I am by no means well-versed in music, much less experienced as a producer by any measure, but it sure seems to me that each and every time I see somebody use the word overproduced I have a nagging urge to completely disregard absolutely everything they have to say.
It's kind of like "irregardless", only with a far more presumptuous manner.
Now I'll admit this is probably a fair bit of prejudice on my behalf, as this little urge of mine is mostly founded in confusion and easily ignorance, but I would like for somebody to shed some light on this term. What could "overproduced" mean? They produced it too much? Its just too much of a product, I'm sorry, I can't approve. There's just, just too much production behind it, somebody worked too hard - I'm sorry.
Is it because the song may seem far too commercial? Like it's 'overproduced for radio'? That seems rather hair-brained, too.
Maybe it's like a drawing, where you just used too much of the negative space and the composition is obfuscated by unnecessary detail to the point where the shape is less meaningful? Sounds rather far-fetched for such a term. I don't trust it.
Was this post overproduced?
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Aug-08-2010 21:11
KilldaDJ
birth.school.trance.death
Registered: Sep 2001
Location: tranceaddict wants to know your location
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Aug-08-2010 21:18
noikeee
dubstep convert
Registered: Apr 2002
Location: lost and wandering looking for directions.
I use the term for when the producer evidently spent billions of hours cleaning the frequencies and adding pointless little bits here and there, to the point the track is so sharp and so detailed that it forces you to gain focus on those details, rather than letting you listen freely to the theme of the track. It's when there's so much detailing it detracts from the listening experience.
It's a subjective term of course, "less is more" isn't a philosophy that applies to every single case, and everyone can have their own opinion on if a track is well balanced or not.
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Aug-08-2010 21:29
shaw
RIP
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: Intergalactic Mimosa Station
Seems to me that it's always used to describe something that, in comparison to the approved or preferred standards of the genre, is unusually lacking in organic sound and traditional structure, not due to incompetence, but to what the commentator views as unnecessary or even harmful alteration to the material.
It's subjective, so of course its use is flawed. Such production may be seen by some as even preferable. It's like saying that some girl's breasts are too big; there will always be a Lira in the room to object.
Usually means a producer filled a song with superfluous effects and gobbledygook in order to make it sound bigger and bolder than other tunes. Unfortunately, once someone reaches a certain level, others feel the need to top it so they sound bigger and bolder than their contemporaries. Thus, we end up with a flood of big, noisy tunes that are more impressed with audio splendor than song craft.
Or, put another way, Michael Bay overproduces action movies.
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Aug-08-2010 21:41
RebeL9
The Digital Blonde addict
Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
quote:
Originally posted by Sykonee
Usually means a producer filled a song with superfluous effects and gobbledygook in order to make it sound bigger and bolder than other tunes. Unfortunately, once someone reaches a certain level, others feel the need to top it so they sound bigger and bolder than their contemporaries. Thus, we end up with a flood of big, noisy tunes that are more impressed with audio splendor than song craft.
Or, put another way, Michael Bay overproduces action movies.
Registered: Sep 2002
Location: home or somewhere else
I think a tune is overproduced when the production takes a bigger role than the composition or the ideas behind the tracks. Production overshadowing the ideas basically or the lack of ideas in many cases. Overproduction IMO strips tunes of their rawness. And rawness is good, some rawness at least. If it's too polished, it'll easily sound too hollow IMO.
I think many bands go down the overproduction route eventually. First albums are raw and unpolished, but still pretty damn good and later on they release albums that have great, brilliant production, but nothing on the inside. Too much focus has been put on how things should sound and not on the actual ideas that make good music.
It means the production values are to the detriment of the track. Usually this is because too much time has audibly been spent on the production and not enough on the writing - the creative focus on the track has resulted in brilliant technological production quality but atrophic musical content.
It can also mean that the production values are audibly distracting. The track may be perfectly well written but sounds too busy, too glossy, too loud, the ideas drowned out by the studio tinkering that has been thrown in.
Interestingly, when something is criticised as poorly produced (rarely dubbed "underproduced") it's almost never because of an inverse of the first option - you don't hear people say "Too much time was spent on great writing!" When something is underproduced, the production quality is so shitty and amateur it distracts from the musical content, or just doesn't accentuate the music properly.
If you doubt the existence of overproduction, you've clearly not suffered BT's newest album. Take a listen to that and you'll understand exactly what it means.
ive heard it said about Adam F's Colours many times. maybe as an album it is, but some stuff on it is bomb.
for me, it's when a producer wants to bring out all the detail in a track, and as a result there's no real background to it, nothing happening in the distance that you have to strain to pick up. when one is so obsessed with showing layers and complexity that it becomes some kind of sonic mush.
