Speculation: Stereotypical? Me? How to stand out from the mass

[ahjteam]

Okay, as some of you might know, I am studying music production and marketing in Pirkanmaa University of Applied studies here in Finland and today we had a conversation in our class about Nashville musicians (for those who don't know: country music).

Someone made years ago a study on the subject what gear made "the Nashville sound" and came to the conclusion of the fact that almost all of them pretty much had the same gear within a certain range: Telecaster, Stratocaster, Les Paul and some others for guitars; VOX, Fender, Marshall and some that I forgot for amplifiers; Tubescreamer, MXR and some others for pedals.

But then I asked for a turn, and shifted an example to heavy metal, because I have really seen this same effect especially on this board...

- Guitars detuned, usually to drop C, C# or B
- EMG81 or EMG85 for pickups
- Tubescreamer to boost the sound
- Mesa, Peavey, Engl, Krank or Marshall for the amplifier
- and there has to be Celestion V30s in the cab
- Cabinets miced with SM57s at the grille
- the bassplayers just record straight to DI or use Ampeg
- drums are edited and/or programmed to grid and then samplereplaced
- vocals are autotuned
- And of course you have to sound as loud as the band next to you, so the whole album is then crushed to fuck against the brickwall :zombie:

What this causes that you have 100 bands that sound the same, within this very narrow range, that in the end pretty much sound the same. So how do stand out from the crowd? ¯\(°_o)/¯ I would say: try something else for a change. If the others are doing it, it propably works, but it won't sound like "you"; It sounds like "them". Thats the reason why I really like Faith No More and Clawfinger. They really don't sound like any other band in the end.

 

[Metaltastic]

You're mostly talking about the production; personally, I'd rather innovate with the music and stick to what sounds good to my ears (which is what you listed above) for the recording! But that might be cuz I'm a musician/songwriter first and engineer a rather distant second

 

[Erkan]

Yea, it's interesting for sure. There are a few bands out there that really have their own unique style, but I'm sure there's more to it than just the "genre". So many factors play a role... the way they play, if they add little weird things like noises, a special type of harmony or rhythm... the list can grow endless.

Most bands just fall in the same big ass general pit, but some manage not to and it would be interesting to analyze it and see exactly what makes them not sound like all others.

 

[ahjteam]

You're mostly talking about the production; personally, I'd rather innovate with the music and stick to what sounds good to my ears (which is what you listed above) for the recording! But that might be cuz I'm a musician/songwriter first and engineer a rather distant second

I have understood that we are pretty much about the same age (22 vs 25), so I don't see it that much as age perception difference, but the location might be the thing. And I don't even consider myself as a musician. The way I see it, is that problem is that the bands tend play the same shit too! Palm muted chugga chugga from the lowest strings or Meshuggah djenting because thats hot now and melodies ripped from Metallica, Iron Maiden, In Flames, Children of Bodom or Killswitch Engage and we have a prime example on this board too. And lets have an analogy: you hear a song on the radio for the first time, it sounds good. But when you hear it for the 120th time, it starts to piss you off.

The vocalist has been for ages the thing that has separated the bands from eachother, but in metal everyone has gone to screaming/growling, so even they start to delve even deeper in the swamp of generic mediocrity, but I think All That Remains and 3 Inches of Blood is starting to point the way out with melodic singing

edit: and btw, have you noticed how much small shit is going on in KsE songs? For example there is a fucking tambourine in the chorus of When Darkness Falls and My Last Serenade!

 

[Line666]

You're mostly talking about the production; personally, I'd rather innovate with the music and stick to what sounds good to my ears (which is what you listed above) for the recording! But that might be cuz I'm a musician/songwriter first and engineer a rather distant second

I can see the logic behind this: if its not broken, don't try to fix it - and that's all well and good but I just feel that you do have to experiment with the production side of things if you want your record to sound more out there on the whole.

The list is a good place to start but I think its a good idea to take those fundamentals as it were and to build on them and experiment with them, not saying let the production aspect take over the music but just to not let music production get so formulaic as to become boring.

I think of it like people, before you meet people they could be very interesting for all you know but if they look visually boring/uninteresting/the same as everyone else then you're much more likely to treat them like that even if they are the most individual and exciting person in the world to talk to.

Having a standard is not a bad thing, just its bad to get bogged down in it.

 

[Erkan]

edit: and btw, have you noticed how much small shit is going on in KsE songs? For example there is a fucking tambourine in the chorus of When Darkness Falls and My Last Serenade!

Stuff like that is pure mind-fuck when you don't hear it the first couple of times when you listen to the songs, but when you let's say listen on head phones, you hear all kinds of different things that you never heard before and you shit bricks! (Wow, that was one long and fucked up sentence).

I'm not sure if it was Between the Buried and Me, but it was atleast some band that I had listened to for a long time, when I suddenly heard a whole new level of stuff in there... I was shocked

 

[Metaltastic]

Ugghh, BtBAM to me sounds like randomly tuning a radio between bree-core, Spastic Ink, and Dream Theater - no thanks (and I gave Colors a good chance)

And even if there aren't actual "bree's," they definitely use similar slow breakdown parts that could easily have 'em!

 

[abyssofdreams]

I fail to see the points you are trying to make, are you suggesting that this is a bad thing? The only point you made which I would see as a bad one would be the brickwalling of songs just for volume purposes and clearly compromising sound quality. EMGs, 5150s and V30s just happen work with metal quite good and personally I just love this combination just as many others do. If you thing that's uninventive than you are free to choose other combinations, there's just so many! Personally I wouldn't mind if ALL metal records would use the same gear as long as it fits the music and helps it shine. And since metal is fucking LOUD you'd have to narrow it down to that gear that produces LOUD although I'm always open towards an acousticguitar metal band
Besides, if you don't consider yourself to be a musician to at least some point then what are you doing here?

You stand out with music, not with gear. If you mean any trends like 7 out of 10 bands happen to play metalcore...well...I don't mind, if they enjoy it why not, I don't have to listen to it. And metalcore isn't defined through the gear they use or if anything just makes a very subtle difference. I do agree that the location plays a big part in what you might end up playing but then again, those who stand out are those who are individual and somewhat gifted or just hugely dedicated to what they do. And that's not because they might use custom-build guitars or amps or pickups...if you can catch my drift.

As I said, I might fail to see what you wanted to say but you have to excuse me, it is kind of late and I haven't slept that much

 

[Trevoire520]

Okay, as some of you might know, I am studying music production and marketing in Pirkanmaa University of Applied studies here in Finland and today we had a conversation in our class about Nashville musicians (for those who don't know: country music).

Someone made years ago a study on the subject what gear made "the Nashville sound" and came to the conclusion of the fact that almost all of them pretty much had the same gear within a certain range: Telecaster, Stratocaster, Les Paul and some others for guitars; VOX, Fender, Marshall and some that I forgot for amplifiers; Tubescreamer, MXR and some others for pedals.

But then I asked for a turn, and shifted an example to heavy metal, because I have really seen this same effect especially on this board...

- Guitars detuned, usually to drop C, C# or B
- EMG81 or EMG85 for pickups
- Tubescreamer to boost the sound
- Mesa, Peavey, Engl, Krank or Marshall for the amplifier
- and there has to be Celestion V30s in the cab
- Cabinets miced with SM57s at the grille
- the bassplayers just record straight to DI or use Ampeg
- drums are edited and/or programmed to grid and then samplereplaced
- vocals are autotuned
- And of course you have to sound as loud as the band next to you, so the whole album is then crushed to fuck against the brickwall :zombie:

What this causes that you have 100 bands that sound the same, within this very narrow range, that in the end pretty much sound the same. So how do stand out from the crowd? ¯(°_o)/¯ I would say: try something else for a change. If the others are doing it, it propably works, but it won't sound like "you"; It sounds like "them". Thats the reason why I really like Faith No More and Clawfinger. They really don't sound like any other band in the end.

I will agree that ALOT of metal bands at the moment seem to have the same guitar tone. As good an amp as it is I am sick of hearing the 5150 sound. Just too many bands using EMG 81/85>TS>5150>Rectifier Cab>SM57 right now when there's plenty of other great sounding amps imo (XXX, Dual Rec, Krank Rev, ENGL Fireball, Bogner Uber, VHT Pitbull etc etc)

Of course there's going to be a certain combination of gear that works well but I'd like to see more bands trying to find thier own sound rather than going "I want to sound like "such and such a band"

 

[ahjteam]

I fail to see the points you are trying to make, are you suggesting that this is a bad thing?

No, of course not I am not saying that its a bad thing to use those. All of them are good gear that professionals use. My point is this. When something becomes a trend (for example everyone used a mashall in the 1980s and now everyone is using mesa), it gets very boring after a while. When you play music very similiar to the other 11 bands in the dozen next to you and you use exactly the same or similiar gear, it is a lot harder to stand out from the big mass. And I liked this analogy I posted earlier:

And lets have an analogy: you hear a song on the radio for the first time, it sounds good. But when you hear it for the 120th time, it starts to piss you off.

edit:

Besides, if you don't consider yourself to be a musician to at least some point then what are you doing here?

Musicians touch the instruments, I touch the gear. Musicians have their own forums, this is about music production

 

[Jaymz]

Just read the topic opener but surely this is like playing guitar, no matter what setup you use it will sound like you in some form, Eddie plugs into a Marshall AVT20 it will sound like Eddie. I don't think if you use the same techniques as others that you will sound exactly the same. People have been using stuff like Mesa for years.

 

[abyssofdreams]

Musicians touch the instruments, I touch the gear. Musicians have their own forums, this is about music production

Hmm, I don't think just in black and white. I think you'd have to be a musician up to a certain extend to give the music production what it needs from a feeling perspective. Which of course doesn't mean that it is imperative but I see music as art and you can't forge art with an exclusively technical approach, some might disagree with me in that you can but solely on the argument of seemlessly perfection. Art isn't perfect, that's why it is so beautiful. But I'm way out here now

Basically I'm saying that you'll be a much more creative engineer being a musician at the same time, when you have the ability to embrace and reflect the emotions of music in a wider sense. It depends on the level of detail of how you shape things I guess, among some more kazillion factors.

 

[Jaymz]

Hmm, I don't think just in black and white. I think you'd have to be a musician up to a certain extend to give the music production what it needs from a feeling perspective. Which of course doesn't mean that it is imperative but I see music as art and you can't forge art with an exclusively technical approach, some might disagree with me in that you can but solely on the argument of seemlessly perfection. Art isn't perfect, that's why it is so beautiful. But I'm way out here now

Basically I'm saying that you'll be a much more creative engineer being a musician at the same time, when you have the ability to embrace and reflect the emotions of music in a wider sense. It depends on the level of detail of how you shape things I guess, among some more kazillion factors.

+1

And ive been a musician a hell of a lot longer than a music "producer", the two usually go hand in hand at the end of the day.

 

[ahjteam]

I think you'd have to be a musician up to a certain extend to give the music production what it needs from a feeling perspective.

It was compulsory to sing and play nokkahuilu (I think its called 'recorder' in english, a kind of flute anyways) in elementary school but that didn't make me a musician or make me intrested in music because I just hated that fucking thing as it just sounded awful.



I do know the basics of playing drums, guitar, bass and keyboards and eventho I can play music to some extent, I still do not count myself as musician, as I am really not that capable in it, or even interested in the actual act of playing music. It is fun to do some doodling occasinally, but it's just not my cup of tea in the end and I wouldn't even consider to do it for a living because it just doesn't pay. I am almost solely intrested in the technical production aspect of music, be it studio or livegigs. I let musicians do and perform the music, I just record or amplify it and make it sound good, or preferrably even better. But I know I am an oddbird in the bunch, as I mixed my first gigs when I was 16 and started playing music when I was 18.

 

[abyssofdreams]

Ah okay, I take it that you mean the kind of musician in a fullfilling sense or maybe a musician that is highly experienced, sophisticated?
Well, if you write a book you are a writer, technically speaking and from an objective point of view. That fact doesn't have to respect your capacity and creativity to write one, you could still write a book lacking any of those characteristics. Basically and since you know the basics of playing different instruments that makes you a musician in my book. If the subjective perception of yourself doesn't go along with that, then that's fine with me but I found that statement a bit delusive. If you would have written "I don't consider myself to be a GOOD or BAD musician" then it would have made a lot more sense to me and you wouldn't discredit yourself as being none.

Again, without a deeper understanding of music you miss out on respecting that experience for to be able to take it into account whilst producing, engineering or whatelse.

 

[abyssofdreams]

Wow, that last sentence of my post is fucking up I need some sleep now

 

[abyssofdreams]

My point is this.

Erm... that clip is useless because it has obviously been post-processed with extra compression, eq and limiting. No wonder it sounds like shit, they do not represent the quality of the original releases.

 

[ahjteam]

Erm... that clip is useless because it has obviously been post-processed with extra compression, eq and limiting. No wonder it sounds like shit, they do not represent the quality of the original releases.

nope, no post processing except normalisation to -0.2dB.

 

[Sacha]

It comes down to the music you make not the tools you use, to stand out from the pack. Of course new tones and techniques can help with that too, but Dream Theater and Gorguts both use distorted guitar and heavy drums etc. but yet sound absolutely nothing alike. There always was and always will be more immitators then innovators, you have to seek out the latter.

 

[ahjteam]

Dream Theater and Gorguts

thats a bit farfetched, don't cha think?