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-- Exposure is now a better distinction between amateur and pro than musical quality.

Exposure is now a better distinction between amateur and pro than musical quality.

We've reached the point where literally millions of everyday people can produce music of reasonable to excellent quality without the need for expensive equipment or studio time.

I find myself wondering what this means for today's musician. What sets this one person apart from the other people who now have the ability to manipulate audio in complex, previously unimaginable ways?

Without singling out any famous musician (I have a good example from a group I like, but people will interpret my singling out as an insult), I want to bring up the example of sample-based, loop-based music. On a large number of albums, you will find sections of music that use everyday sounds in a musical fashion. Doors slamming, the shutter of a camera, a metal can, the sound of wood snapping, water splashing, and so on. The examples are endless.

Samples being looped are the best example because while the results might be complex, the approach to discovering and creating these results is not.

Here's the big, embarrassing reality: anyone reading this can go to http://www.freesound.org/ or use any other royalty-free sample resource, download a completely free audio sequencer (or something such as Reaper, which isn't free--but free), and edit a bunch of sounds to make a 'beat' or 'track' that could actually be played on radio provided that it doesn't clip.

All you have to do is make sure that the audio doesn't clip and that you mix reasonably well so that the different parts can be heard.

You might argue "but what about the rules of mixing and mastering!" I would concede that you had a point--if you had said this two decades ago. Need I remind you of the loudness wars?



Need I remind you of how people listen to music these days?



With people settling for lower sound quality in the first place, who would even notice the difference between some amateur's attempt at making songs and the professional's output?

Especially when it comes to songs intended to sound either distorted, degraded, or just plain old with the use of distortion plug-ins or filtering... just how can one tell the difference?

You might tell me that the professional intended to create that effect.

So what? What happens when we intend to create that effect as well because it's so easy to create with naive knob-twiddling?

You might tell me that the professional knows what they're doing and understands the math and the theory behind it.

So what? We might not know the theory, but the point is that we can create extremely convincing works in the same style.

You might tell me that professional did it first.

So what? Other professionals usually do variations of the same style when a new technique is pioneered--is it somehow less appealing when we do it?

You might finally add that the professional can create much more than that one style.

This is the one point I would give you, but it means nothing in this day and age. We live in the age of singles. People will think it's your 'style' if you do lo-fi. You don't even need to prove that you can create higher quality works because it just might turn out that your listeners won't even care or have the ability to appreciate it anyway.

So what does this all mean?

I feel that the one redeeming factor in all of this is that we are rapidly reaching a level where the musicians who receive the most accolade will be the ones who are the most creative and original no matter what technology they have. This could be a great thing for music because in order to differentiate yourself from the masses of people who can do the same thing that you do, you will have to create something so unique... so amazing that it makes everything else worthless. More resources won't provide this to you like in the past, it will require genius innovation, it will require musicians to push the boundaries further than they've ever pushed them.

If I were a professional musician I'd be struggling to constantly create incredibly original content and I'd be changing up my style constantly so that the amateurs couldn't copy or catch up with me.

But not many musicians are doing this, unfortunately. We are being subject to a lot of "I can do that too" music and it's a bit depressing.

What do you think about all this?

What exactly do you want to talk about? Your post kind of winds all over the place, and runs together ideas that are really not the same.

I'm not even sure what your title is supposed to mean.

In today's world of music where people are listening to pirated audio files with crappy equipment, most people will not even notice the difference between an amateur and a professional. One reason is that amateurs have easy and cheap access to incredibly powerful tools and vast resources of audio and royalty-free music. Another reason is that there is a lot of music made by so-called professionals that consists of nothing but (intentionally) low-quality samples being looped over and over.

See where I'm going with this?

If amateurs have access to such powerful tools and if professionals are intentionally making low-quality music that is easy to duplicate while the average listener is exposed to low quality audio on crappy equipment: it could seriously be argued that the only difference between a professional musician and an amateur musician is the amount of exposure they get. Professional doesn't mean "of higher quality" anymore, it simply means that they have visibility which translates into dollars.

It's like you can hardly tell if someone has been doing this for years or hours anymore when it comes to popular music.

I'm tired and thinking a lot about music and music theory, so while this is a lot of thought and writing, it could be probably said that this would have been better kept in my personal journal and not used as a seed for discussion.

I've been having non-stop ideas about music and mathematics and I think it's time I enroll in a university.

it makes no difference what we say on this forum, the industry isnt about music anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by KilldaDJ it makes no difference what we say on this forum, the industry isnt about music anymore.

+1

i wouldn't go that far as in it isn't about music anymore...i mean it's a large industry, you have all kinds of people out there doing all kinds of things. i agree on the fact that software development has allowed for flooding of amateurish productions into the industry, but that's only because you will have to dig deeper for the gems.

growth allows for massive amounts of information to be shared with all the components of an industry freely. edm grew over the years and it will continue to do so as we move forward.

Is that you Spirit5?

"With people settling for lower sound quality in the first place, who would even notice the difference between some amateur's attempt at making songs and the professional's output?"

The difference is that the professionals are able to make songs sound 'good' on bud earphones and cheap computer speakers, even at low bitrates, whereas the amateurs cannot. This is important in that so many people listen to music this way.

Why didn't the original post contain an online petition?

quote:

Originally posted by KilldaDJ it makes no difference what we say on this forum, the industry isnt about music anymore.

Reading this reply was weird because it sums up everything with only a few words. It's so final. I'm reminded of that quote: "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."

Nothing left to see here, I guess.

all are amateurs until u get big gigs that gives u high income. money decides whether ur a pro or not, not how much gear you have or how good you are at sidechaining.

you're not pro until you spin at big clob

duh

quote:

Originally posted by Domesticated Is that you Spirit5?

Maybe a disciple?

quote:

Originally posted by Pleasant If amateurs have access to such powerful tools and if professionals are intentionally making low-quality music that is easy to duplicate while the average listener is exposed to low quality audio on crappy equipment: it could seriously be argued that the only difference between a professional musician and an amateur musician is the amount of exposure they get.

This paragraph is an example of what I meant by "running ideas together that are not the same."

There is a difference between the intentional "lo-fi" effect that uses or emulates certain effects of analog processing, and the simple "poor quality" of a badly made, mixed, or mastered record. If somebody had a bunch of digital clipping because he overdrove his compressor plug-ins, or had a bunch of reverb washing everything into mud, or a bunch of cheap-sounding, unimaginative synths, and told me that he was just "trying to be lo-fi," I would laugh at him and tell him to go back to the drawing board.

quote:

Professional doesn't mean "of higher quality" anymore, it simply means that they have visibility which translates into dollars.

What exactly do you want to talk about, though? Audio and recording quality, or musical quality? These are distinct issues to my mind, in spite of the way some people will praise a record just because the mixing and mastering tickle your ears when you turn it up really loud. You can have genius ideas with a poor mix, and crap ideas with an amazing-sounding mix. Expense has never been that much of a barrier to expressing great musical ideas, even if the recognition of their greatness can be impeded by poor audio quality or lack of marketing ability.

quote:

Originally posted by floyd741 you're not pro until you spin at big clob duh

Pros only spin big clob. Lesser clob is insulting to them.

I agree with almost everything you said, or what i think you said. But mr jive brings up a good point, it still takes skill, experience, and a good ear to make it sound great when its played very loud on big speakers.

However, these past few years have proved that much exposure is heard through youtube, myspace, and other lofi viral means.

You can get some really good creative ideas banged out quickly when its a rough draft with sloppy mixdown and other factors that affect loud playability. You know, those kind of tunes that are "busy" and keep the listener engaged longer but dont have a lot of "depth" on a big system.

I think what we're experiencing lately is a backlash of the popularity of minimal tech house. Minimal (and loopy tech house for that matter) puts way more focus on the sound quality and vibe. A lot of these producers were more like sound designers than anything, they forgot about the "music" element, or rather they did it on purpose because it was intended to let the DJ make music out of those productions (tools). Either way it was all too much after a while and people got sick of it. This led people to making the complete polar opposite which is noisy, busy music that will keep you interested on lofi speakers, earbuds, youtubes, etc. Its probably one of the reasons why indie electro house blew up these past couple years (especially 2009 anyway) ... (a genre that purposely uses lofi means such as 8bit, chopped samples, distortion etc).

I picture what you're describing is: some new guy coming out of nowhere sounding almost as professional as an experienced producer, but the new guy is more creative and makes a catchier tune and gets more exposure. Its almost as if the hard work and years of experimentation of the sound nerds was exploited by some low-brow poser / guido / chav / person not in it for the right reasons.

For years, the exploitation was always prevented because producers kept their techniques secret, they didnt just blab away how to get up to speed quickly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKUb9Txoe1c

Also because it was mainly hardware back then. Anyway all of that is changed now. The internet has blown this thing wide open and its a bit chaotic now. The shift continues to go away from deep repetitive music with analog warmth, quality sonics etc, to more loud, digital, instant gratification party tunes. Even dubstep is shifting to more radio friendly packed formats. Especially with the millennials - the new wave of kids that grew up in a shorter attention span society - they are making tunes that break the mold of the old original wave of producers.

FINAL MESSAGE: Im not worried about the future because despite all these changes, there will always be those people that are a mixture of nerd and creative party animal. There will always be a place for people that create music from experimentation with the technical side but at the same time have an ear for making a hit.

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