"What's the difference between him and you? he's got a team of expert sound designers,engineers, and years of personal experience in music to make his sounds pop. (also about 5 bank accounts 3 ounces, and 2 vehicles)"Are you a gear addict? Do you drool over the idea of that new gear smell, be it from opening that box of software and seeing that shiny new CD Rom or setting up that drum machine? Do you love that feeling you get when you walk out of Guitar Center with that big ol box? That’s great, but what do you do to master your gear for creative and work flow purposes?
We producers, gear enthusiast and (nothing wrong with this word), hobbyist often harp on the flaws and follies of music production equipment companies. Most of these mishaps fall into some combination of not listening to their core consumers or corporate greed and we let them have it for their mistakes. We fly to the nearest computer to log in to our forum accounts to what ever site has users of similar products and we rail them for screw ups and oversight.
“this program isn’t 64 bit! What is wrong with these people!? Its 2011!”
or
“why can’t I sync this up to my [enter obscure obsolete midi board here]!? This program sucks!”
[Now before I go any further I wanna say that my last post caught a lot of heat from people thinking I was coming from a high and mighty state as if I was Moses passing down the word of god. That’s not the case. These entries are as much a referendum on me (if not more so) than anything else. Just a datalog of stuff I have learned, am learning, or have come to mind through my experience doing this music thing, usually written in a moment of rare downtime. ]
As all you who read this may or may not know, I am a hip hop producer. As any old school hip hop producer will tell you, the art form was created entirely off of instruments that were not made for it. Think about it, our main weapon of choice for live performance is a combination of two record players, our main focus in most tracks is the drums but most hip hop producers do not own or record drums in a studio (and most of them wouldn’t really know what to do with a drum set). That’s not a testament to how “real” of a traditional musician they are, but a statement to how genius they were. Sometimes limitation can make you do some truly creative stuff. Which is why the current state can be so confusing. In 2011 we hip hop heads have been given an almost limitless number of options when it comes to making music from powerful drum machines and workstations, to readily affordable and customizable software synthesizers and samplers. Yet rather than simply take us to a new level of hip hop music (the overall production for hip hop music has improved noticeably from the last 10 – 15 years) It has also had the nasty side effect of giving us GADD.
GADD is a condition known as “Gear Attention Deficit Disorder” that I just made up. It affects 1 in every 3 producers and can have some serious consequences if not put in check immediately. I am speaking about the dangers of GADD because I am a former sufferer of the dreaded condition. As we speak, I currently am the reluctant owner of
n Propellerhead Reason 4
n IK Multimedia Sampletank 2.5
n The entire Komplete 6 lineup
n EastWest QL Goliath
n Omnisphere
n Pro Tools 8
n Logic Pro 8
Something seem wrong about that? For those of you familiar with these products there are some serious issues of redundancy in that gear list. Reason, sampletank, and kontakt 4 and battery 3 (the last two of Komplete 6) all either have or are in fact themselves samplers all capable of doing (through varying processes) of the exact same thing. Absynth 4, Massive, Fm8, Omnisphere, and components in Reason again all either have or are themselves synthesizers who once again, are capable of doing (through varying processes) the exact same thing. Pro tools and Logic are both sequencers capable of- well you get the point by now.
The key word here is CAPABLE, and the problem is when I bought all of these programs the thought of capability never ran across my mind. Lets take a second and be honest here (you don’t even have to admit to this but just think it to yourself, no one will know). Do we really hear the capabilities that these programmers ramble off at NAMM conventions and factor them in to how they will fit your workflow and set up, or are they just cool things to, in turn ramble off to people when your explaining your purchase? The truth is a lot of us (not all but more than will care to admit in mixed company) don’t base our decisions to act on gear lust off of sound things like workflow and functionality. Were not really listening to Eric Persing talk about Omnisphere’s 10 possible oscillators, were too busy looking at him go through those beautiful leads and do cool things with them. That’s why when you pay the $479 and bring it home you’re surprised that it’s full of pads and phsycoacoustics. Then you go on Gearslutz.com and whine about how bad of a product it is. It’s not a bad product, you just weren’t paying attention. It’s soundest is geared towards television and film composers. Persing mentioned that somewhere in between talking about the LFO’s and the Multi-channel features but you were too busy drooling when he was playing the “Most Frequencies Known” patch.
The idea of having gear at your fingertips like today has made the idea of sitting down to learn/customize your product almost an alien aspect. My older brother used to own a Korg M1 and could damn near control that thing with telekinesis he was so one with it. If it was in California and he was in New York and it got a scratch he would probably feel it like those GI JOE twin villains. I myself on the other hand took a month to figure out how to make a synth on Absynth sound gated because I was too busy going through the THOUSANDS of patches in the other 4 – 5 soft synths that I own (thousands is not an exaggerated number). There’s nothing wrong at all with having kabillions of sounds at your disposal, but the problem comes in with the next keyword I keep mentioning; WORKFLOW.
Someone mentioned once that it isn’t really helpful from a time saving aspect to have to spend all day making synth sounds when you could just find a patch to fit your needs. Likewise it is just as overly time consumptive to swim through a sea of presets to find said patch. Which is what a lot of this game has become, combined with a little bit of eye candy and “new car smell” it is literally a constant chase to get the latest gear. Years ago, when workstations were the main god of production, a company had to come out with significant improvements or changes (depending on how a consumer perceived the alterations) to their product in order to make someone physically go out and purchase the new machine, carry it home and hook it up all the while discarding the old one. The act of physically performing this task gave it a real feel of change, an authentic upgrade. Just look at the list of changes and upgrades (or downgrades again depending on your perception) with the line of Akai MPCs. Within a span of 20 years you went from the MPC 60 (a stable, cutting edge but by today’s standards vastly underpowered instrument) to the MPC 5000 (capable of everything for midi in/out to an onboard synth). These were significant changes that can vastly alter a producer’s workflow and people needed to make measured decisions on whether or not to implement them into their setup. The change from one program to another now days can be something as large as a complete setup over hall but usually consists of nothing more than putting a new hat on Malibu Stacey. To be clear I am not saying we need to go back to the old days and take away certain benefits of today’s gear, I totally understand and fully condone updating and evolving for the sake of improvements but lets face it, there is a lot of both perceived and designed obsolescence in this game and its (mostly) our own faults.
“what’s that? You still rocking that old fruity loops? Why don’t you upgrade [for $$] its got a new colored sequencer!”
We (the consumers) often demand new products that contain bevy of new features but we hardly demand any kind of training on these very products, we hardly even seek it out when it IS there readily available. We often use the products for their face value purpose (plug and play) and rather than dig deeper to see the full extent of its capabilities, we just wait for a new product to come along that does it easier.
"Komplete 7! if you don't know what your doing with it, it will serve as the perfect desktop paperweight until the arrival of Komplete 8!"
“I don’t feel like mixing and eq’ing these drums and adding effects to them to make them pop in this battery 3, I’LL JUST GO GET MASCHINE!”
I said “mostly” our faults because it is also the fault of business the way the markets are set up. Due to their low price and numerous variety, the soft synth market has become the ultimate impulse buy weapon of choice for pro audio stores, the virtual “candy bar section by the check out stand” of the guitar centers of the world. Just look at literally where they are placed in most Pro Audio stores; the equivalent of the same spot that a snickers bar would be at a Wal-mart.
“Thank you for your purchase of those expensive speakers sir, would you like to throw in a copy of Eastwest symphonic choir for only $500?”
“Sure why not! It’s not like im paying $3000 for a Fantom or anything!”
The set up is not designed to let you see how they (or more importantly if) they work with your workflow, it’s made to appear as a harmless tack on purchase. A toy you can tink around with and find some nice sounds. If you find something you like great, if not, screw it! what’s a few hundred dollars to a big time producer like you?
Except you aren’t a big time producer, in fact, in many cases you’re a regular guy/gal that earns a majority of their money through a day job and probably cant just shrug of a combined number of 3 – 5 hundred dollar purchases. To be fair, many of these companies offer a free downloadable limited version of their products for testing but again, do any of us use them beyond “hey these are some good sounds, time to make a trip to the store!” I agree with the save function being disabled (you’d just have a free copy of the program if they didn’t do that) but sadly many of these are timed to settings as low as 15 – 20 minutes which doesn’t really give you a chance to get a feel for the product in your work flow, to really take it apart and get in tune with it. You can go to any local pro audio store and sit in front of a Korg M3 for hours getting acquainted before anyone would walk up and say anything to you. Many a times the computer at that same store that is supposed to house all the programs isn’t even hooked up.
This isn’t really about the store however, this is about you, this is about us. If you truly want to get out of the costly prison that is GADD then the only thing to do is discipline yourself. Stop rewarding your own bad behavior (of preset surfing) by buying new products for a “fix”. Do some of the following things.
n If you have multiple programs, take one month to really discover it. Learn its capabilities and study how to do them through trial and error.
n Focus on learning the basic principles (through books) of what your plug in is rather than trying to learn just the plug in. if you bought a fancy new waves bundle compressor collection, read up on the basic principles of compression. This will help you tremendously not just with the waves bundle but with ALL compressors.
n A lot of times we grab these products and instantly throw them in to our arsenal because we need beats made like YESTERDAY. Instead, try taking the time out to go through ALL the tutorials on your product. Really take a day away from beat making and focus on watching tutorials for that product. Resist the urge of opening your sequencer and making something and just watch…. Breath deep.
n Take one of your products and write down a list of stuff you’d like to be able to do with it in your production process. Do you have a synth and you’d like to be able to make gated sounds but aren’t sure how? Sit down and discover by videos and tutorials and keep making gated sounds until you’ve mastered it.
n The next time you think your program can’t do something or can’t do it as well as some shiny new product can, go online and look up “your product” + “famous producer making beat with it” and see what happens. I used to hate Reason and think it was kids stuff, until I saw What DJ TOOMP did with it.
Lastly I just want to make it clear that this wasn’t a cry fest or an effort to lecture anyone, just to point out that there is one place that you never look to find that perfect program that will always give you the perfect sound, perfect pitch. It is a program that is always updated and working at highest capacity with absolutely zero latency, and that program is your own mind (god that sounded like Bruce Leroy’s Kung Fu master in The Last Dragon).
Stay Thirsty My Friends.
MY REASONING: Lets be honest, the Mixtape is becoming the poor artist album. with many of these artist reaching out to a different kind of music consumer (i.e. women) they are reaching people with different taste then the average rap fan. Recently Chris Brown rereleased a mixtape sans dj's after much complaining from his dominantly female fanbase. Furthermore, mixtapes are becoming less about building a buzz by showing off your skills as an emcee and more about building a buzz by promoting a possible strong single that could make it on the album. Wiz Khalifa's hit single "black and yellow" was all over the radio in 2010/2011 but few casual listeners will remember it started on a mixtape when it more than likely ends up on his upcoming album (it will be dead by then but it had a run that will definently help propel his album sales). The same can be said for Rick Ross and his mixtape anthem Blowing Money Fast. when your goal is to get people to hear a single as clearly as possible, the last thing you want is for them to hear a bastardized version of this single at the hands of some dj that wants to scream on the track or "bring it back" in the middle of the song. 
