Producer has just become a dirty word, the EDM worker bees have smothered it with their sticky secretions and carried it off to their lair o' awesome dropz.
has the term producer changed in modern indie music
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- KVRAF
- 5223 posts since 20 Jul, 2010
I prefer to think of myself as a creator, engineer and a fairly bad keyboard player
Producer has just become a dirty word, the EDM worker bees have smothered it with their sticky secretions and carried it off to their lair o' awesome dropz.
Producer has just become a dirty word, the EDM worker bees have smothered it with their sticky secretions and carried it off to their lair o' awesome dropz.
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!
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- KVRAF
- 5223 posts since 20 Jul, 2010
BTW, in old-worlde terminology, I think Goldie was a good example of a producer. He'd come into the studio and be like "can you make the beat, like, go whizzing into the air and sound like it's breaking into shards and firing pieces of it's-self at the dancefloor" and Rob Playford (the engineer) would make it happen.
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!
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- Banned
- 10196 posts since 12 Mar, 2012 from the Bavarian Alps to my feet and the globe around my head
He's much longer in the music biz. He made his first disco songs with this instrument:Chopper wrote:Plus you joined KVR when you were 6 years old? Blimey, they are getting younger by the day, producers...
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1278 posts since 11 Sep, 2006 from along the rivers edge in northern Ontario
the origin of lo-fiTricky-Loops wrote:He's much longer in the music biz. He made his first disco songs with this instrument:Chopper wrote:Plus you joined KVR when you were 6 years old? Blimey, they are getting younger by the day, producers...
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- KVRAF
- 15517 posts since 13 Oct, 2009
It smells funny in here.
Last edited by ghettosynth on Sun May 18, 2014 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 25053 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
ghettosynth wrote:Ok, but, in fairness to the oft-maligned EDM "worker bees", I think that part of the reason that they adopted the word "producer" is, in part, to not over-inflate or confuse the process with "composition."Sendy wrote:I prefer to think of myself as a creator, engineer and a fairly bad keyboard player
Producer has just become a dirty word, the EDM worker bees have smothered it with their sticky secretions and carried it off to their lair o' awesome dropz.
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- KVRAF
- 15517 posts since 13 Oct, 2009
Ok, but, in fairness to the oft-maligned EDM "worker bees", I think that part of the reason that they adopted the word "producer" is, in part, to not over-inflate or confuse the process with "composition." It sounds pretentious to claim that playing a 303 line that you found by randomly mashing buttons over the top of a stock house beat and spending a lot of time in the production/engineering process to make that sound like a track "composing." Further, a lot of EDM "producers" combine the roles of composing, producing, and engineering into essentially one role. I'm not sure that I can think of a better choice.Sendy wrote:I prefer to think of myself as a creator, engineer and a fairly bad keyboard player
Producer has just become a dirty word, the EDM worker bees have smothered it with their sticky secretions and carried it off to their lair o' awesome dropz.
The word producer is overloaded, certainly, it means different things in different settings. A lot of words have this property. I cringe every time I hear the obnoxious phrase "scientific proof", but I know what people are trying to convey. When my friends who run studios talk about the producer on this project or that, I know what they mean and I know that it's not the same thing that my EDM artist friends say when they use the term.
I have "composed" exactly one piece of music in my life. It was very short and part of the only college class on music theory (for non-majors) that I've ever taken. It was "composed" with a genuinely low level of skill, and it was very short and forgettable, but, it was "composed."
When I create more traditional songs with e.g. vocals/guitar or whatever, I call that process "writing", in part, because it literally involves, wait for it, writing. Those songs, for better or worse, have a defined lyric, melody, and chord progression and I could play them on any number of instruments arranged in any number of ways. Please don't mistake that comment for any sort of boasting, I don't mean that "I" am capable of playing any, let alone, many, instruments well, I simply mean that the song stands independent of the arrangement.
When I create electronic music, there is very little, "writing", per se. The process merges engineering tasks and writing tasks into one process. The music often does not stand alone from the production. I think that this is largely a production process when done by a single person and that the word "producer" most correctly fits the process.
So, before you smack the EDM worker bees over their choice of words, consider that the word is probably fair, and if you don't like it then I challenge you to come up with a better word. A producer "produces", and that's exactly what EDM "artists", good ones and bad ones, do. I've noticed that no matter how much I try to limit my self-identity as a musician, someone always seems to have a healthy dose of criticism regarding my choice of label. I currently say that I am a very amateur musician and that I produce electronic music in my spare time. I say that I play a little guitar and that I bang on keyboards, and when pressed, I can hang out on the bass or drums for a few minutes while one of my bandmates goes for a smoke or to chat up some girl. I think that's fair, accurate, and sufficiently modest and I don't think that I need to tone it down further.
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- Banned
- 10196 posts since 12 Mar, 2012 from the Bavarian Alps to my feet and the globe around my head
@ghettosynth
You delete your post (which was quoted by Jancivil) and post the same stuff again?
You delete your post (which was quoted by Jancivil) and post the same stuff again?
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- KVRAF
- 5223 posts since 20 Jul, 2010
Warning: This experiment may contain trace elements of time travel.
I honestly don't overanalyze words that much. I work on emotions and intuition primarily. If someone wants to call themselves this or that it's cool. I should also point out, I don't hate dance music, I just hate the big trends of today in EDM, which over term has rubbed off on the terms EDM and "producer". Much like I prefer to say "sawtooth" instead of "saw" because "saw" makes me think of generic synthsounds wheras "sawtooth" reminds me of my childhood memory of reading my C64 instruction manual and learning about waveforms.
That may seem shallow or silly but I believe choice of words is important. Do I compose, produce, engineer or what? I don't know. Don't really care that much. I create sonic worlds that I enjoy. I organize waveforms. I make a racket. It's all valid.
Perhaps it's a matter of slicing the data in a biased way but despite liking dance music since the early 90's, most of the stuff that comes out under the banner "EDM" makes me want to die. Show me some house or some jungle and I'm fine. The vast majority of dance music hopefulls are woefully lacking in individuality and are snowballing in number, but that doesn't preclude there being EDM "non-worker-bees".
I honestly don't overanalyze words that much. I work on emotions and intuition primarily. If someone wants to call themselves this or that it's cool. I should also point out, I don't hate dance music, I just hate the big trends of today in EDM, which over term has rubbed off on the terms EDM and "producer". Much like I prefer to say "sawtooth" instead of "saw" because "saw" makes me think of generic synthsounds wheras "sawtooth" reminds me of my childhood memory of reading my C64 instruction manual and learning about waveforms.
That may seem shallow or silly but I believe choice of words is important. Do I compose, produce, engineer or what? I don't know. Don't really care that much. I create sonic worlds that I enjoy. I organize waveforms. I make a racket. It's all valid.
Perhaps it's a matter of slicing the data in a biased way but despite liking dance music since the early 90's, most of the stuff that comes out under the banner "EDM" makes me want to die. Show me some house or some jungle and I'm fine. The vast majority of dance music hopefulls are woefully lacking in individuality and are snowballing in number, but that doesn't preclude there being EDM "non-worker-bees".
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!
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- KVRAF
- 15517 posts since 13 Oct, 2009
Well then, why would you be so critical of other people saying that they "produce?"Sendy wrote:Warning: This experiment may contain trace elements of time travel.
I honestly don't overanalyze words that much. I work on emotions and intuition primarily. If someone wants to call themselves this or that it's cool. I should also point out, I don't hate dance music, I just hate the big trends of today in EDM, which over term has rubbed off on the terms EDM and "producer".
That may seem shallow or silly but I believe choice of words is important. Do I compose, produce, engineer or what? I don't know. Don't really care that much. I create sonic worlds that I enjoy. I organize waveforms. I make a racket. It's all valid.
Although I'm not sure that it's relevant, I agree. I try to think about why I don't like things to keep myself in check, to make sure that I'm not just stuck in my own preferences, but the steady decline in "groove" has more or less coincided with the increase in popularity.Perhaps it's a matter of slicing the data in a biased way but despite liking dance music since the early 90's, most of the stuff that comes out under the banner "EDM" makes me want to die. Show me some house or some jungle and I'm fine.
Well, without data on the distributions, I'm not sure that this has ever been much different. There are probably more today for many reasons, EDM is more popular, the tools are cheaper and easier to get, computers are widespread. This means that EDM production is much more accessible to the young than it has been in the past so there are a lot of "teenage producers." I'm not sure that other generations of teenagers were somehow more independent or interesting. Maybe it seems like that because EDM was counterculture at one point.The vast majority of dance music hopefulls are woefully lacking in individuality and are snowballing in number, but that doesn't preclude there being EDM "non-worker-bees".
As a reminder, Steinberg introduced VST in 1996 and until well into the noughties, plugins were absurdly expensive. Ableton live was introduced in 2001 and did not initially support plugins or midi, it was just about samples. At that time a lot of dance music was being made with MPCs. Computers were used as midi sequencers but were only just becoming affordable as multitrack audio recorders. The expense alone meant that few 14 or 15 year olds could easily get involved. Even DJing meant 1200s which were $600 each new. Once you had tables, you had to get records and you weren't just going to download stuff because even if you could, you couldn't play it out. If you purchased domestics, imports, and doubles, you were probably paying something like $9 a disc or something like $3 on average for a track. Some records had 4, many had 3, some had only 2, a few had just one and not even grooves on the other side.
The point is, to get involved with "producing" back then, you had to have an idea to do it, and then you had to spend some money to realize that idea. This is completely untrue today so that now all anyone needs is the idea and the internet. Perhaps that means that on average, among those who self identify as producers, there is less experience, but so what? They aren't any different from kids back then, it's just back then they couldn't afford to "produce", so instead the engaged the scene, or whatever scene, in whatever way that they could. Instead of annoying everyone with their "producah" lingo, they annoyed us with plur and puppy piles. A few scraped enough cash together to buy enough records to trainwreck while opening the sideroom of raves that their friends threw.
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- KVRAF
- 5223 posts since 20 Jul, 2010
Because there are so many people calling themselves "producers" these days that seem to me at least to be the very antithesis of the things I hold dear. Hence referring to them as "bees" - they have the hive mind, the lack of individuality, the utilitarian outlook with no room for creativity. But unlike bees they seem to be snowballing rather than declining. It's not a problem with the term in-and-of it's-self, but the modern usage and casualization of the term.
Perhaps I'll stop ragging on the whole EDM thing. I've kinda made my point and the joke (such that it is) has run it's course. Perhaps in some way I feel threatened by it, or I feel that the music I hold dear is threatened by it. But the word "producer" has been somewhat ruined for me. I wouldn't judge others for using it, as it's just a word without context, but it seems to me the more rigidly people cling to their "producer" hats, the more derivitave their works are. It has come to represent something else. Gaming the system.
I suppose in some way I do resent the fact that music production is no longer something "special". When I was a teen I was singled out by my music teachers and told I was talented. Fuss was made, it felt good. People respected it, which was good because I was socially awkward and it helped me out. It's kinda sad to think that that is over, though as you say we haven't really lost anything, it's just that the genuine passion is buried under the effects of the democratization of electronic music.
Perhaps I'll stop ragging on the whole EDM thing. I've kinda made my point and the joke (such that it is) has run it's course. Perhaps in some way I feel threatened by it, or I feel that the music I hold dear is threatened by it. But the word "producer" has been somewhat ruined for me. I wouldn't judge others for using it, as it's just a word without context, but it seems to me the more rigidly people cling to their "producer" hats, the more derivitave their works are. It has come to represent something else. Gaming the system.
I suppose in some way I do resent the fact that music production is no longer something "special". When I was a teen I was singled out by my music teachers and told I was talented. Fuss was made, it felt good. People respected it, which was good because I was socially awkward and it helped me out. It's kinda sad to think that that is over, though as you say we haven't really lost anything, it's just that the genuine passion is buried under the effects of the democratization of electronic music.
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!
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- KVRAF
- 25053 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
The thing about the label 'producer' for me is, regardless of how one interprets or explains it, it contains the fact that you are making *product*. If you're going to recognize the slipshod methods of making a 'track' amidst various efforts to form a sort of apologetics for it, there is a dissonance really. So my coping mechanism is to laugh, it really did evoke a laugh out of me.
And if we're going to engage that, I think it's only fair to note that the whole exercise is to make a product.
I didn't grow up with that. I don't, in fact, feel like I'm going to be made to respect it. It's silly. Relax and get some f**king chops together. What's the hurry? It just smacks of a sense of entitlement, as though you are now, strictly through having a computer and some software, entitled to a result in the field of music.
The other thing is, even when one of a certain type of producer does obtain some skill, the fact that s/he is leading with the concept 'Producer' typically means the skills are with a compressor and the like, before one is able to compose worth a shit. There is a thread in Music Theory where someone wants to canvass theory people for some how to in order to emulate a pretty infantile (musically awkward) bit of nothing. BUT! It's actually fairly rich in production values. It's the art of turd polishing.
So, you can make these specious arguments or gestures towards an argument til the cows come home, but no one is persuaded/moved to that position. It is what it is.
Yeah, big surprise, everbody starts off with no experience. But the notion "producer" leads people to bypass whole areas of learning since you can grab hold of somebody else's experience instead, slap some things up on top of that and here's product. It isn't unfair to talk about the psychology, hive mind, factory drones here IME. Entrained to produce; just nail that destination, the journey's not enough. Get that ego validation, that's paramount.
And if we're going to engage that, I think it's only fair to note that the whole exercise is to make a product.
I didn't grow up with that. I don't, in fact, feel like I'm going to be made to respect it. It's silly. Relax and get some f**king chops together. What's the hurry? It just smacks of a sense of entitlement, as though you are now, strictly through having a computer and some software, entitled to a result in the field of music.
The other thing is, even when one of a certain type of producer does obtain some skill, the fact that s/he is leading with the concept 'Producer' typically means the skills are with a compressor and the like, before one is able to compose worth a shit. There is a thread in Music Theory where someone wants to canvass theory people for some how to in order to emulate a pretty infantile (musically awkward) bit of nothing. BUT! It's actually fairly rich in production values. It's the art of turd polishing.
So, you can make these specious arguments or gestures towards an argument til the cows come home, but no one is persuaded/moved to that position. It is what it is.
Yeah, big surprise, everbody starts off with no experience. But the notion "producer" leads people to bypass whole areas of learning since you can grab hold of somebody else's experience instead, slap some things up on top of that and here's product. It isn't unfair to talk about the psychology, hive mind, factory drones here IME. Entrained to produce; just nail that destination, the journey's not enough. Get that ego validation, that's paramount.
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- KVRAF
- 16977 posts since 23 Jun, 2010 from north of London ON
My ego got 'validated' when my tractor rolled off'n the road and landed in the ditch....
Hi....I'm the other type of 'producer'....I grow your veggies, wheat and corn.....
Hi....I'm the other type of 'producer'....I grow your veggies, wheat and corn.....
Barry
If a billion people believe a stupid thing it is still a stupid thing
If a billion people believe a stupid thing it is still a stupid thing
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PurpleCatfishBettie PurpleCatfishBettie https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=211816
- KVRAF
- 3278 posts since 22 Jul, 2009
apparently, joe meek was one of the first 'engineers' to 'morph' into 'producer'.
moving right along, today's 'edm' has a lot of really cool tonalities, but doesn't present much of 'anything new' in the way of composition. so, there's some serious 'ear candy' there but it's more-often-than-not, 'musically tedious'.
anyway, i'm one of those who wears 'all hats'... 'composer, marketing, production, engineering, performance, sequencing', etc. it's one thing to say i'm a 'producer' and quite another to generate much if any 'buzz' around what it is i 'do'.
in the 'biz', 'schmoozing' and 'marketing' are probably a lot more important than many people would be willing to admit. ...not that this in any way excuses my own 'failures' but i'm just sayin'... if you're a kid just getting into this, you gotta handle the 'biz' end. (whether you call yourself a 'producer' or not)
ymmv
moving right along, today's 'edm' has a lot of really cool tonalities, but doesn't present much of 'anything new' in the way of composition. so, there's some serious 'ear candy' there but it's more-often-than-not, 'musically tedious'.
anyway, i'm one of those who wears 'all hats'... 'composer, marketing, production, engineering, performance, sequencing', etc. it's one thing to say i'm a 'producer' and quite another to generate much if any 'buzz' around what it is i 'do'.
in the 'biz', 'schmoozing' and 'marketing' are probably a lot more important than many people would be willing to admit. ...not that this in any way excuses my own 'failures' but i'm just sayin'... if you're a kid just getting into this, you gotta handle the 'biz' end. (whether you call yourself a 'producer' or not)
ymmv
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- KVRAF
- 25053 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
