I just need to let this out... Totally pissed right now. There is no real end to this, I almost could write a book about this.
I was talking with this one guy in the bar about few months ago and we talked about why his band doesn't get a record deal. As you can guess, pointless rambling between two drunken guys. But I got a really big flashback about this when I was listening to the clips we recorded in the studio with this band in the summer. When I listened to the results, I know I got a decent sounding record, but I wasn't totally satisfied, because I know that I could've gotten better results if they were better as musicians or the songs were better (they had constant changes in tempo and timesignature etc).
In the end it was pretty much just like recording and polishing a turd. Okay, art is art etc, but the point was that the band wanted to get a record deal. I gave it a serious thought and I came to a conclusion that the band will most like won't get a deal with this record and they will suck live if they perform this material. Not badly, but after witnessing and mixing a few of their gigs I would say that they are not even at semi-professional level.
After working tightly in the live venues with real professional musicians (talking about like +30 years musicianship behind them), I have noticed that the main difference between amateurs and professionals is that the amateurs make or choose too hard songs for themselves to perform. Their skills are just below par compared to the skills required by the music (I would count Lars Ulrich in this category too). Let me demonstrate this with a simple picture:
How difficult the song is or what the actual skill level of the player is, is irrelevant, but this is the reason why the bands spent so fucking much time in the eighties in the studio making records; The musicians skill level wasn't enough for the songs and there was no beatdetective or autotune to save your ass from bad musicianship and editing was a real pain in the ass to do.
Let's take the Finnish lovemetal band HIM as the example. The drummer Mika "Kaasu" Karppinen started playing drums has played actively atleast since 1990 in bands, including a grindcoreband called To Separate the Flesh from the Bones with blastbeats etc:
But what does he play in HIM? Basic beat.
The point is that professionals make it sound like they know their shit by playing songs that are clearly below their skill level and this guarantees that they can deliver and nail their songmaterial flawlessly in one take or atleast very near that. For example I heard from the producer Hiili Hiilesmaa that he didn't use beatdetective on the HIM records for the drums because Kaasu knows his thing. Making easier music is the most easiest way to make a guarantee that you won't fuck up when you need to perform it.
But the young dudes coming to the studio for the first few times don't understand that the if the band wants a record deal and wants to attract major audience, they usually need to be able to perform their songs live on the same level as they sound on the record.
And the other thing that they don't understand 98% of "the normal people" are really unmusical, are unable to play any instrument, only focus to the vocals (this is a fact, I read the scientific study about it somewhere but can't find it atm, sorry) and usually get really confused unless the beat is constant and in 4/4 timesignature.
Metalmusic is a real exception in the bunch because it's not usually targeted forward the major audience because it is the extreme form of music because in general it is really hard because you combine speed with complex songs and making the songs easier to play is really hard because then they kinda loose the feel of the genre.
But there is something for you to think... I'll head to bed now.
I was talking with this one guy in the bar about few months ago and we talked about why his band doesn't get a record deal. As you can guess, pointless rambling between two drunken guys. But I got a really big flashback about this when I was listening to the clips we recorded in the studio with this band in the summer. When I listened to the results, I know I got a decent sounding record, but I wasn't totally satisfied, because I know that I could've gotten better results if they were better as musicians or the songs were better (they had constant changes in tempo and timesignature etc).
In the end it was pretty much just like recording and polishing a turd. Okay, art is art etc, but the point was that the band wanted to get a record deal. I gave it a serious thought and I came to a conclusion that the band will most like won't get a deal with this record and they will suck live if they perform this material. Not badly, but after witnessing and mixing a few of their gigs I would say that they are not even at semi-professional level.
After working tightly in the live venues with real professional musicians (talking about like +30 years musicianship behind them), I have noticed that the main difference between amateurs and professionals is that the amateurs make or choose too hard songs for themselves to perform. Their skills are just below par compared to the skills required by the music (I would count Lars Ulrich in this category too). Let me demonstrate this with a simple picture:
How difficult the song is or what the actual skill level of the player is, is irrelevant, but this is the reason why the bands spent so fucking much time in the eighties in the studio making records; The musicians skill level wasn't enough for the songs and there was no beatdetective or autotune to save your ass from bad musicianship and editing was a real pain in the ass to do.
Let's take the Finnish lovemetal band HIM as the example. The drummer Mika "Kaasu" Karppinen started playing drums has played actively atleast since 1990 in bands, including a grindcoreband called To Separate the Flesh from the Bones with blastbeats etc:
But what does he play in HIM? Basic beat.
The point is that professionals make it sound like they know their shit by playing songs that are clearly below their skill level and this guarantees that they can deliver and nail their songmaterial flawlessly in one take or atleast very near that. For example I heard from the producer Hiili Hiilesmaa that he didn't use beatdetective on the HIM records for the drums because Kaasu knows his thing. Making easier music is the most easiest way to make a guarantee that you won't fuck up when you need to perform it.
But the young dudes coming to the studio for the first few times don't understand that the if the band wants a record deal and wants to attract major audience, they usually need to be able to perform their songs live on the same level as they sound on the record.
And the other thing that they don't understand 98% of "the normal people" are really unmusical, are unable to play any instrument, only focus to the vocals (this is a fact, I read the scientific study about it somewhere but can't find it atm, sorry) and usually get really confused unless the beat is constant and in 4/4 timesignature.
Metalmusic is a real exception in the bunch because it's not usually targeted forward the major audience because it is the extreme form of music because in general it is really hard because you combine speed with complex songs and making the songs easier to play is really hard because then they kinda loose the feel of the genre.
But there is something for you to think... I'll head to bed now.
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