How Pro Tools is destroying music

[terminal3]

How Pro Tools Is Destroying Music < Music | PopMatters

Bound to be a bit controversial.

Personally, I think there's still plenty of room for studios, and the people that work 'em. "Pro Tools" (I think the usage in this article is rather generic, it should read 'insert DAW name here') - Pro Tools has democratised things, that's for sure, and it's probably helping people make music who never could have twenty years ago, that's a Good Thing.

The saying 'the cream will rise to the top' applies - both from a musical standpoint, and from a studio standpoint too. The studio is less important than the people behind it, that's guaranteed, and that's what's gonna bring people back.

Yes, some good/famous studios are disappearing, but that's probably more because they were unwilling/unable to adapt to the modern market - a bit like the major labels, actually!

Anyway, discuss...

[TrevCircleStudios]

agreed. It's change or die and budgets have gone through the floor since the advent of Napster but there'll always be a place for a decent room, a great old board and a golden pair of ears.

[dvdan]

Absolutely. I have some early jazz recordings that sound like they were recorded from a microphone in an oil drum - and although we get nostalgic over how great these recordings sound - I can't help but wonder if they would have jumped at the chance for a home pro tools system. Affordable technology has empowered musicians, as well as spurned a whole new batch of 'producers' and has flooded the world with more music and variety than ever before. You don't have to listen to it. Pro tools is not going to go away, but the people who probably shouldn't be making music will disappear in time.

[EdRyan]

I detest Protools, mainly because I find it quite restricting. If you're working on a HD rig and take the project home you can get allsorts of problems (namely that M-Powered and LE systems don't have latency compensation). Plus they charge a fortune for plug-ins and instruments. Unlike Logic, Cubase or any other daw; if you want to actually make music with Protools you have to go and buy further instruments. When I started making music someone joked to me that Protools is just an expensive multi-tracker for recording and mixing. I actually see his point now. And I can't think of any major artists that actually compose or write on the platform..
It's selling point is genius though. Lets handicap everyone the same way, so that it pisses every engineer off in every studio..

That article does have some good (if biased) points. It's not just Protools, it's the march of technology in general. As soon as hardware manufacturers began producing 4 track tapes for the home... the need for studios would decrease as home kit progressed.

Studios are struggling, which affects wannabe engineers. They either won't take you on, or don't want to pay you. The web also has opened up access to information. The problem here is accuracy. There's a lot of bad advice from people that don't really know a lot out there... so the result here is a diminishing market to work in, and having to compete with people that learn everything from xxx band's blog and wikipedia..

[StratmanNick]

Its all down to CONVERTERS.

[terminal3]

Originally Posted by StratmanNick

Its all down to CONVERTERS.

??

If you're talking digital converters, I would argue that while not completely irrelevant, they're certainly the least important part of the chain as far as sonics are concerned while tracking.

A recording made with a vintage U87 through a 1073 into a Digidesign 888 (arguably one of the worst converters ever at any price) is going to sound miles better than a recording of an AKG C3000 through an ART TubeMP into a Prism...

That said, converter upgrades will of course help you get that last 2%... that elusive difference between a pro record and just a really-high-quality demo. I just think they're the last part of the chain that needs attention.

[mrfracas]

+1 Terminal3. It's an important topic, and a good article.

Personally, I think that presets and sample libraries are also partly responsible for the rise in number of novice producers; in whose tracks I've heard sounds I recognise; and who are also hell bent on believing that saturating a mix as if it's about to burst is standard practice.

Originally Posted by EdRyan

The web also has opened up access to information. The problem here is accuracy. There's a lot of bad advice from people that don't really know a lot out there... so the result here is a diminishing market to work in, and having to compete with people that learn everything from xxx band's blog and wikipedia..

Ed's right, but I can't understand half the stuff these people type anyway - they're as clueless writing about techniques as they are about implementing them. Sorry... cheap dig, but it's often true!

[terminal3]

... but for the record, I'm a preset junkie. Love 'em. Plug-ins, instruments, you name it. I use them as starting points - I think I've never used a preset 'as-is' in a mix, but I load 'em and then tweak 'em. Probably a lot. But I'm glad they exist.

And I have a good library of samples as well, but I like to think that when it comes to loops and fixed samples (i.e., not instruments, but just 'samples of one note or chord or phrase or whatever') - I'm conservative.

[mrfracas]

Originally Posted by terminal3

... but for the record, I'm a preset junkie. Love 'em. Plug-ins, instruments, you name it. I use them as starting points - I think I've never used a preset 'as-is' in a mix, but I load 'em and then tweak 'em. Probably a lot. But I'm glad they exist.

And I have a good library of samples as well, but I like to think that when it comes to loops and fixed samples (i.e., not instruments, but just 'samples of one note or chord or phrase or whatever') - I'm conservative.

That's where my argument lies; with presets and samples that enable a new user to pick up what the developers left them and assume little else. After all, new technology is overwhelming; and the novice user might not know how to assign a 1/16 synced, sample-and-hold LFO to an oscillator's cutoff, etc. so they'll find a preset that might sound good and use that. Or they might not know how to create their own samples, or map their own beat patterns, etc. There are even sequencers that modify the pitch of samples now, in order to fit the key of a track. Whatever happened to the learning curve? It's too easy for newcomers to begin assuming that they are experienced in music production.

When I started recording music, my production was awful; but I worked at it, and learnt so many things. And like you, Terminal3, I love presets... I probably wouldn't be able to get into a new project straight away, if it weren't for instant recall; but I'm not one to leave my provisions untreated, like many newcomers.

Hmm... have I opened a can of worms with that last statement?

[sphelan]

I think this is an interesting article but one that deals more with technological progress than anything else and could have easily been written by a manufacturer of gramophones, cassette, even VHS videos, the car, microwave ovens etc.

“Ah, the good old days!” Wasn’t life so much better?

Everyone knows that music consumption has changed. Hell, even the gramophone and the development of the recording industry were a change. The growth and domination of recording companies and studios is also a recent phenomenon when we think of human development over the past centuries.

Yes, it is a pity that studios with such a rich history such as the Hit Factory, Sorcerer Sounds and Cello Studios close. Abbey Road could one day close too (dare I say it). But it was also a pity that I had to throw out my collection of cassettes when CDs became the norm!

Yes, there must be a certain “uumph” if you were to record in the same space as Springsteen or Stevie Wonder. There must be a magic in the air. There must be security in knowing there are top notch engineers at your disposal. It must be one hell-uv-a feeling to walk along those corridors and rub of the same mixing desk (if it’s still there!).

I think that Scott Oranburg is being a bit alarmist and pessimistic about the whole thing. Life goes on, man! If a video rental doesn’t switch from VHS to DVD, it goes under. If a recording company can’t keep up with the changes, it goes under. Same with a studio or any other business.

I don’t agree that computers are leading to the detriment of music. I am sure they said the same when Bartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano! All that nice music that was composed for the harpsichord gone to waste! And when Bach started introducing new compositional ideas. Too radical to be music? Or Beethoven when he rebelled against everything before him!!

I know that I can produce music to a certain level in my home-studio. But I am not an engineer. I can play some instruments. I can record into my DAW and do some processing. I am constantly improving. BUT if I want to produce something to a PROFESSIONAL and, dare I say it, COMERCIAL level, then, I feel I would have to take my material, done to the best of my ability, to a professional studio and engineer. I don’t expect I will every rise to the level of availing of the quality and magic of a Hit Factory or an Abbey Road (to name just two). But a decent professional studio might be ideal to give it the final touches.

And all this talk about mediocre performers cleaned up with pitch correction software. If I want to sing on my tracks (and I am not a TRAINED singer), then I will do what I have to to improve my voice to the level I feel acceptable (ie take lesson or whatever) or else I will go and find/hire a singer to do it for me.

Yes, there are great singers throughout the history of music and to think that anybody armed with a pitch correction program can make it to the top is barking up the wrong tree, if you ask me. How many great artists allow their fans to hear them live without some processing be it reverb or compression etc? It’s like wake up beside the girl you met in the pub last night and thought she was Venus until you realise she’s not wearing any make up yet!!!

It has always been like this. Just because the technology is available this does not mean that any dog in the street can produce great music. If the dog has talent, I don’t think the technology really matters all that much apart from making something good better. If it’s bad to start with, where do you go?

If I can produce music in my living room to a standard that ten or twenty years ago would have cost me a couple of thousand pounds a day in a studio, then I am a happy musician. I use what I need to get to where I want and after that I look to where I can take it further.

Regarding the uniformity of keys, tempos etc, I think this is a cyclic or fashion thing. What’s the dominant music style at the moment? What are its characteristics? Well that’s what you are going to hear with sometimes only slight variations.

Yes, I have noticed that there are hardly any key changes anymore. But if you put one in, the song sounds like a Eurovision entry!!!

Hit songs are hits because they conform to the demands of the audience. You chew it up and throw it away. How may artist risk doing something different? Springsteen for example has a “fling” with the songs of Pete Seeger - a brilliant album in my opinion but a disaster commercially. And the tour? The fans demand the return to what he has always done. And hey presto -next album with the E Street Band!

Scott Oranburg claims “the shoddiest musicians can go into a recording studio and spit out a perfectly adjusted loop” but isn’t that a product of the modern world? Anyone can be a pop star just like anyone can be on reality TV. Hell, look at the Paris Hiltons of this world!

And then this apocalyptic view that “computer-assisted composing is…is dehumanizing music” and leading to “art form into Paint by Numbers”. How melodramatic if you ask me! Here we go again with the idea of “life was much better when I was younger”. Really! How many different types of music are there? How many different musical cultures? How many musicians are there playing live without computers? And how many with? Of all of these how many are painting by numbers? Are we really to believe that the oldest and most prevalent art form of all is doomed to disappear as we know it and become a past time of Terminator-type machines that “generate” organised sound just because they can?

You’re not fooling me Scott!

[sphelan]

Okay...now that I've got that off my chest...I've just put on my bullet-proof vest...READY!!

[sphelan]

Well, that must have been the final word on this!

[TrevCircleStudios]

Nah, I was nodding silently as I read.

[mutilatedlip]

I tend to agree with Trev's sig... you can't polish a turd.

[terminal3]

Originally Posted by mutilatedlip

I tend to agree with Trev's sig... you can't polish a turd.

Unless you freeze it first.