theres a line drawn there somewhere, where actual shit-sounding captures will be viewed as such by anyone within earshot.

I think its great that so many people have the desire to try their hand at this. As in all things with a fairly extensive learning curve, the truly inspired and driven folks will still be at it as all pretenders and wannabes fall by the wayside after finding out how completely dedicated and insane you have to be to excel at this business.

 

[bozmillar]

A lot of the Lo-Fi is from self-producing on home recording( No offense to anyone.....mines at home too) level gear...ie: budget gear....and finding out that achieving that 'Sounds Just Like a Neve' thing isnt going to happen with a $100 mic, a $75 preamp, and an untreated room. At this point the passion for making their own music out-weighs the NEED for true high-fidelity and what-you-hear-is-what-you-get.

That makes sense, but a lot of the "lo-fi" recordings come from hi-fi studios. I think a lot of people intentionally go for the lo-fi sound.

A lot of times it is budget driven, a lot of times it's incompetent engineer driven, and a lot of times it's a thought out and purposefully made sound.

 

[Paulie Jay]

That makes sense, but a lot of the "lo-fi" recordings come from hi-fi studios. I think a lot of people intentionally go for the lo-fi sound.

Yes - it's more the "spirit of lo-fi", because there is a difference between something with the Lo-Fi Sound (Patent Applied For) and something that sounds lo-fi due to equpiment limitations.

Then, there is also sheer incompetence.

 

[cavedog101]

Yes - it's more the "spirit of lo-fi", because there is a difference between something with the Lo-Fi Sound (Patent Applied For) and something that sounds lo-fi due to equpiment limitations.

Then, there is also sheer incompetence.

Yeah to this approach also. I do Blues and the last thing the traditional artists want is something slicked up like a rock record. However, they DO want the pro sheen that comes with proper mastering as well as the level matching (not necessarily like a metal level, but something that makes a decent rotation at a party.....) This is accomplished with the use of vintage equipment to some extent, but also the vintage plugs in digital, and an adherance to 'oldskool' mic techniques and oldskool instrumentation, amps, and most of all.....playing. I dont close mic the kit, I use guitar mics and pres that'll clearly capture the tone and add some grit, and I add a little tube to the singers mics.

Lo-Fi is a choice for sure. Sometimes an artistic one and sometimes a necessity. But just because its Lo-Fi doesnt mean it cant be a well-engineered effort.

 

[YorkshireTrippe]

Firstly the whole "Lo-Fi" thing is relative isn't it? I mean the strokes album was labelled as "Lo-Fi" by pretty much everyone but its a lot better sound quality than, say, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club by the beatles right? and when Sgt Pepper came out it was considered to be about the most "produced" record around. So my point is the sound of a record is largely irrelevant when it comes to how lofi it is, it's the records you're comparing it to that give it that label. So therefore if people carry on making albums like "Is This It" then you can do something in your home studio that will be hailed as High Fidelity crystal-clear-slickly-produced-wonder-music.

But you asked will the whole “Lo-Fi” approach be the bulk of how records are made from now on? no

I think Glen was spot on by saying everything is cyclical (and entropy could also be Glen, just wait another 14 billion years ). Music trends go through definate, clear and basically predictable cycles. Someone comes up with something a bit different, everyone goes nuts for it, it gets copied and copied for a few years until its the "norm", then someone else comes along and releases something a bit different in protest. Often, the new style that comes along to protest the current norm has a rougher, more raw, more DIY sound. Grunge did it to protest glitzy glam metal, Hip Hop did it in the 80s to protest white pop music (among other things), Britpop did it over here in the 90s to protest American music, The Strokes did it to protest over-produced factory line rock, and I'm sure someone will do it again before too long to protest the current Autotune trend.

It makes you wonder what's gonna happen next, but one thing is for sure, soemthing WILL happen