My first instinct was to reply to this topic saying "It will get worse before it gets better."
Having given it some more thought, I'm tempted to leave out the "before it gets better" part of the sentence.
Although, if you want to be selective, the words "better" and "worse" in this context are completely relative.
To some people, more cleanliness, more headroom, more tools to enable to bedroom producer to thrive may be something to get very excited about.
To me, this way of working has corrupted the way I could have (and as I see it, should have) spent my time working.
I don't know though. There will always be groups that are purists of analogue, there will always be groups that thrive on technology that enables them to fulfill their visions in the comfort of their bedroom, there will be groups in the middle that encompass both sides, and there will always be individuals stuck in one position that want to be in one of the other positions, which is where I find myself (in the middle of a migratory period away from digital and moving towards pure analogue.)
Really, all this focus on technology helps achieve is people forgetting that the whole point of all of this is the music. Analogue or digital, miced amps or amp sims, it's all a means to an end to help transmutate an idea formed in your head into a more palpable medium. What matters is that the music has soul and that it comes from somewhere genuine and somewhere individual, and as far as expressing a genuine idea, expressing the individuality of the musician (yes, even the drummer too) and the soul of the piece and of the individuals involved in making said piece of music, is to throw up some mics, hit record and have the band play it live and loud, throwing themselves into their music and allowing them to feel the music making its way through their bodies, anything else is a compromise of the vision, and this forum is an embodiment of that compromise. "The drummer's sloppy? Let's program them instead, even though that will remove the soul of the drummer and his playing, whether it's a sloppy soul or a tight, to the click soul." This forum and most of its users embody this and I am the black sheep as far as ideas and methodology go, so my entire post is pretty much rendered useless. Therein lies the duality
Edit: In fact, I feel the need to add to this, only a minute or two after I posted this message.
What the technology used to make music achieves is a disconnect between the musician and the engineer/producer.
I see this a lot on the forum:
"Guitarist brought in a Spider 3 and threw a hissy fit when I wanted to run him through my Mesa Dual Rectifier"
Everyone else involved in engineering chimes in with messages of support and understanding, and now I am chiming in with the opposite viewpoint.
Us engineers get so wrapped up technology and what it can bring us. It can bring us clarity, it can bring us hugeness, tightness, CONTROL. Not only control over the mix but over the music. Because we are the people that know which knobs on a compressor do what, we are the ones in control. You are no longer the musicians equal, you are no longer there to help them achieve their vision, you are there to help them achieve what YOU believe should be their vision, and because of this disconnect that has been wrought via the technology, what you believe their vision should be and what their vision actually is.
So the next time I see a complaint that a band's guitarist wanted to use his Spider instead of the Dual Rec, why not roll with it? Why not see if that little shitty Line 6 combo is helping to create an atmosphere rarely seen in music nowadays? Why not embrace the fact that it's something different, something you're not used to and something you're not comfortable with?
If this forum is the "Why?" I am the embodiment of the "Why not?"
