spraypainting dog turds

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The Garage

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after spending the majority of the day sifting through dozens of demos for a compilation i'm releasing this march, i was reminded of this guy i saw in new york who went around spray painting dog crap with gold paint and then sticking cocktail umbrellas in 'em. basically, most of these musicians spent a fair amount of money recording dog crap. so i've got some advice for you guys and gals who want to know which $2000 fx processor, reverb plugin, piece of crap tube preamp, great river model, chinese mic, german mic, or $100 a foot cabling to buy: please learn to write a decent song. learn to play with character and energy. make sure you're saying something interesting. don't be that guy spraypainting dog turds.
-teddy
 
well put

my own feeble attempts soundclick.com/bmanning
try the wrecker for starters....went #1 in guitar rock
to be fair to young sonwriters all the great songs have been written. its all been done. very difficult coming up with something different.
 
This is my faviorate topic! It cost about 6 grand to buy a decent recording set up. It cost about 3 grand to record an album in a tried and true pro studio. Of course it matters little when the songs are shit. There is however some very talanted people here.
 
I like to spray paint dog turds and slap a Behringer sticker on 'em and sell as "pro"audio equiptment.Makes a great stocking stuffer!
 
tjohnston said:
It cost about 6 grand to buy a decent recording set up.
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$6000 and only just begun on my end.

A year ago I would have told anyone that you can record a decent demo with a recording setup under $5000. I guess it's possible, I mean I've done some okay work, but I've left out a lot of stuff that really helps a session. Like allowing the group to HEAR WHAT IS GOING ON! I never really thought about it, but it costs a lot of money to purchase a good headphone system. I'm going to end up spending around $800 for mine. Plus I need more mic cables, guitar cables, midi cables, patch cables, mic stands, music stands, pop filters, cable hangers and much, much more.

My wife doesn't like me very much!
 
rvdsm said:
$6000 and only just begun on my end.

A year ago I would have told anyone that you can record a decent demo with a recording setup under $5000. I guess it's possible, I mean I've done some okay work, but I've left out a lot of stuff that really helps a session. Like allowing the group to HEAR WHAT IS GOING ON! I never really thought about it, but it costs a lot of money to purchase a good headphone system. I'm going to end up spending around $800 for mine. Plus I need more mic cables, guitar cables, midi cables, patch cables, mic stands, music stands, pop filters, cable hangers and much, much more.

My wife doesn't like me very much!
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Yeah it adds up quick. $5000 can easily be the cost of just the accessories.
 
rvdsm said:
$6000 and only just begun on my end.

A year ago I would have told anyone that you can record a decent demo with a recording setup under $5000.
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My point is that you can record a decent demo for 200 bucks -- a mic and a portastudio. I am more inclined to sign someone who has a great song recorded simply than a crappy song recorded beautifully. I like toys like the next guy, but they have as much to do with music as $3000 dildos have to do with sex. But hey, whatever gets you off...
 
Your criteria for "spraypainted turds" includes songs that have nothing improtant to say. IMHO that would include about 95 percent of the material produced by the recording industry. I guess someone is encasing turds in Gold!
 
i couldn't agree with you more. i guess my problem is that we often have the mentality, "hey, i can spraypaint my dog turds too!" i don't think we ought to be playing that game. one of the pluses of being an independant artist is that you can say just about anything you want without a boardroom of blockheads overseeing your every guitar chord. so why not spend a little more time on the art and a little less time busting your ass overtime at your job to get the money to sound more like the polished dog craps they put out? obviously i'm making a value judgment. if it's between the art and the craft -- i chose the art. but that's not to say i don't have great admiration for the craft -- i'm a producer/engineer. but above all else, i'm a music lover.
 
RecTechMin said:
But hey, whatever gets you off...
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That's pretty much what it all comes down to. Most of the people here won't get signed and will never get the chance to record in a million dollar studio. The recordings they make on their own will be their legacy for their kids and grandchildren. Why not make them quality recordings?

I have never listened to a recording I made 10 or more years ago and thought that I wasted a penny on quality. If anything I wish I had taken the time or put in the money to make them better.

You have to accept mediocrity as a part of everyday life but that doesn't mean you have to accept it in your art.
 
RecTechMin said:
My point is that you can record a decent demo for 200 bucks -- a mic and a portastudio. I am more inclined to sign someone who has a great song recorded simply than a crappy song recorded beautifully. I like toys like the next guy, but they have as much to do with music as $3000 dildos have to do with sex. But hey, whatever gets you off...
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I was speaking off topic about the never ending need to upgrade my system. I fully concur with the idea that a good song doesn't need multi-million dollar production to convey the true quality of it, but it doesn't hurt. Sure an artist could get signed from a demo made on a portastudio, but you wouldn't want to release that to the public as the groups "album" (unless you had it in for the group.)

The old saying about putting your best foot forward is the key in this discussion. Not every artist is going to make songs that are solid gold, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't seek the most accurate reproduction of their sound.

Hell, asking unsigned bands to disregard spending money on a good demo is like telling project studio owners to go fuck themselves. With that said, I would like to say one last thing on topic: A bad recording can destroy a great song in the same way a bad song can destroy a great recording.

There, my 2 cents......for what it's worth.
 
the legacy is in the music, the feeling, not the technology. until relatively recently (in the history of mankind), music was a song, a personal outlet, a social experience. now it's about a guy spending $10,000 dollars to buy gadgets to record songs alone in his room. too much money on the tech and not enough time on the music. all this crap is taking us farther and farther from the heart of it. you're saying, "spending all this money is what makes them happy." well, i'm saying we've got some misplaced values here. when we spend more time on a message board talking about tube preamps than we do art. but obviously these comments are somewhat inappropriate, considering i'm posting on homeRECORDING.com's forums. and i do like the toys; i just got myself a nice acoustic guitar. i guess i'm just trying to present an alternative to this other value system. and for the little guy who feels like he'll never make a quality recording with a portastudio -- the technology will never be an impedance to your brilliance.
 
I suspect a lot of the groups that are recorded by forum members are indies of various stripes that have no particular expectation of getting signed by some pop juggernaut label. Nevertheless, they want a solid product to sell to their fans. Their CD's may not sound like they came out of Abby Road, but it would be nice if the level of craft available to the engineer didn't draw attention to itself in a bad way.
 
rvdsm said:
Not every artist is going to make songs that are solid gold, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't seek the most accurate reproduction of their sound.
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actually, i'm not sure the last time i heard a commercially released song that sounded very accurate to the barebones sound of the band. overproduction, not reproduction, seems to be the norm.


rvdsm said:
Hell, asking unsigned bands to disregard spending money on a good demo is like telling project studio owners to go fuck themselves. With that said, I would like to say one last thing on topic: A bad recording can destroy a great song in the same way a bad song can destroy a great recording.
[/B]
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bands rarely get signed based on their recording quality of their demo. they rarely get signed based on their demo at all. so it doesn't matter if it's a portastudio or a million dollar studio. secondly, a bad recording is much less harmful to a great song. the quality of the song will shine through. and a great recording just makes it easier to here the shoddy quality of a bad song. just my opinion. i do appreciate everybody's input and you've all made some really interesting points. thanks for the responses.
 
RecTechMin said:
one of the pluses of being an independant artist is that you can say just about anything you want without a boardroom of blockheads overseeing your every guitar chord.
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Haha! It's funny because that's how it was with all the "old stuff" we've all come to know, love, and strive toward!

Not trying to argue what-so-ever. I completely agree with you! I just found it rather ironic.

Then again, the Rack Forum is feels rather out-of-place for this Subject.

By the way, what kind of compliation you putting together.? I've got some turd recordings of my brother's old songs with polished songwriting. :D

Too bad we don't have ANY of his newer songs (stuff written over the past 5 years) recorded. Otherwise, I could send you a polished recording of polished songwriting and forget the turd all together! ;)
 
RecTechMin said:
you're saying, "spending all this money is what makes them happy." well, i'm saying we've got some misplaced values here. when we spend more time on a message board talking about

... and for the little guy who feels like he'll never make a quality recording with a portastudio -- the technology will never be an impedance to your brilliance.
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Spending money isn't what makes people happy. I can only speak for myself but using quality tools makes me happy. Creating recordings that I can enjoy makes me happy. If somebody has the skill to create great recordings they shouldn't let crappy gear hold them back.

Some idiots have no real reason to be in front of or behind a mic but that's another topic all together.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Spending money isn't what makes people happy. I can only speak for myself but using quality tools makes me happy. Creating recordings that I can enjoy makes me happy. If somebody has the skill to create great recordings they shouldn't let crappy gear hold them back.

Some idiots have no real reason to be in front of or behind a mic but that's another topic all together.
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Yesssss.... Quality tooools goooood....
Mic!!!?:confused: Vocoder???
Precioussss, precioussss, you will be ourssss...


:D
 
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