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.

Last edited by MrJiveBoJingles on Nov-08-2009 at 16:41

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.

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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.