Good post, from which I've highlighted what I would consider the most critical aspects. These are topics I have posted about myself over the years.Ubiety wrote:Folks are always moaning about how contemporary music sucks, but part of that is due to the mentality that many DAW owners see themselves as producers. How many of them are musicians, and how many know how to work with other musicians?
Yet folks are cranking out tracks where they play everything...In other words, musicianship is less of a requirement than it used to be because many people are learning that musicianship is not important. Hey, and if you can't play anything well, just make droning, burbly, granulated noises with some semblance of a beat, or no beat at all. There is an audience for that, even if it is made up of just yourself.
An important reason why 4-tracks were popular was because one didn't need an engineering degree in order to make multitrack recordings.
Back in the day, a person involved in audio productions didn't try to do everything alone, like many, many people attempt to do today.
...And those companies keep on torturing you by cranking out the shit that you say you need when you have everything that you really need to make audio recordings right at your fingertips...
The more important question is: Will you make better music knowing that you have all of that stuff at your disposal?
Music software has changed the way hobbyists create music in the same way that texting and twitter have changed communication. Vastly greater quantity but vastly decreased quality.
Amateurs have taken on the role of producer and all musicians, but as you note, they are also most of the audience as well. As a pastime this is fine, but it rarely is good enough to be much more. Most are not musically trained, are not engineers, are not producers. There's nothing wrong with having fun doing music, but there are many real world limitations in terms of results regardless of how much software one has.
Having 48 or 96 tracks can contribute to overcrowded mixes far easier than 24 or 16...or even 8. Less becomes more and aids focus. But the DAW business is about more, not less, so it becomes the task of the user to figure out how to manage these large hosts.
In particular, I think the home studio -- host, plug-ins, MIDI -- is not an incubator of superior music for the very reasons you point to. Who really can play all instruments/samples well, engineer it well (including all effects) and then mix the results well. Very, very few.
Of course, the response of those who do this is similar to that about texting while driving. It's not something others should do, but I can handle it. If only it were true.
DAWs are wonderful, but without collaboration I doubt the results we hope for are realized. Which is why songwriters, musicians, engineers and producers are not one person in the music business.
The more, the merrier.
I basically agree with what you wrote. Nice, isn't it?
