Dave Grohl on Music @ Grammys
- Thread starter fatalforce
- Start date
Skinny Viking
¯\(°_o)/¯ How do Lydian?
Donovan S.
Member
I wouldn't even say that Wasting Light is a good representation of analog recording. There are albums recorded digitally that sound more analog than that album. Just my opinion though.
Besides that point, who cares how it was recorded?
Besides that point, who cares how it was recorded?
Ah! This got out of control. Grohl wasn't showboating that he recorded in his basement, he was preaching about actually playing your instrument and allowing a true representation of music to be captured. He was trying to make a point that you don't need edit/tune everything to make a 5 grammy award winning record. Of course, this is entirely dependent on the style of music.
Jarkko Mattheiszen
The FU guy.
This statement is a good example of why using the word analog to describe a tonal quality of sound can be a bit hazardous. People often have a strong vision of analog as an adjective without realizing analog equipment doesn't necessarily sound... well, lush, warm, soft, round, glued, whatever. Digitally recorded and processed albums that sound more analog than albums that are actually made with analog gear is an oxymoron.
LeSedna
Mat or Mateo
I'm listening now to this album, regardless of how it was done or whatever, how did this win a grammy ? I honestly don't think it's great at all, any of these songs is like all the rock songs we have all heard 100 times. None of them is shining through either nor will stay in my head. I have been impressed by (very) few songs in the past (The Pretender is one of my favourite modern songs ever and has such an energy), but this album... ?
Sorry if I'm so OT in the thread, I'm actually puzzled !
To get back more on topic : it's absolutely not to criticize their music itself cause I also like simple music or simple riffs, but 95% of the riffs in the album are very very very easy, with occasional riffs that would sound bad if not really tight, but really nothing major at all. Drums are very basic, maybe even more than the guitar riffs, too. If you have more than a few weeks to record that, this is the minimum one could expect from professionals !
Sorry if I'm so OT in the thread, I'm actually puzzled !
To get back more on topic : it's absolutely not to criticize their music itself cause I also like simple music or simple riffs, but 95% of the riffs in the album are very very very easy, with occasional riffs that would sound bad if not really tight, but really nothing major at all. Drums are very basic, maybe even more than the guitar riffs, too. If you have more than a few weeks to record that, this is the minimum one could expect from professionals !
Melb_shredder
Orpheus: Melodic Death
Sorry dude, I personally think you're missing the point... If they had recorded the whole album in pro tools etc, and took the same approach no one would've battered an eye lid. You could hVe achieved the same 'natural back to the roots style' in pro tools by just playing well and not using auto tunin or whatever else...
The thing is, if you have followed the foo fighters at all as I have, you'll see Dave has put a LOT of emphasis on HOW this album was recorded from a technology perspective.
Maybe the analogue old school gear/ tape is the laymens way of putting across, 'we played tight'... But again, the same effect could have been achieved WITH new technology.
He could have pushed the same thing across by saying, 'WE PLAYED
TIGHT and DIDT edit despite the choice', we didn't use auto tune etc. But it's almost implicit that by using the garage gear that they somehow achieved something you couldn't do otherwise...
aramism
Member
by missing the point i mean his point was less about the garage and the recording as it was the fact that music comes from the players and the heart. people have seriously forgotten that on a whole. he's not advocating for everyone to start recording DIY in their garage. rather it's an outcry for bands and artists to focus on their craft so that if they had to, they could record in a garage to tape. "garage to tape" being a figurative litmus test for bands that cannot rely on modern technologies which serve as crutches to compensate for lack of musicianship or practice. the recording gear is irrelevant in this equation. you guys would be right to bash them if he was like "we recorded in a garage and still have a hifi sounding record" then you could say, yeah, having butch vid, alan moulder, and an api board will help" but he's not making claims of quality of sound, rather quality of performance and songs. 9/10 bands out there could not sound as good recording in dave's home studio as they could at NRG in hollywood. FACT. THAT IS THE POINT.
aramism
Member
as an auxiliary statement to the one i just made, i posted this on GS and thought it summed up what i'm trying to say better so i'll share it on here:
this is the bottom line as far as i'm concerned. my studio works on average 10-20 bands a year between recording and mixing. i speak for a lot of people when i say the following: the vast majority of those bands cannot play their songs in a "no safety net" setting and the vocalists cannot (even with countless hours spent) properly sing their parts and they cannot after 5 attempts start crying and begging for melodyne. out of personal principle i often would spend hours and hours bordering fighting these people to play their parts. FYI the music is not extremely difficult, and i'm leaving out all the death metal bands i've worked with and limiting to standard pop/rock etc. it gets to a point where your studio owner/producer/engineer has to eventually defeat your heart and cave in and adjust your workflow to "yeah we can edit that" or "sure i can quantize that fill" or "good vibe but a little pitchy, i'll take care of it" or sometimes just flat out redoing guitar parts during mixing on my own.
i have no issue with using computers, and don't wish to convert my studio to a garage with a tape machine.
in my opinion at least, dave's message speaks directly to my aforementioned convictions about the state of the music business. putting aside the smaller bands i work with, or many on here, this is a problem that exists even with the biggest bands. i'm sure guys here that work on commercial records or top tier studios can attest to this, even without admitting it publicly. so DG isn't arguing people's claims that "you can make a good record on pro tools too tracked live" yes no shit! but if i was to erase logic from my mac, buy a tape deck, and a small console (not even api, say a soundcraft) and make that the heart of my studio and take away tools that have been essential in the production process for 99% of you (pitch correction, drum quantizing) i promise you my business would totally fail as it stands now because no bands could ever get through a whole project and get a final product that sounded professional.
if you take the majority of rock bands on major labels, and put them in DG home studio, even with the api, butch vid, and alan moulder, they could not sound as good from a performance level (forget sound, and api, and neve, and mastering compression for a minute) on that album as they would on albums tracked at NRG or blackbird.
the FF have tracked at a huge commercial studio, and at a smaller studio fully to tape. i'd say the level of musicianship is the exact same. if anything, wasting light sounds much more earnest and rocks more than anything they have ever done.
THAT IS THE POINT.
everyone please stop talking about how dave is saying pro tools should disappear, or you don't like dave or FF personally, or the mastering was limited. i don't think he would sit there and argue with you for you to like his music, like the level of mastering compression, that pro tools sucks, the sound of the guitars, or that he recorded on on mbox. i'm pretty sure he just wants people to play their instruments better as that is the most important factor in music. the rest is icing on the cake and i'm sure is welcomed to use an ssl, pro tools, big studio, small studio, whatever. the rest are all arguments you've made up in your heads that have nothing to do with the core of what he is saying.
this is the bottom line as far as i'm concerned. my studio works on average 10-20 bands a year between recording and mixing. i speak for a lot of people when i say the following: the vast majority of those bands cannot play their songs in a "no safety net" setting and the vocalists cannot (even with countless hours spent) properly sing their parts and they cannot after 5 attempts start crying and begging for melodyne. out of personal principle i often would spend hours and hours bordering fighting these people to play their parts. FYI the music is not extremely difficult, and i'm leaving out all the death metal bands i've worked with and limiting to standard pop/rock etc. it gets to a point where your studio owner/producer/engineer has to eventually defeat your heart and cave in and adjust your workflow to "yeah we can edit that" or "sure i can quantize that fill" or "good vibe but a little pitchy, i'll take care of it" or sometimes just flat out redoing guitar parts during mixing on my own.
i have no issue with using computers, and don't wish to convert my studio to a garage with a tape machine.
in my opinion at least, dave's message speaks directly to my aforementioned convictions about the state of the music business. putting aside the smaller bands i work with, or many on here, this is a problem that exists even with the biggest bands. i'm sure guys here that work on commercial records or top tier studios can attest to this, even without admitting it publicly. so DG isn't arguing people's claims that "you can make a good record on pro tools too tracked live" yes no shit! but if i was to erase logic from my mac, buy a tape deck, and a small console (not even api, say a soundcraft) and make that the heart of my studio and take away tools that have been essential in the production process for 99% of you (pitch correction, drum quantizing) i promise you my business would totally fail as it stands now because no bands could ever get through a whole project and get a final product that sounded professional.
if you take the majority of rock bands on major labels, and put them in DG home studio, even with the api, butch vid, and alan moulder, they could not sound as good from a performance level (forget sound, and api, and neve, and mastering compression for a minute) on that album as they would on albums tracked at NRG or blackbird.
the FF have tracked at a huge commercial studio, and at a smaller studio fully to tape. i'd say the level of musicianship is the exact same. if anything, wasting light sounds much more earnest and rocks more than anything they have ever done.
THAT IS THE POINT.
everyone please stop talking about how dave is saying pro tools should disappear, or you don't like dave or FF personally, or the mastering was limited. i don't think he would sit there and argue with you for you to like his music, like the level of mastering compression, that pro tools sucks, the sound of the guitars, or that he recorded on on mbox. i'm pretty sure he just wants people to play their instruments better as that is the most important factor in music. the rest is icing on the cake and i'm sure is welcomed to use an ssl, pro tools, big studio, small studio, whatever. the rest are all arguments you've made up in your heads that have nothing to do with the core of what he is saying.
Melb_shredder
Orpheus: Melodic Death
No doubt dude, I agree that might be his actual meaning, so I agree with you, but again, as a fan, I've followed lots and lots of interviews both in mags and online that give a different impression. I'm just saying the end goal might be his current contention, but the road to it was alluding to a different ending, that's all...
You are not alone. I bought the Echoes album sometime ago and felt it was pretty good. Had at least 3-4 solid songs, catchy ones, nice production.
I didn't even know about this new album until a few months ago and when I went on their site to listen to the samples I was extremely disappointed.
Granted the single is nice and all but all the other songs were meh imo. And the single even sounds like an old song of theirs so it's not even groundbreaking or anything like that.
So needless to say I also am surprised they won a Grammy.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
professorlamp
I are Joe
neverpurify
Member
- May 24, 2004
- 529
- 0
- 16
his tolerance for alcohol is weak. seriously though, I don't always give a shit whether or not the music I am listening to sounds like a human and he obviously doesn't either. pandering, like ERMZ said earlier.
pikachu69
mixomatic 2000
I cant help but get the feeling (I dont know for sure, of course) that the people that are saying they dont care If music is played or not, cant be musicans themselves.
Any self respecting musican SHOULD care if the music they listen to is performed by a real human. This extends to styles that involve real instruments obviously, not techno etc, but if I listen to a 'band' I want to make sure they can play their shit for real. I cant admire them otherwise.
I have spent years trying to master my craft through hard work and practise and I still suck, but thats me and this is what makes the difference between a truley gifted musican and the rest of us.
In the recent past, only a very small amount of musicans made it to an international level and it was because they were naturally gifted and the best at what they do, without computer aid. They still had drop ins, overdubs etc thats the bonus of a studio over live performing but they performed their parts themselves.
Virtuosity is a thing of the past it would seem. What a shame.
I am not a Foo fighters fan at all TBH but I got his point. He was not trying to say digital is shit, he is saying we have recorded on digital and now recorded on the more old school approach, and yet we still sound the same.
Not too many of todays bands could take this older approach and end up with a similar result as digital because the technology is responsible for as much of the sound as the musicians. If you have to record a song note by note or even riff by riff to get it perfect and then CANT play it back naturally YOU ARE NOT THAT TALENTED and dont deserve the same credit as some one who can. If you disagree you probably belong in the later group anyway.
Any self respecting musican SHOULD care if the music they listen to is performed by a real human. This extends to styles that involve real instruments obviously, not techno etc, but if I listen to a 'band' I want to make sure they can play their shit for real. I cant admire them otherwise.
I have spent years trying to master my craft through hard work and practise and I still suck, but thats me and this is what makes the difference between a truley gifted musican and the rest of us.
In the recent past, only a very small amount of musicans made it to an international level and it was because they were naturally gifted and the best at what they do, without computer aid. They still had drop ins, overdubs etc thats the bonus of a studio over live performing but they performed their parts themselves.
Virtuosity is a thing of the past it would seem. What a shame.
I am not a Foo fighters fan at all TBH but I got his point. He was not trying to say digital is shit, he is saying we have recorded on digital and now recorded on the more old school approach, and yet we still sound the same.
Not too many of todays bands could take this older approach and end up with a similar result as digital because the technology is responsible for as much of the sound as the musicians. If you have to record a song note by note or even riff by riff to get it perfect and then CANT play it back naturally YOU ARE NOT THAT TALENTED and dont deserve the same credit as some one who can. If you disagree you probably belong in the later group anyway.
professorlamp
I are Joe
I think a lot of you guys are just over saturated with metal and tighter styles, seriously just listen to some classical, bluegrass or jazz and restore your faith in human performance.
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
I whole heatedly agree. I love listening to live orchestras because the intonation issues between the players. It allows you to hear every musician and their individual style.
Its the same reason I prefer all natural drums/augmented drums as opposed to all sample replaced. I know a lot of guys around here talk about how they don't like volume fluctuations in the kick and have to compress too much to get them balanced, and then turn around and time stretch everything so that it is locked into a grid. If the player can play, leave the small imperfections, I love that human element, its what makes each musician an individual, the performance is personal and the way their imperfection accent what they are playing, you can say, "hey that is xxxx musician playing'. When you start editing everything to death, we all sound like machines and you don't recognize the personality of the performance, they don't sound like the musician they truly are, it looses that personal vibe.
And that is exactly what Dave meant. We got to a point where we as humans have to be flawless, wear this makeup, wear these clothes, act like this, autotune the vocals because the intonation drifts, snap the drums to a perfect grid, SEEK PERFECTION. Its sad that we as society have become ashamed of not being perfect. Perfection would make us sterile, and impersonal, that's not the kind of music or society that I want to be part of.
I'm sure more than you think. At least in the rock/pop/alternative category that he belongs to.
Personally I think Dave needs to realize that all music is not meant to be played/recorded the same. I think in some respects he knows this because he praises electronic bands in that earlier post, yet he doesn't criticize them for using pitch correction and grid editing etc.
Personally I wouldn't want an auto tuned Bob Dylan CD, but I would also hate to hear a non edited Skrillex or T-Pain.
He seriously needs to get off his high horse and let bands/artist decide for themselves what they want to do.
Don't get me wrong guys, I have a masters in classical guitar and know the work in takes to get a good performance. I appreciate great instrumentalists and vocalist, but I would never believe to have the right to police or criticize other artists, grammy winner or not.
Doctor Gay
Heel
Similar threads
