DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
Feb 1, 2005 12:00 PM, The Remix Editors,
With any sort of creative endeavor, it's often difficult to separate the various processes and identify where the art stops and the craft begins — and vice versa. With music production and engineering, it's all too easy to get caught up in the latter and forget what's really important: how a piece of music is ultimately perceived and digested by the listener. We in this industry talk a lot about the craft of engineering music because it's more of a known quantity. It's much easier to discuss the printed specs of a certain compressor or the drum sound on some classic album than it is to nail down why one song goes on to define a generation and others end up in the dollar bin at your local record store.
Don't get me, Robert, wrong; the science of audio is fascinating and worthy of study, but it isn't where the buck stops. The purpose of all this fabulous technology is to create a hospitable environment for artistic expression. No song has ever become a hit because it has a great bass synth, nor will any amount of analog tube warmth turn a bad song into a good one. It always boils down to the basics of solid songwriting and solid performance. If you want to record some great-sounding drums, the most important part of that signal chain is going to be — wait for it — a great drummer. To better your own skills, it's important to study how certain producers get certain sounds, but you shouldn't allow the desire to get that “perfect sound” to bog down the creative process.
This isn't all doom and gloom, though. What I'm trying to point out here is that producing and engineering music should be more about the art. There are no rules, and the sound in your head is just as valid and potentially earth-shattering as the next person's. At the same time, what we might consider today to be the must-have sound may be something we laugh at with horror years from now. Think about all of those '80s pop records with that signature gated-snare sound or that completely unnecessary saxophone solo, both of which make us a bit uneasy nowadays. But are those songs not as valid now because those elements aren't as fashionable? Absolutely not. A truly great piece of music will always shine through a dated production.
And if you don't want to take my word for it, take a peek at our cover story this month. Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Pies refuses to let himself get stuck in the studio. If something isn't working, he ditches it — no fussing over tiny details. And this approach enables the group to crank out more songs in a year than some people write in their entire careers. Another fine example is Hood, which built its latest album with discarded Casio synths and single-take vocal performances. In contrast to the current trend of prefab sounds and perfectly edited tracks, the group preferred to make its own sounds and maintain the human element of its music.
It's interesting how things change. Ten years ago, people might have sold a lung to get their hands on the technology that we have now. But after a few years of brickwall limiting, the “Cher effect” and kid sisters who can't sing live, it's nice to see the pendulum starting to swing the other way. Music was never meant to be a science, and that's why a great musician banging out tracks on a garage-sale keyboard is just a valid as anyone.
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