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Originally Posted by numberthirty
Where, exactly, do you get the idea that "MOST..." people like a certain approach to production?
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D.L. said that most like compression and post processing of some kind... and I mean, that's pretty hard to argue against in terms of what listeners want. As evidence, find a popular recording with no processing done, just straight mics to finished recording. Compression and EQ are the bread and butter of mixing. I don't need to do a poll to determine if people like to eat bread.
Admittedly, "what people like" is a subtle thing to determine: do they like it because it is done, or is it done because they like it? But I think anyone with mixing experience will agree that some post processing is generally something that people appreciate with their audio. All D.L. is saying is that it's clear that technology is adding something to the "pure"/traditional experience of audio.
(Setting aside the important point that an unprocessed raw audio recording is in some ways less authentic than one with some light processing, since mics don't hear how we hear, psychoacoustics are thrown off, etc etc.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by numberthirty
As for "Certain Famous Musicians Got Famous Through A Certain Technological Novelty Of Some Sort..."?
Does not compute.
If Hendrix/Floyd/Depeche Mode all had lousy songs? You might have something like a possibility.
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Well, let's not be absolutist -- the idea that technology is an integral part of contemporary music making must be one of the most well supported theses out there... D.L. didn't say Hendrix would be a nobody without his pedals. He was just making the point that the tech aspect can't/shouldn't be ignored (and presumably this is dovetailing with his earlier musings on the subject of why we are drawn to techy sounds.) I disagree with D.L. about the "pre-tech" period -- classical musicians through history were subject to the same dynamic, except that the technology was new kinds of strings, new instrument construction methods, new instruments, new music theory, etc. See e.g. Bach and his well-tempered clavier. Instead of everyone having the same strings, organs, etc, it was more the case that everyone had a different instrument because every local maker made it differently, and they sometimes kept their methods a secret. AFAICT music has always been a combination of your genius, your work ethic, your genetics, and the technology you have available to you. Not to mention your privilege and your luck. So I don't think much has changed recently in that overall sense, but I do agree with D.L. that the tech component of that equation has grown considerably in the last 50ish years, and it's increasingly hard to ignore it, and it does seem like it isn't simply due to the economic incentives pressuring record labels to employ it: it seems like it does press some kind of evolutionary nerve in the human organism.