rules

[marqueemoon]

All the recent mentions of Oblique Strategies have me curious.

Have any of you experimented with imposing rules on recording, mixing, or arrangements as a way to spur creativity?

[bobbydj]

I remember once, the band I was in got aggro of the police. So I wrote a song with power chords A, C, A, B. In that order ('all coppers are bastards').

Is that oblique? Uhm.

[kayagum]

The rules that seem to work the best for me have to do with making decisions by limiting options. Time limits, track limits, dropping an instrument, no edits or punch-ins, etc. They have a way on focusing on performance and intuition rather than technique. I think that's why the Oblique Strategies deck is a useful tool.

Two other golden rules:

"When you reach a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
"Given a choice between two evils, I'll take the one I haven't tried yet." -- Mae West

[joel hamilton]

Always, but more as a producer than engineer. I have told people, "you can modulate between TWO notes on this track, and express yourself by deciding where, when, how loud, duration, color,tibre... but you can only use two notes for the whole chorus(or whatever)"

I love the deliberate, heart wrenching takes this can result in. really neat intervals for a really cool internal harmonic structure that would probably have never happened if the person was allowed to move at will with the track.

I impose mic limits on myself all the time on the engineering side, but in a more irreverent "build in a flaw" way. It forces me to not just use the same setup all the time and really have to figure out what is flattering the performance, and what is there just because I felt like I had to put it up.(i.e. room mics, or a center ambient or whatever).

It drives me nuts when people are like "we can do anything, so it is hard to do SOMETHING" and I am just sitting there going, yeah but if you really listen to what is on tape IT (the song) is letting us know there is maybe 3 APPROPRIATE moves to make...


again,
whatever,.

[JES]

Limits are good. I do almost zero punchins, except for vocals since the vocal track can be so exposed. I like performances, so that's what I get on my recordings.

I'm in a 2-bass band right now. Sometimes my bandmate plays drums -- a floor tom, hi hat, and ride cymbal. Also a nice limit to what we can do.

Hell, as a bassist I went back from 5 strings to 4 because I liked the limitations of the instrument.

In recording, I also try to make decisions along the way, though as a mixer I like a lot options -- the key is to be willing to choose at the right time!

Best,
--JES

[housepig]

not sure if this would fall under the umbrella of "rules"...

I've done several songs where the genesis for them was setting up a system, like setting up an alphabetical system for musical notes (z=a, y=a#, x=b, w=c, etc.), picking random phrases ("raise giant frogs" worked well...) and coming up with chord sequences out of them.

or do the same thing numerically - roll a pair of dice (or one 12-sided, if you're a D&D geek) a set number of times - 1=A, 2=A#, etc.

screwing around with a bass player, he and I were talking about "867-5309", so he came up with a rythm that was 8 beats - 6 beats - 7 beats - etc... so I had to come up with the chords to fill it. I started out with picking a root note, then playing an 8th, 6th, 7th, etc. off that root, but it sounded kinda ass.

so I took the 8th of the 8th, the 6th of the 6th, etc... that sounds pretty good, in fact my new band is probably going to finish that one...

it's some fun stuff to play around with, especially since you can do it all with a pencil and paper on your lunch hour, then have an experiment to look forward to when you can get your hands on your instrument. And it definitely helps break from patterns and ruts (or discover and add new ones!)

- housepig

[@?,*???&?]

Sometimes one is always looking for direction and 'Oblique Strategies' merely spurs you on. I've worked with it and it can be a very general influence. I've seen guys work through a spiral folder of all the ideas they've ever tried in the studio too and for them, that achieves the same end. Think of getting a vocal sound, does Eno's "Use filters" card help? Mabye. If you have 25 different killer vocal sounds you have gotten in the past documented, then you have more options. An engineer loves options. Can you be happy just one eq?

[inverseroom]

I made a whole EP of songs with 2min 30 sec limit, 4 backing tracks maximum, plus vocals. All songs written while I recorded, not beforehand. The results were really interesting--I ended up scrapping all extraneous stuff, letting the rhythm and melody run the show. I only used a drum machine, a Casio CZ-101, a Larivee Parlor acoustic, a Strat, and a Tech 21 amp. Results (with an MP3) are at the web site below.

I think this was more important as a songwriting exercise than a recording one, ultimately. I don't pretend it's great, but I do know that the songs are better than they would have been had I allowed the temptation to fill them out to win the day.

John

[Professor]

I always found it interesting to work through the problems of recording a live performance to multi-track with only an 8-track machine and a small collection of mics. The limitation forced me to do some pretty creative setups around groups.
Recently I tried working around the different classes of microphones to see how well they 'self mix' during mixdown. So I only used dynamic mics on the drums, a DI on bass, condensers on the piano and ribbon mics on the soloists. The mix downs are still in process, but it is interesting to hear how the instruments fit together that way.

Ultimately any decision you make ahead of time is a limitation, and yes it is true that having those limits can help get things moving. Most all of us find limits in the mic cabinet, or the track count, or some other area, and that is how we start out every session. You don't sit there listening to the vocals trying to decide between a U-47, U-67, or 44-BX if you don't own any of those mics - you know your inherent limitations and work within them. I've found it is hard at the school to convince the faculty musicians to allow an hour or more for setup even when there are only two instruments. I would love to experiment with mics and preamps and all sorts of things, but the time limitations and the fact that they get cranky after about 5 minutes can be very 'inspirational' to my setup.

Edison said that invention is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.
I think it might have been Beethoven who said 'there is no greater inspriation than a deadline'.

-Jeremy

[marqueemoon]

Ultimately any decision you make ahead of time is a limitation, and yes it is true that having those limits can help get things moving.

This is a great point. Often, committing to certain things early on can make the rest fall into place when it comes time to mix.

[@?,*???&?]

Exactly. Choose your medium. Perhaps it will inspire you to work in new ways. I can make competitive product on a cassette 4-track and DAT machine, but working with them presents a certain method that is essential to creating the best sounding result. That process though can prove to be exceptionally stimulating.

[Madness]

Yeah, get the check up front!

Phil

[soundguy]

Ive been reading this one sorta laughing in amusement to myself at the big pcicture of where we are at with technology. I have a 16 track 2 inch recorder. Im a big fan of the idea that if you cant make the best rock and roll record ever on a 16 track, youve got no hope of doing anything worth a damn on an expanded format. I would say more than %80 of my favorite rock records were done on an 8 track. But I am talking about rock. But there are bands that are afraid to work on a 16 track because "they'll run out of tracks". Uh, ok.

The idea of oblique strategies is nice to think about, but why not just get in the habbit of making decisions. Decide what you want and record the shit. Once upon a time (you know, when records were cool and each band sorta had its own identity) records were made like that. Now everyone's oblique strategy is to just keep adding tracks and adding tracks and adding tracks so that the comp of 18 different versions of a lame idea will sound just as watered down and lacking in direction and impact as everyone elses 18 take comp of crap...

Oblique strategies? How about recording a damn performance? How about NOT punching in a bass part. Granted, to do this you'll need to be recording a band that could actually play, so why not add that to the oblique strategies list- band that is able to play in time, in key, %90 of the time.

Protools is this great thing the peanut gallery says. Because its easy and quick and flexable. And cheap. You know what else fits into that logic? Vinyl siding. all across america there are tracts of prefab houses covered in the wave of the future, vinyl siding. Apparently the idea of construction was too much of an oblique strategy for these developers, so they took technology under their wing and produced the nastiest most lifeless span of homes for people to live in. Nonlinear recording, if you are not careful, has the total potential to be that vinyl siding. And its the lack of decision making that makes all these computer records feel the same way.

Record a performance. record only what you need, only where you need it. If it doesnt rock, keep recording over it until it does (not to be confused with save 18 takes and create a virtual performance in a comp).

dave

[cgarges]

But gee, Dave, don't the vast amounts of new and distintive-sounding music on commercial rock radio convince you otherwise?

With tongue in cheek,
Chris

[Al]

Good call Dave!...i've worked in studios with computer set ups loads,bands loose the plot with the almost unlimited trak space thing!,and they get lazy!!,cause they know you can cut and paste.

I run an analogue studio, i dont entertain lazy slackers that cant play. They can all fuck off to the guy with the Poop Tools set up,and do his head in!!!