YouTube diggers - RR

[BeatChemist]

swissbeatz said:james said:


And on the other side, the creative side, while I would not go so far as to say that creativity and heavy investment in sound quality are mutually exclusive, I will say that the folks most concerned about sound quality and the folks with interesting artistic ideas seem to very rarely be the same folks. People who sweat fidelity and gear seem more prone to taking a craft-heavy, outside-in approach to creation. And while that approach is not without its place or its merits, its products are seldom the things that move people and/or endure.




But records are seldom made by one person. Interesting and groundbreaking musical creation is often magnified by good engineering. And by good I mean "make it sound better without detracting from the raw idea" and that's what's most successful engineer do. The-Dream won't sound as good without Dave Pensado, Kendrick won't sound as great without Derek Ali,...




Oh absolutely agreed!! I love bumping Kendrick's album loud because it actually gets better the louder you hear it. You FEEL it. Time and effort were put into the engineering, mixing, and mastering, and it shows. But that's happening less and less. Artists now are dumping straight out of Ableton right into Beatport/Bandcamp/Soundcloud.





I'm not saying I like it. But that's how it is.

 

[swissbeatz]

BeatChemist said:


Don't mistake my realism for a lack of appreciation for professional quality mixing and mastering. I don't want sibilants grating my ears for 4.5 minutes straight, and I don't want a track that's slammed into Waves L2 for it's 'mastering'. But if you're a producer and you can make a hot beat with a youtube sample, I am not going to think you're cheating. Fuck rules. Fuck all that shit. If it sounds good, it sounds good.





And I can totally get on board with the generalization that increased concern for audio fidelity means decreased creativity. Obviously not all the time. But I have found that the more rules you have about what that perfect sound should be, the less you're likely to take a chance that might break those rules. Technicality is almost inversely related to creativity in this way.




I don't have any rules either... But have you tried to stereo enhance a mp3 with waves S1, did you try to boost the high end of an mp3 ? It reacts very differently and I have a real time getting it right (what people ask me to do). Recently I had to mix a track consisting of a single sample and a vocal, and it was a nightmare. But i had the record so I re did and it worked perfectly. I could widen it better and the eq was less weird, allowing me to go harder on it, and leave more room for the vocals.





I know this doesn't concern the majority of people, but saying it doesn't matter at all is kind of a over statement.


A mp3 is like a thumbnail preview picture, at the right size, it does what it's supposed to do. But if you try to make it bigger it won't work anymore.

 

[Horseleech]

james said:Controller_7 said: At the core, people either like the music or they don't and sound quality plays very little in the decision.

True.





And on the other side, the creative side, while I would not go so far as to say that creativity and heavy investment in sound quality are mutually exclusive, I will say that the folks most concerned about sound quality and the folks with interesting artistic ideas seem to very rarely be the same folks. People who sweat fidelity and gear seem more prone to taking a craft-heavy, outside-in approach to creation. And while that approach is not without its place or its merits, its products are seldom the things that move people and/or endure.




Man, I don't agree with this at all.





I've never known or heard of a musician was good on their instrument who didn't also care deeply about the sound they were getting out of it. That doesn't mean they always wanted the 'best' or most expensive gear, but the sound was paramount however it was achieved.





On the production side, do you think somebody like Lee perry didn't spend hundreds of hours perfecting the sound he got out of his equipment? Dude was one of the most creative musical entities ever. Hendrix was obsessed with his gear and was constantly having his guitars and amps tweaked. Jimmy Page, Max Roach, John Coltrane etc etc - all musicians who were fanatical about their gear in an effort to get the sounds they wanted. I could probably give dozens more examples of great musicians who were obsessed with getting the exact sounds they wanted - can you name any who were known for not giving a shit?





Sure, there are examples of the devil-may-care blues dude or whoever who would play anything they could get their hands on, but often those people were talented to a degree that they could make any piece of crap sound good.





You can go down the line - Stax, Sun, Muscle Shoals, Chess, United Sound, The Record Plant, The Manor, Abbey Road - these were all musical scenes unto themselves that produced some of the greatest music ever and in each case hundreds and hundreds of hours were spent perfecting the sound.





Again, this doesn't always mean the highest fidelity, but the exact sound created was endlessly sweated by the very people creating with it. Frankly, I don't see how you separate the two.

 

[BeatChemist]

swissbeatz said:





I don't have any rules either... But have you tried to stereo enhance a mp3 with waves S1, did you try to boost the high end of an mp3 ? It reacts very differently and I have a real time getting it right (what people ask me to do). Recently I had to mix a track consisting of a single sample and a vocal, and it was a nightmare. But i had the record so I re did and it worked perfectly. I could widen it better and the eq was less weird, allowing me to go harder on it, and leave more room for the vocals.





I know this doesn't concern the majority of people, but saying it doesn't matter at all is kind of a over statement.


A mp3 is like a thumbnail preview picture, at the right size, it does what it's supposed to do. But if you try to make it bigger it won't work anymore.




I feel for you - I would hate to have to engineer/mix other people's music in that way. It only follows that you have a more personal, intimate (pasue!) relationship with audio fidelity.





I guess my point is that "right" is always subjective, and the current trend in music consumption (laptops, earbuds, wireless bluetooth, etc) is just pushing producers to care less about audio quality.





I will always enjoy a well mixed song more than the same song poorly mixed. And when you listen to a quality source on a quality playback setup, it can be quite an enlightening, even spiritual experience.





Unfortunately not everyone has engineer ears!! So for some people... all this talk means nothing.

 

[james]

LaserWolf said:james said:Controller_7 said: At the core, people either like the music or they don't and sound quality plays very little in the decision.

True.





And on the other side, the creative side, while I would not go so far as to say that creativity and heavy investment in sound quality are mutually exclusive, I will say that the folks most concerned about sound quality and the folks with interesting artistic ideas seem to very rarely be the same folks. People who sweat fidelity and gear seem more prone to taking a craft-heavy, outside-in approach to creation. And while that approach is not without its place or its merits, its products are seldom the things that move people and/or endure.




I gave examples of producers/engineers "who sweat fidelity and gear" who I think moved people.





Can you give examples of people who don't "sweat fidelity and gear" and move people and those who do who don't?

I'm sorry, I was unclear: I meant what I said in the modern context of shit like sampling off of YouTube; I didn't mean it historically.





I wouldn't disagree with any of your (or Horseleech's) examples, but what I'm talking about is the more contemporary, post-sampling (or at least post-modern) phenomenon, which has a lot to do with received wisdom and retrofixation and trying hard to make records that sound like good records used to sound rather than trying hard to make records that do what good records used to do. Mine is a beef that I wouldn't really consider applicable to the ground-zero caliber of dudes you've listed.

 

[swissbeatz]

BeatChemist said:


I guess my point is that "right" is always subjective, and the current trend in music consumption (laptops, earbuds, wireless bluetooth, etc) is just pushing producers to care less about audio quality.







I think there's a also a true misconception that the shitty consumer devices gives you a pass for making bad sound. I will even say that is quite the opposite. While it's true that you won't be able to tell all the details, all the harsh stuff will be harsher, if the bass has not enough harmonics you won't hear it well... But don't get me wrong, there is a lot of non engineer people with laptops that do stuff that sounds pretty good... All I think is they succeed at it because they "care", at least a little....

 

[Genius]

I've got 10 beats called "Beat Wave" where I sampled records from youtube and other sites.

 

[parallax]

Genius said:I've got 10 beats called "Beat Wave" where I sampled records from youtube and other sites.




Post em up!

 

[LaserWolf]

 

[dj_cityboy]

 

[Controller_7]

Excuse I, but how dem gets dat rastaferryin soundclowd playah? Dem computers don cloak demselves in the draypings of Jah!

 

[parallax]

Controller_7 said:Excuse I, but how dem gets dat rastaferryin soundclowd playah? Dem computers don cloak demselves in the draypings of Jah!




FALSE RASTA!!

 

[dj_cityboy]

actually i never came back to see how this posted, that player is pretty friggin ugly and huge - i dont know why it needs to be like that or if the size can be adjusted, but the previous way to embed soundcloud files was way better and easier to use as well and had more customization options imho... and from a UI standpoint - was far more easier on the eyes.





um not sure when they added this updated view..

 

[DustedDon]

all I know is the simple beats I make on my old RS7000 sampling records sound way better straight out the box unmixed than the super technical, mega chopped youtube sampled mixed Ableton tracks I'm hearing.

 

[parallax]

DustedDon said:all I know is the simple beats I make on my old RS7000 sampling records sound way better straight out the box unmixed than the super technical, mega chopped youtube sampled mixed Ableton tracks I'm hearing.




*like*

 

[Jonny_Paycheck]

Neil Young has a new music player you guys might want to check out

 

[jjfad027]

YouTube samples? Gross. Just pay the $9.99 a month and sample off Spotify

 

[BeatChemist]

parallax saidustedDon said:all I know is the simple beats I make on my old RS7000 sampling records sound way better straight out the box unmixed than the super technical, mega chopped youtube sampled mixed Ableton tracks I'm hearing.




*like*




+1

 

[parallax]

.

 

[Poljakov]

I don't like sampling off youtube, it feels pretty "cheap" and it sounds horrible as well, but hey, why are we even surprised, I even heard about VINYL REISSUES sourced from mp3's? I know for a fact that some so called reissues were sourced from 192kbps mp3 files...shit, not even 320kbps! 192kbps files recorded from vinyl not even de-clicked or denoised!