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[Jotown]

To the average sheep mentality of most people who play music that might be true. But history has shown that true artists are Eagles who fly alone, and see things from their own perspective. True artists arent limited, or imprisoned by technology. They use whatever works and create music that is timeless and real. Those Lomax recordings of Muddy Waters come to mind. The sad fact is that true artists are very rare, and frequently not popular in their own time. So I guess I am respectfully disagreeing with Mr. Eno.

[Hippie]

quote: -------------------------------------------------- ...it is very difficult to escape the sonic and conceptual confines of the times you live in. The technology appears to offer freedom but actually leads you down certain paths. It's circular - the manufacturers offer the features they think will do best in the market. And most people want what's already out there, but perhaps a slightly better version. They don't have the imagination to envisage anything radically different. I find this limitation to be one of the frustrating things about being human. ------------------------------------------------- Yes indeed. An original musician should be sceptical towards technology that is of the 'canned' variety. A few programs that come to mind are, Reason, Acid 'Loop packs', 'Band in a box', drum/beat box machines with internal sounds in which, by the time they hit the market place are already yesterdays news. However, I can respect the 'power users' that take these tools and use them in creative, unconventional ways. They need to develop these programs to allow for more open-ended free-form creations that do not operate necessarily within a 'listener friendly grid'.

[Gato]

:freak:

[Tedster]

What Hank said. However, for every age, there are leaders and followers, for example, do Mancini's recordings sound like the 50s because that's what he was exposed to, or do the rest of 50s artists sound the way they do because they were exposed to Mancini? The 60s "boy bands" were full of "yeah yeah yeahs" and cute little "Mrs. Brown you've got a luvly daughter" ditties until say, Rubber Soul or Revolver, the former of which was attributable to what Dylan was doing and the latter to LSD. Or something like that. It does go back and forth...you have the artists doing something new, and then the copycats reacting to it, and occasionally a visionary copycat who will up the ante and achieve artiste status, which will in turn cause the original artist to rethink their approach, etc. etc. But, if it's good, who cares if it sounds like it was made in the 80s, or the 50s for that matter.

[Jotown]

Since you are referencing the 80's, I will address that era. The main reason the 80's stuff has a distinctive sound is for the most part because as in any era, pop artist's are trying to be commercial. They chose to use certain instruments and sounds that they thought would achieve that goal. There were a bunch of things done in the 80's that don't have an 80's sound. In the end when people follow trends, whether technological, or stylistic, they will always have a simillar sound. That is a choice of those artist's, not merely a technological stamp.

[KenElevenShadows]

[quote]Originally posted by O' Little Jotown Of Bethlehem: [b]Since you are referencing the 80's, I will address that era. The main reason the 80's stuff has a distinctive sound is for the most part because as in any era, pop artist's are trying to be commercial. They chose to use certain instruments and sounds that they thought would achieve that goal. There were a bunch of things done in the 80's that don't have an 80's sound. In the end when people follow trends, whether technological, or stylistic, they will always have a simillar sound. That is a choice of those artist's, not merely a technological stamp.[/b][/quote]Yes, I seriously doubt that anyone using a Yamaha DX7, a gated reverb, or anything else could not possibly realize that this was a very distinct and soon-to-be-dated sound. There was indeed a lot of music from this decade - and many other decades - that aren't immediately identifiable as to when they were made, and much of this music lies outside the pop realm.

[Jotown]

[quote]But what about everyone who is currently compressing their mixes to hell and autotuning the heck out of the vocals? Yes, I know in many cases someone is simply providing what their client wants; On the other hand, it's another example of current technology leading users down a certain path, isn't it? [/quote]Yes, but the point is that you don't have to hyper compress you mix or use autotune. That is a choice. I will state again that a real artist isn't going to squash the mix just to sound like the Strokes, or use autotune, because they probably wouldn't need it. We are not a victim of the technology unless we choose to be.

[phaeton]

my question has always been, What would happen if you and your band went into a studio, and requested the mixdown process to *not* use any of these "modern" tactics in the mixdown process? In otherwords, use decent mikes and analogue effects, but for the most part burn everything to a tape (as opposed to a digital medium) and use some fairly passive eq'ing and cross-fading. No noise suppressors, compressor/limiter, autotune (gasp), or any other major tone doctoring? Just let it rip like in the olden days. If the vocal tracks distort slightly, that is ok. If you can hear the bass guitar rattling the snare drum, in the intro before the drums start, leave it be. If you can hear a pinch of microphonic squeal when the amp changes channels or if certain notes on the guitar tracks kinda jump out a little more than necessary, or trail off and reveal a small amount of hum.. then well... that's just rock n roll. Would the studio engineer think you were nuts? IMHO, (and my opinion may not be what is popular) the *noise* that ends up on a recording, is just as much a part of the music as the music itself.