Where's the production value?

XLR said:
But yes, creativity-wise there is definitely too much formulaic thinking around.
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Thats because we dont have producers, other than ourselves. NOr do we have the means to get background singers, saxes, programmers, etc. There is definitely a limit to being a one man band, which most people here are.:D
 
DavidK said:
Thats because we dont have producers, other than ourselves. NOr do we have the means to get background singers, saxes, programmers, etc. There is definitely a limit to being a one man band, which most people here are.:D
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One reason I like being in a two-man band!!!! I get to play more than one instrument most of the time, but I've got someone there for instant feedback.

In general, I think I understand what the OP is saying. I just don't want to waste to much time producing stuff that isn't directly related to the song itself. That's enough, for now.
 
Tool did this well on their 10,000 Days album. As far as I'm concerned, its one of the best produced albums lately. But I'm open to hear others of course!

There are so many things on that album that I notice every time I listen to it. Today I heard a weird part that I've never noticed before and it was awesome. Same with Breaking Benjamin's new disc... I heard some new stuff today that I've never payed attention to before.
 
I don't post to much any more and haven't really put anything up lately but I think for a guy in his house, my produced tunes sound pretty damn big and pro as do a bunch of other's around here. It's all taste.

One thing I've been doing lately though is doing multiple guitar parts on top of each other, sometimes even panned solos like Black Sabbath used to do. Synths are cool and all, and I have a bunch of different VST synths that sound great, but I grow tired of that sometimes and would just rather have a good sounding bass, drums, guitar, and vocal mix.

Also, keep in mind alot of people come here to learn as I know I did years ago.
 
I tend to hear far more emotion-free songwriting than underproduction. Of course, I am a big fan of scratchier, more honest recordings verses meticulously built soundscapes....with exceptions, since some bands (Beatles, Floyd) create music which lends itself to something more...but I don't find a lot of songs on boards like this that move my soul. You could argue that this is a result of who we are...geeks making noise at home...but artist centric boards I check in on often have areas for created music that offer really incredible songs. And those songs rarely fit the mold of the artist around which the board is centered...for example, the Tom Waits board I hop on isn't filled with gravelly piano pieces or found sound experiments. So it's not a matter of "you are trying to sound like this guy that I like."

Production to me is a fairly elastic thing...some of my favorite recordings sound pretty raw, and I like the sound of The Beatles' simplistic Help! album as much as anything they did. I may, if I'm really being honest, even just see it as an extension of the song writing process.

There are a lot of songs I kind of enjoy, and every now and again a really good one slips out, but it's interesting to me that I am much more able to find well-written songs on artist boards than recording boards. I've always wondered what the cause of that is.
 
Ok i can't help myself now

It's just a balance, but a big one.

and we need to be talking about two things here:

Artists or Musicians/performers

and they are two different things of course artists can be performers and performers can try there hand at Art and that is where the mix takes place.

so that's one difference in my opinion.

the next point:

The UNDERESTIMATION of Production.

Can I use Nirvana, “Smells like teen spirit” as an example?

I can thanks:

There were two entities essentially two(2) versions of the song that existed one(1) version the last one to come into existence never existed until the Producer (i know not his name) (point proven?) made it.

So to get that clear - smells like teen spirit – (1) - the song existed after Nirvana wrote it and played it live and everything but the hit the one EVERYONE knows, it didn't exist until they walked into the Production/engineering room and that Producer PRODUCED THAT SOUND.

Then it existed... so who "Wrote" the "sound" the Producer did. Who wrote the first song/arrangment Nirvana did.

What is more important? the "Sound" or the "Arrangements" both of course but one of them doesn’t get mentioned.

But that's the nature of things I guess it's similar to killing your own goat to eat.

no,...in fact i would say it is EXCATLY like Killing your own goat to eat.

you probably wouldn't eat it if you had to kill it yourself, knowing that Kurts Guitar didn't really always have that growl and that there was multipule vox tracks is killing the magic i guess, being a gypsy myself i guess i see that.
 
jndietz said:
I've heard a lot of mixes over the course of my membership here on these forums, but people making songs seem to not add anything to the song except for the song itself, you know? There's nothing extra...

Thats what really makes a good song. Sure, simplistic stuff can get the point across and sometimes thats all thats necessary, but why aren't you guys going over the top?
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Where's the production value? Why, it's right at :59 in this song.

http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6506654&q=hi

Tom Waits says, "let's open up that barn door and get some noise in here, it sounds too pretty," (I'm paraphrasing)

When my dog started howling, I left her in the recording as I often do. Just so happens she howled right before the word "moon." That's production value.
 
steve.h said:
Assuming I understand his view correctly, I think the OP has a good point, if not eloquently stated. I started a thread a few weeks ago on volume automation & sound texturing/layering, which essentially made the same point: one of the big things that separates a "home" recording from a "pro" recording is layering of different textures and sounds. Now, like you guys said, much of the material posted on here is "guy with a guitar" singer/songwriter-type-stuff, which usually doesn't call for a million orchestra/synth/anything parts. On the other hand, I feel many of us (myself included) have been focusing so hard on closing the gap sonically between pro studios and home studios, that we may have lost sight of one of the things that made so many of our favorite albums so great: experimentation! Things like putting a keyboard through 30 effects boxes into a guitar amp set to 10, or 1, or whatever. tecording some outdoor ambience and throwing it behind a track to give it some "air"; just finding cool, previously unheard sounds and putting them into songs to create a sonic landscape.

These are things that most of us don't do (as far as I know), and I really feel that we're missing out on the very reason home recordings have an enormous advantage over million-dollar-budget studio productions: freedom. Freedom from label deadlines, freedom from worrying about making your money back, freedom from fan expectations, and for the majority of us: freedom from having to rely on a known formula to ensure financial compensation from millions of CD sales to the general public. If we don't strive to set our productions apart from everyone else's, we are in fact contributing to the general blanding of the music of this time period, just as bad as the millions of bands out there trying to exactly mimic their favorite bands to try to ride the coat-tails of their success, instead of forging out and trying to find their own sound. Sure, it's easy money, and for those of us relying on our studios to eat, it's sometimes a necessity to take it in the ass and record a bunch of talentless know-nothing 17 year olds with their parents' money and dreams of getting on a major record label. But keep an eye out for those few bands that want to find a new sound, or at least your own productions, and take a day or two to experiment with some crazy shit.

If nothing else, it'll take away from the monotony of editing incredibly shitty drum takes. And considering the amount of completely generation-lossless storage most of us have, keep the samples for another production months, or years from now. It's sort of similar to movie sound FX clips, where the bigger studios amass millions of sound clips to choose from for any particular event.

Anyway, that's what I think.
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EXACTLY. This is exactly what I'm talking about.
 
Some of us actually like more stripped down music...Motorhead, Sabbath and alot of Doom/Stoner rock. I like guitar, bass, drums and dirty vocals, so I tend to record stuff along those lines.
 
Dogman said:
Some of us actually like more stripped down music...Motorhead, Sabbath and alot of Doom/Stoner rock. I like guitar, bass, drums and dirty vocals, so I tend to record stuff along those lines.
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Yup. I don't want to hear a keyboard crammed through a bunch of effects. I don't want to hear how much shit you can pile on one song. Over-production is worse than under-production.
 
jndietz said:
EXACTLY. This is exactly what I'm talking about.
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Yes, his post explains it better, and now I understand your point. But, that's not really "production value". Production value, to me, is a good recording that captures and enhances the performance. That could be a singer acapella into a mic, nothing else.

I think what you're talking about is simply "experimentation". In that case, I would agree with you that we all can maybe try to be more creative. But, at the same time, you can experiment your ass off and still not have any "production value". So, I don't think those 2 terms go hand in hand.

REVOLUTION 9 was the most experimental thing ever, but it loses it's "production value" once the acid wears off. :D
 
DavidK said:
Yeah, me too. I like the simple, minimalist approach. The piece I am working on now, Sorcerers Apprentice, only has about 95 tracks on it. Nice and simple.:D
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If you learned how to play, you'd be able to do it in 2 tracks....:rolleyes:
 
Dogman said:
Some of us actually like more stripped down music...Motorhead, Sabbath and alot of Doom/Stoner rock. I like guitar, bass, drums and dirty vocals, so I tend to record stuff along those lines.
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A fair point; there are musical styles that very much go hand-in-hand with a more stripped-down production style. I can't imagine an AC/DC record with stupid crazy effects and keyboards and shit everywhere: it'd take a lot away from their music and attitude. I think the OP's point, and certainly my point, is that considering the great variety of musical styles being written and recorded by members here, the variety of production styles seems somewhat less diverse. For my personal work, I've been adding some pretty cool/fun stuff to my band's record, and I think quite a few other pieces of work on the board could use some spicing up and experimentation on some level!



RAMI said:
Yes, his post explains it better, and now I understand your point. But, that's not really "production value". Production value, to me, is a good recording that captures and enhances the performance. That could be a singer acapella into a mic, nothing else.

I think what you're talking about is simply "experimentation". In that case, I would agree with you that we all can maybe try to be more creative. But, at the same time, you can experiment your ass off and still not have any "production value". So, I don't think those 2 terms go hand in hand.

REVOLUTION 9 was the most experimental thing ever, but it loses it's "production value" once the acid wears off. :D
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Also agreed: experimentation for the sake of experimentation is fun, but doesn't necessarily equate to production value. In all honesty, the phrase "production value" is somewhat difficult to apply to musical productions, as compared to movie or stage productions from which the phrase originated. In film, the phrase generally means it looks as though the film or a particular scene or stunt was very expensive and or difficult to film/perform; the trick is to get something to look (or in our case, sound) expensive, without actually costing a fortune (having a friend with a helicopter to get free/cheap great arial shots in a student film would be an excellent example of high production value).

When it comes to musical productions (e.g. CD's) we're kind of using the term differently than intended (assuming we can agree on my definition). Simplified, we're talking about doing things that sound new or interesting, like recording the sound of your refrigerator turning on and slowing it down and distorting it or something. At some point, and highly related to the song/production itself, it becomes too much and distracts from the point of the song. Often it turns out that adding something ends up taking away from something else, which is where we get into the phenomenon of "over-producing", which many would argue is in fact worse than under-producing. It takes quite a shoddy recording to make a great song sound bad, and to that end, getting a recording that's good enough to not take away from the song is sort of the first hurdle most of us strive to overcome for the first year or two of recording. However, my point, and I believe the OP's point, is that very few of us take it any further than trying to get the cleanest guitar sound, or snappiest drum sound, or smoothest vocal sound we can get. Innovation is what makes great records, on every front. Innovative song-writing, innovative performances, and innovative productions/recordings, is what makes an amazing record, and it would serve us well to do some experimenting and innovating in the way we record, to keep us creative and to keep the general music collective moving forwards instead of stagnating.
 
steve.h said:
A fair point; there are musical styles that very much go hand-in-hand with a more stripped-down production style. I can't imagine an AC/DC record with stupid crazy effects and keyboards and shit everywhere: it'd take a lot away from their music and attitude. I think the OP's point, and certainly my point, is that considering the great variety of musical styles being written and recorded by members here, the variety of production styles seems somewhat less diverse. For my personal work, I've been adding some pretty cool/fun stuff to my band's record, and I think quite a few other pieces of work on the board could use some spicing up and experimentation on some level!



Also agreed: experimentation for the sake of experimentation is fun, but doesn't necessarily equate to production value. In all honesty, the phrase "production value" is somewhat difficult to apply to musical productions, as compared to movie or stage productions from which the phrase originated. In film, the phrase generally means it looks as though the film or a particular scene or stunt was very expensive and or difficult to film/perform; the trick is to get something to look (or in our case, sound) expensive, without actually costing a fortune (having a friend with a helicopter to get free/cheap great arial shots in a student film would be an excellent example of high production value).

When it comes to musical productions (e.g. CD's) we're kind of using the term differently than intended (assuming we can agree on my definition). Simplified, we're talking about doing things that sound new or interesting, like recording the sound of your refrigerator turning on and slowing it down and distorting it or something. At some point, and highly related to the song/production itself, it becomes too much and distracts from the point of the song. Often it turns out that adding something ends up taking away from something else, which is where we get into the phenomenon of "over-producing", which many would argue is in fact worse than under-producing. It takes quite a shoddy recording to make a great song sound bad, and to that end, getting a recording that's good enough to not take away from the song is sort of the first hurdle most of us strive to overcome for the first year or two of recording. However, my point, and I believe the OP's point, is that very few of us take it any further than trying to get the cleanest guitar sound, or snappiest drum sound, or smoothest vocal sound we can get. Innovation is what makes great records, on every front. Innovative song-writing, innovative performances, and innovative productions/recordings, is what makes an amazing record, and it would serve us well to do some experimenting and innovating in the way we record, to keep us creative and to keep the general music collective moving forwards instead of stagnating.
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OK, shut up already!!! :D :D :D


(you're simply too articulate for this bunch. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave. :p )
 
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