More on Production: Fashion and hearing memory.
Dated versus timeless production.
What should we be aspiring to?? A timeless sound that won’t date or a sound that is more readily identifiable as being culturally ‘current’.
When Steve asked this of us last week, I felt that the most appropriate answer was to say: ‘I seek the timeless sound; I want my productions to still have some currency for future generations’. This approach feels like it’s taking the artistic high road – because it is an approach that says: I am not going to buy into the dominant cultural (read: pop) trends in music.
Now that I’ve had time to reflect, I have concluded that taking either road at the expense of the other seems a little self indulgent. All this ‘high road’ stuff can get pretty boring.
It seems to me that there is always going to be a bit of a trade off involved with these things: the more ‘current’ we choose to sound (ie: the more we buy into the cultural trends of this month) the less timeless our productions will sound.
But: if we go for 100% timelessness, we risk producing things that are musically irrelevant to our potential audience.
Where are my golden ears??
Steve says: the development of your hearing memory will take time. And he then described the things he sees in students, typically: that their hearing memory is underdeveloped, and they consequently spend too much time over-tweaking the sounds they record, not being certain of what things should sound like.
Well, at least I’m normal.
I recorded a female vocalist the other day – beautiful voice, and it really came out well. I ran it through a couple of plug-ins that really enriched her voice nicely. And then I spend 2 hours adding more bits and pieces (mostly playing with EQ and different reverb treatments). Did I make it sound any better? Not really. But I just couldn’t stop myself. It’s like I’ve got some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. I’m so keen to make the vocals sound as good as they can that I’m always complicating the process more than I need to. All I can do is cling to those comforting words of Steve: my hearing memory really will develop over time.
1 comment:
Yes, I totally agree with you about developing of hearing memory and such, it's a bit frustrating right? Haha, I'm sure you don't have OCD, I think it's good you want the best sound you can get. It shows how determined you are!
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