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Do producers generally get better at making tracks?
I ask this because it's tough to find a producer or group of producers who get better as they get older in age or the music industry. It's ironic for me that you can gain more experience, yet make tunes not up to par compared to your previous record.
Yeah, I can't tell you what that's about really. My best bet would be that they use up all their good ideas early on so even though their production value increased, they just can't compose stuff that was as good.
Everyone gets better until they hit their peak, and then you can only plateau or come back down. There are producers who are still making great records 20 years after they started, but it's impossible to keep improving every time.
I was going to talk about prime/peaks in my post but w/e.
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| Originally posted by kosmotika Yeah, I can't tell you what that's about really. My best bet would be that they use up all their good ideas early on so even though their production value increased, they just can't compose stuff that was as good. |
There are a surprising number of producers who have been grafting away in obscurity for years before something changes and their sound becomes in-demand. If you look at Petar Dundov, he's been making records since the early '90s but he's only really made a name for himself in the last 5 or so, and is now pretty hot. Paula Temple recently became the first woman to release on R&S and so I'd bracket her as an emerging talent, but it turns out she's been making and spinning techno since the '90s.
What I think happens with a lot of successful musicians is that they tend to outgrow their audiences too quickly. Music is only partly about technical skill and mostly about that creative spark and the drive musicians have to push themselves into exploring new concepts.
It's not a coincidence that musicians tend to break through at a very young age, a lot of the time they're just messing around until they suddenly strike gold by accident.
Once they make something that becomes a success, they are then forced to try and analyse what it is that people like about it after which they'll have to try and recapture that. Sometimes they just completely misunderstand and start to develop in the wrong areas, other times they are able to reconstruct it. But even then it will quickly become a laborious task, they will lose interest eventually and become unable to channel their creativity into their work. They want to move on but are held back by their audiences, who don't have to work on and listen to the same kind of music every single day.
Another factor is what happens when what was previously a hobby starts to become their job. It's becoming increasingly clear that a person's creativity suffers greatly when there are substantial monetary rewards to be had, and being constantly under pressure to deliver probably doesn't help either.
Their engineers change. Credits ftw.
^^^
Pretty much.
Geert Huinink = Tiesto
Steve Osborne = Paul Oakenfold
Richard Dekkard & Charlie May = Sasha
Johnny Klimek = Paul Van Dyk
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| Originally posted by Bierheld What I think happens with a lot of successful musicians is that they tend to outgrow their audiences too quickly. Music is only partly about technical skill and mostly about that creative spark and the drive musicians have to push themselves into exploring new concepts. It's not a coincidence that musicians tend to break through at a very young age, a lot of the time they're just messing around until they suddenly strike gold by accident. Once they make something that becomes a success, they are then forced to try and analyse what it is that people like about it after which they'll have to try and recapture that. |
Which is only remotely relevant if the producer in question is setting out to make chart music.
I think generally, most people's early releases are more interesting because people have this immense drive and naivety when they are young. A 20 year old has all these ideas in his head and he desperately wants to say something to the world, put something out there. What does someone that has been putting out records for 20 years left to say?
Obviously, there are exceptions to this and some producers seem to need to mature a bit to get to the point where they have something to say. Francis Harris/Adultsnapper is a good example, someone who made pretty bland and uninspired dancefloor records for a decade and suddenly flipped a switch and now makes some of the most interesting and emotional house music in recent years.
Perhaps not an obvious example, but here's a great and very honest quote from Noel Gallagher (of Oasis, duh) in an interview:
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| Does he think he could write another Definitely Maybe? "No. I wrote that album when I was 21/22, and the people who picked up on that album were 21/22-year-olds. You can only do it once. We went on that tour and we were the same as them. We had no money, the people in the crowd had no money. We're rock stars now, we don't live in the same circumstances as any of these kids, so you can't even begin to write from a position of where they're coming from. But there's a point that lasts for about three years where you're in the same circumstances, you look the same and you dress the same as your audience, and that, my friend - you cannot buy that. I'd give it all up to go back to those three years. "Listen, I'm 41, I've got two kids, I don't expect a 16-year-old to be looking to me for inspiration. It's the Arctic Monkeys' job now. I've done my bit. Now we go in the studio and it's just like, let's make some records, let's do it cos we love it." |
Soundtrack composers like Hans Zimmer, Joe Hisaishi, Jan Hammer, Nobuo Uematsu... for example just keep/kept getting better during their careers..
Juno Reactor in my opinion just keeps getting better technichally and musically
Uematsu's last big-name soundtrack (The Last Story) was probably my least favorite by him. Was also disappointed with Hisaishi's work on the game Ni No Kuni.
when it comes to trance artists, a lot of acts I grew up on have become atrocious such as cosmic gate. they went from making textbook german hard trance to some crappy ASOT-friendly fluff. meanwhile, others were on a roll for a certain period and got out of the game at the right time (dumonde, vincent de moor). Still others got out but came back to make crappy shit (Ralphie B).
http://youtu.be/ZUj66Y-QbQY
yep, this is the same Ralph who made Massive tracks (pun intended).
Terrence Dixon
Mike Parker
Traxx
Paul Birken
Neil Landstrumm
Convextion
All are still at least consistently producing quality output, which seems a more apt qualifier than "better".
of course they get better, but then it becomes about money... then they get worse (on purpose)
for whatever reason, the new generation of dance became really crap but really profitable. i don't think most established producers were willing to risk fading out when it came to it - whether to be creative or go with a sure thing. they probably had to much to lose at that point, as opposed to when they were young to doing it out of love, probably without responsibility.
^I agree. paul van dyk is someone I had in mind when I made this thread. He's been producing since like what, 1992? that's 22 years in the game, and he was probably at his apex in his 5th year. that's fucked up brethren.
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| Originally posted by 2techs vincent de moor |
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| Originally posted by 2techs ^I agree. paul van dyk is someone I had in mind when I made this thread. He's been producing since like what, 1992? that's 22 years in the game, and he was probably at his apex in his 5th year. that's fucked up brethren. |
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| Originally posted by kosmotika the sad thing is knowing that he'd probably not get any releases on a big label since he never really went for the commercial sound. |
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| Originally posted by Redd I disagree, he made uplifting easy listening trance. And I think he'd get signed in an instant, if not just for his name. |
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| Originally posted by SYSTEM-J PVD was still being ghost-produced in the 5th year of his career. |
Read the inlays Matt, it's all there.
Harald Bl�chel (Cosmic Baby) had a big part in showing PVD the ropes. Paul's first noted release, is a remix of a Cosmic Baby track which credits Cosmic Baby...he's was basically an idea guy for most of his career, learning how to apply his own technical knowledge as time goes on.
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