Dave Grohl on Music @ Grammys

[aramism]

first of all, that thread at gs is a joke. that thread literally contains some of the stupidest people on the planet.

secondly, where was there digital editing on wasting light? where was there vocal tuning?

which retard started this rumor? please fess up, or show some proof.

thirdly, i strongly encourage anyone to go see the foo fighters live and then say they need even 1 bar of editing on a song, including vocal tuning or drum replacement.


it's ok not to like the band as a taste thing, but to knock and say they are misleading with what they claim about the recording of their album it was completely asnine.

DG never said we recorded this on a fostex 4 track. it was recorded in his garage, in an acoustically untreated room, with an api console and tape machines. it was also mixed there. all to analog tape, no pro tools. the record even sounds like it was recorded in a garage. so what is the problem?


his message is totally lost. being guilty of it (as well as all of you) from a production standpoint, no bands can play. period. very very few can. without the help of digital editing half of the music out there would not exist.

and even with the help of pro tools and melodyne, it still sucks.

foo fighters carry the flag for the traditional method of doing things. they can play perfectly live (and sound better live too) and are capable of recording an album the old school way.

 

[aramism]

When you make it a point to champion the qualities of analogue recording approaches, and start talking about what's 'real', perhaps it's best to actually follow through.

oh you mean like this?

 

[aramism]

or maybe like this?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GBXqWO7JR0&feature=related[/ame]

or this?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFaIRGUFhAM&feature=related[/ame]

or this?



you don't have to like the music but he talks the talk and walks the walk.

 

[Lon]

i really hate what they did with my hero live, missing the pure awesome introbeat and the wierd fillins, but DAMN the energy transcended even through the laptop..

 

[Harry Hughes]

I don't believe I heard enough rock releases last year to make an absolute judgment call like that, but at the very least the Red album was hands down better, from my perspective.

Hearing so many champion it as the rock release of 2011 also made me realize that our expectations for music have really gone down hill in recent times.

Personally I also enjoy Until We Have Faces more than Wasting Light, but come on now, that post I quoted last makes it sound as if it's unreasonable that people can just like what THEY like.
Maybe I could somewhat agree if it were some ultra terrible dance-pop artist that can't sing and write their own songs for shit, but (while I'm much more into their 90's releases) the FF are a very talented band that do their particular thing pretty well I think and they definitely have some of my favorite albums in the alternative rock genre.

Two different genres anyway. Red is an alternative metal band, more similar-ish to bands like Chevelle and Deftones and FF is just straight up alternative rock band.
Not everyone even likes metal and alternative metal, so again, I think it's pretty reasonable that some people are going to prefer Wasting Light

 

[Ermz]

oh you mean like this?

I'm not implying that they can't play together as a band. On the flipside, you could also get an array of footage from 'fake' rock bands, like Nickelback, showing they can perform their own material equally well, despite choosing to have records that sound good... I mean, not 'real'.

The thing I don't get here is the huge disparity between what's been said, and the actual approach to recording Wasting Light.

The monitors they used alone cost about as much as many low-mid level guys' whole array of gear. Include the tape machine & the desk alone, without any of the outboard gear and.... yeah. On the documentary you can also see some makeshift acoustic treatment in the vocal booth, and oddly enough... a guy splicing tape at one point...

So, you have one of the foremost producers in the world booked to do a record, with some very costly machines. You don't actually track it live, but rather overdub the entire thing. Since it's in your mansion, you have virtually unlimited time to cut this record, so all the usual restraints that apply to bands, forcing them to push through and 'edit' sections rather than getting parts right off the bat don't apply to you.

And let's be honest with ourselves - it's rock music. We're not talking about technical death metal here. So long as you're in the pocket & capture the vibe, that's really all that counts.

It's an extremely convenient situation to wax poetic from, but it doesn't reflect the entire truth of the matter.

Dave's a smart guy. If I were in his position, this would be marketing 101. He can see the trends that are developing in the industry, and in order to capitalize upon them and shine the spotlight down on his own band for another 3 years, he takes it against the grain, keeping this rebellious spirit which is so endemic to rock music. His virtual 'fuck you' to his peers at the Grammys was a testament to that. This whole thing is just posturing & promo.

I'm just baffled that guys who record bands in the real world for a living don't see the disparity here. Surely, we all see how those circumstances don't relate to over 99% of bands? My own setup which I record 'fake' music from is way more ghetto than what they had in Dave's garage. My room is way smaller, and I have way less gear. What does that imply? Because I'm more economical and actually want bands to scrape through with a real-world budget, somehow the music we make is irrelevant, or unreal, or not keeping with the spirit of some rich dude's idealized version of what rock music was 2 decades ago?

Re: the Red album being more metal than anything, I guess I'm just out of touch. When I was playing Fleshgod Apocalypse alongside 'Until We Have Faces', I didn't hear much commonality, but hey...

 

[aramism]

yeah look i hear what you are saying. but keep some things in mind.

a) nickelback isn't "fake" music, because as we've seen, they can really play. but there are so many bands you see live (myself included) and you are like, "i can't believe this is the same band on the record"

b) i think many people are looking too much into his message. he was simply trying to point out that as an industry, everyone has lost their grip on the basics and fundamentals of music.

c) according to all the naysayers, for him to NOT be a hypocrite, and to have "street cred" he has to record in his mothers bedroom, with an mbox, a few sm57s and track the whole band at once in his brothers bedroom next room over??

c'mon give me a break. they never said "we made a record on a shoestring budget" they jsut said we recorded this without the aide of digital technology, and recorded it at my garage. so what if acoustic gobos and other things were used??

so where is the disparity? all they've said is that it was tracked 100% to analog tape with no digital editing or pro tools.

someone name me ONE thing that they have lied or mislead about? people are attaching their own convictions and or interpretations onto their whole message that they are trying to project from this record. that is your problem, not theirs.

d) the underlying message here, and why i was happy to hear what he said and wish more people would take it to heart is that it is possible for a band to make a successful recording without the aide of digital technology for their performance. there is a much higher percentage of bands and artists both that attempt and actually make it, that cannot really play. 8/10 singers i work with or talk to rely on pitch correction, it's pretty much a norm for drummers to depend on beat detective. a lot of this is due to the handicap that is given to bands that rely on it. i've tracked a handful of bands that can really play and do so live at once, or in bunches, or even if its with overdubs, still done naturally. much more enjoyable and awesome.

there will always be technology in art, and certainly some genres of music depend on manipulation to get their art, so that's one thing. but many organic forms of music are way too synthetic now, and that kills the life, and results in piss poor products.

 

[Williamn]

Meh, while i can follow the point he makes I still dont really care.
Dont really get the facination with doing it old school back to the roots style, its like some people forget that you can still make a shit record even when its analog as fuck.

I mean its cool to do it, but it does not put you above people using a more "fake" modern approach.

Tbh If a album sounds good and the music is great then I could not care less if it have been tracked note by note and edited to hell and back.

The end result is what I care about, not the way to it.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

someone name me ONE thing that they have lied or mislead about? people are attaching their own convictions and or interpretations onto their whole message that they are trying to project from this record. that is your problem, not theirs.

This. The price of Grohl's monitors has fuck all to do with any of this.

 

[pifos_2]

I'm not implying that they can't play together as a band. On the flipside, you could also get an array of footage from 'fake' rock bands, like Nickelback, showing they can perform their own material equally well, despite choosing to have records that sound good... I mean, not 'real'.

The thing I don't get here is the huge disparity between what's been said, and the actual approach to recording Wasting Light.

The monitors they used alone cost about as much as many low-mid level guys' whole array of gear. Include the tape machine & the desk alone, without any of the outboard gear and.... yeah. On the documentary you can also see some makeshift acoustic treatment in the vocal booth, and oddly enough... a guy splicing tape at one point...

So, you have one of the foremost producers in the world booked to do a record, with some very costly machines. You don't actually track it live, but rather overdub the entire thing. Since it's in your mansion, you have virtually unlimited time to cut this record, so all the usual restraints that apply to bands, forcing them to push through and 'edit' sections rather than getting parts right off the bat don't apply to you.

And let's be honest with ourselves - it's rock music. We're not talking about technical death metal here. So long as you're in the pocket & capture the vibe, that's really all that counts.

It's an extremely convenient situation to wax poetic from, but it doesn't reflect the entire truth of the matter.

Dave's a smart guy. If I were in his position, this would be marketing 101. He can see the trends that are developing in the industry, and in order to capitalize upon them and shine the spotlight down on his own band for another 3 years, he takes it against the grain, keeping this rebellious spirit which is so endemic to rock music. His virtual 'fuck you' to his peers at the Grammys was a testament to that. This whole thing is just posturing & promo.

I'm just baffled that guys who record bands in the real world for a living don't see the disparity here. Surely, we all see how those circumstances don't relate to over 99% of bands? My own setup which I record 'fake' music from is way more ghetto than what they had in Dave's garage. My room is way smaller, and I have way less gear. What does that imply? Because I'm more economical and actually want bands to scrape through with a real-world budget, somehow the music we make is irrelevant, or unreal, or not keeping with the spirit of some rich dude's idealized version of what rock music was 2 decades ago?

Re: the Red album being more metal than anything, I guess I'm just out of touch. When I was playing Fleshgod Apocalypse alongside 'Until We Have Faces', I didn't hear much commonality, but hey...

truth!

 

[neverpurify]

I agree with Ermz.

I don't care if someone records to tape in their garage with only instruments from the 1950's using no effects or computers, or if someone writes and records a song entirely on an iPad. if the song is good it doesn't matter to me. I either like it or I don't and I don't base my opinion on what they went through to record the song. who gives a fuck? music is music. if people like it then it matters, even if only to a handful of people or even just one person. most people that listen to music don't even think about how it was recorded or what effects were used etc.

it's like saying I don't want the new technologically advanced laproscopic surgery, I want you to split me open and operate on me for hours the old school way. :Smug:

stop any regular person on the street and let them listen to the last FF album and they will probably tell you that it sounds just like all of their other albums.

 

[aramism]

most people are missing the point. so badly. it has nothing to do with the equipment. it has to do with people, especially in the commercial industry with true musicianship. being able to play your instrument, singing, playing as a group, solo, whatever.

recording the "old school" way, while not being 100%, is a pretty good litmus test for bands and artists to actually play their parts and be on point.




and for those of you saying it sounds just like their others albums, that's kind of the point also. their previous album was recorded in their gigantic commercial studio in la.

 

[RemoWilliams]

I'm inclined to think that Ermz liked the latest Red album more because of the Ben Grosse element....and I get the vibe that he probably isn't too keen on the Foo Fighters in the first place

 

[Ermz]

I don't get what about punching in and then splicing tape until it sounds right is so 'old school', or even deviant from how many people work today. We do the same thing with many digital projects. The secret ingredient is to stop fucking with it after it's tracked.

It's not like we're talking about 1930's era vintage female multi-harmony groups, where you either cut the song on the spot as an ensemble, in perfect pitch all the way through, or you were done. It really depends how far back you want to follow the rabbit hole. The baroque and classical composers of old would make just about any rock musician, no matter how 'real', look like a deep-sea retard.

My issue is... I don't get the point of making this a discussion beyond the obvious fact that it's pandering and showboating to attract attention to the record. I was hoping people would see it as such and leave it there. We all know (I hope) that moderation in anything is key. Making the most of all the tools at one's disposal, and just making the best record one can, through whichever means best achieve it. Not editing to the point of sterilization, nor being 'pure' just for the sake of making some asinine point.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I don't get what about punching in and then splicing tape until it sounds right is so 'old school', or even deviant from how many people work today. We do the same thing with many digital projects. The secret ingredient is to stop fucking with it after it's tracked.

I don't think anyone is even arguing about this...?

 

[SocialNumb]

Screw you purest. Some of my favorite music is all computer and simply can't be played live on an instrument. Unless you count triggering sequences "live playing".

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I honestly don't understand what half of you are even talking about in this context

 

[Ermz]

I don't either. I think I lost myself somewhere around where Red became a metal band!

 

[Skinny Viking]

The baroque and classical composers of old would make just about any rock musician, no matter how 'real', look like a deep-sea retard.

this just fuckin floored me

"deep-sea retard" ... I don't even know what that actually means but I love it

 

[Nuno Filipe]

This sounds very metal to me. It´s true that the album has more soft moments but still sounds very metal, not the typical rock compositions even for modern rock and it sounds much more generic the way the riffs are flowing than the new FF album. And ofcourse its really downtuned for modern rock but this is my opinion. But still love some moments of new red album.