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 Sharing Great Software 
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
You're on stage, so you start with something familiar, then warm up, then stretch out. Begin to decorate the theme, substitute the chords, then play off the chords and substitutions. Now you're deep into improvisation, a novel state of consciousness (for your audience too). Do you let the clams get in the way? Naaah, you're throwing fingers with abandon in ever larger gestures. Inspiration is the key, extending your music beyond your abilities - a learning process for the musician and a high-wire balancing act for the listener. Now, if this experience is to be recorded, there has to be someone at the end of the line to touch it up, just as you would do with the most opportune and memorable photo.


Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:07 am
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
I love technology but how long before it does away with talent and/or the hard work that so many of have done (and continue to do) in order to be good musicians?

Imagine your favorite artist. You admire their abilities and you practice to be like them but with your own voice. Then you meet them, realize they can't play and that it was almost completely done with technology. How do you feel? Disappointed? Lied to? That you wasted your time admiring them?

How much can you lean on the crutch of technology and still be called a musician?

Now get off my lawn! :)

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Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:26 pm
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
Jayesskerr wrote:
paigan0 wrote:
Scott, damn it, I agree with all of your points on both sides, and don't know what to do with it!

Yes, I'm all for rehearsing to make the most out of your valuable studio time. And I'm also all for being the producer, and using every tool available to me to make music.

Maybe that's the difference: if I'm wearing my producer hat, I just want the best sounding track, no matter how I get there. If I'm wearing my performer hat, I want to make the very best performance I can, and make is as "true to life" or sound like it was live, as possible. I want to leverage and show off, and sell, my years of talent and practice, and my hypothetical ability to come in once and lay down perfect tracks that don't need to be "fixed".

There is tension between those two approaches, and I've over-simplified the two camps as well. Some performers are happy to leave the cleanup to the engineers, while others are obsessively bugging the engineers to get exactly the perfect sound that they the performer have in mind. (And then there's whatever the producer had in mind...)

If I am a drummer, and a dude with a drum machine puts me out of business, I might have some opinions about that. And keyboards and MIDI have put many an orchestra out of business. The same technology that lets Steve Sink play all the instruments and produce and master tracks in his basement also lets a jingle writer and producer do everything themselves and not hire a "real" musician with "real" chops, instead of Band in a Box or whatever.

I'm torn. I am that performer and that producer both and I want my playing to be as real and authentic and real-to-life as it can be, but I also want to make perfect tracks.

If that WORST VOCAL PERFORMANCE of all time is mine (and odds are good that it is!), then if I want to do vocals, I have to clean that shit up. And maybe put a real vocalist, with real talent and years of practice and dedication, out of business.

I have no answers, only tracks that need to be cleaned up! :)


:D I like to believe that all these new products are tools to musicians, and crutches for non-musicians...
hehehe adapt or die, right?


I agree with all this. But I can think there's only so much that one can "hide" behind those crutches during a live performance. I've definitely seen some bands that sound GREAT recorded but completely disjointed or just bad live (bad vocals, usually).

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Wed Sep 20, 2017 8:55 pm
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
RK - "How much can you lean on the crutch of technology and still be called a musician?"

EC - Where do you want to stop? Clubs and skins? Bronze and brass? Medieval craftsmen of the strings and keys? Art somehow manages to track with technology and history sorts out the cultural "hits".


Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:57 am
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
Many great songs have been created in the Studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_Shoals_Sound_Studio

I've been on a Music Production course for over a year now.
Each musician does his part and the rest is 'Studio Magic'.

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Thu Sep 21, 2017 2:39 am
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
WerkSpace wrote:
Many great songs have been created in the Studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_Shoals_Sound_Studio

I've been on a Music Production course for over a year now.
Each musician does his part and the rest is 'Studio Magic'.



True, but I like to think that the musicians doing "their part" can actually play, and the "studio magic" part is an "enhancement process" on an already great series of parts being laid down... :D

Now obviously people have been "punching in" and copy/paste using midi etc to make things more efficient for quite some time now. And yeah, synthesized instruments are sounding more and more realistic all the time allowing for virtuoso programmers to really create some wild stuff... Especially if they have some really great musicians to track with as well...

Don't get me wrong, it's not about virtuosity because simple stuff is just as important. And I am of the mindset that if it sounds good, then it probably is. If it sounds like music, then it probably IS.... I like and play all kinds of styles of music and sometimes the tech really helps said genre evolve. With that being said though, the modern recording/performing musician really has their work cut out for them...

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Thu Sep 21, 2017 7:24 am
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
BSharp wrote:
RK - "How much can you lean on the crutch of technology and still be called a musician?"

EC - Where do you want to stop? Clubs and skins? Bronze and brass? Medieval craftsmen of the strings and keys? Art somehow manages to track with technology and history sorts out the cultural "hits".


We don't want to stop, ever. I don't, anyways. But I think we should at least recognize the impact some of these changes/evolutions have so that musicians can prepare for and hopefully roll with them... I find that the devaluing of music is one such impact that is totally not cool. (torrents, and Spotify for instance) Artists gotta get paid...

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Thu Sep 21, 2017 8:00 am
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
BSharp wrote:
RK - "How much can you lean on the crutch of technology and still be called a musician?"

EC - Where do you want to stop? Clubs and skins? Bronze and brass? Medieval craftsmen of the strings and keys? Art somehow manages to track with technology and history sorts out the cultural "hits".


Where do I want to stop? I'd say just before the technology does away with the human element and the skill and/or talent needed to create music. The evolution of guitar to electric guitar, upright bass to electric bass and then electric guitar and electric bass to The Stick did not reduce the human element and the effort needed to create music ... it expanded on it and gave us more possibilities, without "cheating."

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Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:10 pm
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
I'd definitely like to believe that as long as the human element is involved, then varying degrees of artistry will always be present. :)

But without a doubt, various softwares and technologies that are now available have a radical impact on the musical "ecosystem". We don't always like it, but stuff is constantly changing...

Better tools may sometimes mean lazier people, but it can sometimes also mean different avenues of expression, and inspiration springing from ideas not normally deemed useful... haha

Like I said, I am torn! :D

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Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:01 pm
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Post Re: Sharing Great Software
RK - "Where do I want to stop? I'd say just before the technology does away with the human element and the skill and/or talent needed to create music."

EC - The greatest technology we have is DNA and I'd venture to say that its greatest manifestation, at least on this planet, is human intelligence. I believe we'll always have artistic mastery over our technology no matter how fast it accelerates, that is, up to the point where we wipe out our DNA.

Technology has an inexorable life of its own and will always overturn established art and vested interests, including those who practice on their existing instruments (sorry to say). Maybe it's best to ride the crest of the moment and perform with what you have before the next big wave hits.

In whatever way the music becomes transformed by new instruments and machines, I believe there'll always be artists who rise to the occasion and find a way to express themselves and inspire their audiences, challenging each other and surfing the wave with ever broader gestures.

RK - "(Electric guitar and bass) expanded on it and gave us more possibilities, without 'cheating'."

EC - It's human nature to feel cheated if someone comes up with an easier way of accomplishing the same, and even more - a process of automation. Some guitarists might think of two-handed string tapping as "cheating" while others jump on the technique and readily add it to their tool set.


Mon Sep 25, 2017 5:51 pm
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