Are you able to hear which artist did the music, even without knowing the track?

[chk071]

I more and more find i can. Without ever having heard the track. So far, i can sense: Ulrich Schnauss (easily, somehow any of his tracks sound the same... dull to me), Zero Cult (also pretty easy, very simple track and melody structure), Solar Fields (bit more difficult, but, also pretty concise), Frank Arnold (sorry Frank ), Aphex Twin, Deadmau5 (just realized that today, listening to a remix of one of his tracks on DI Chillout channel).

There are also a couple of other artists, which i can roughly make out, but it's not 100 %. The artists i stated are more or less 100 % recognizable for me, especially Schnauss. Interesting, isn't it? I can't recall being able to recognize an artist just by his/her sound, but, the more i seem to fiddle with synths myself, the more i seem to get a sense for sound. Some artists do very different sounding tracks though, so that's pretty hard, if not impossible to figure out then.

What about you? Are you able to figure out which track was made by whom, just by listening to, for you, foreign tracks?

[Aloysius]

Yes

[chk071]

[Aloysius]

[whyterabbyt]

On a scale from 'no to yes', directly proportional to my familiarity with the artist. Funnily enough.

[thecontrolcentre]

Well yeah... if I'm familiar with their material. Not so much otherwise.

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

On a scale from 'no to yes', directly proportional to my familiarity with the artist. Funnily enough.

I second this. There are usually some stylistic things I can recognize an artist by.

[chk071]

Well yeah... if I'm familiar with their material. Not so much otherwise.

Of course, you gotta have to be familiar with the usual material, but, there's artist you can recognize, seemingly easily, and artist, you just can't recognize, because they don't seem to have a characteristic sound, or have a broader variety in their sound. I wouldn't say it imperatively says something about the quality, or originality of song/track writing, or sound design, but it could.

As i mentioned, Ulrich Schnauss seems to be the most significant example in this case. Can smell his stuff from miles.

[Numanoid]

I was listening to a mix the other day, and a track in there makes me think this sounds like something like, what's his name again, oh yeah, Chicane.

And it was in fact Chicane

I never thought of him as having a distinct sound, but seems I was mistaken, how could I otherwise pick out his track from a generic trance mix

[DJ Warmonger]

Yes. Many producers use similiar patterns, sounds and effects across many tracks - or just have very distinct style.

In particular, (great name BTW ) uses one and the same "whoop" sound (slowed kick?) at the beginnning of every part.

On the other hand I can notice different tracks from same producers have very different qualities despite similiar style, probably as they were mastered by different people each.

[harryupbabble]

Well, if you have someone else sing any of David Bowie's songs, and if I have only heard Space Oddity and nothing else from David Bowie, I probably couldn't tell David Bowie's future songs to have been created by David Bowie. The guy was just such an expert at varying his creations. Some songwriters want or have the willpower to do that too but most of them fail? I find it hard not to have extreme high respect for David Bowie.

On the other hand, for one example, I have heard a lot of songs for the first time that had Carlos Santana's guitar playing in it and I correctly guessed that it was him playing the guitar part. For example, that Rob Thomas song, Smooth is what it is called, I think. I heard that on the radio. And it was so obvious that it was Carlos Santana playing the guitar. And I guess Carlos knows that and is okay with that, that his style is so recognizable. Okay I guess that's respectable and admirable too. But oooh that David Bowie, what a one-of-a-kind way up there kind of guy.

[Roman Empire]

harryupbable, I´m with you on that. I was thinking exactly the same, being about Mr Bowie. There´s a far distance between Space Oddity, 1984, China Girl and Lazarus!

Best Regards

Roman Empire

[robotmonkey]

No. 99% of the new popular music that's mostly R&B, EDM and that wobbly stuff sounds exactly the same boring unoriginal and uninspiring dross. Don't think I can even be bothered to remember any of those names.

But I could tell a Van Der Graaf Generator or Peter Hammill track any time any day, for example.