Predict the next trend in recording

[thieves]

Microphones in the control room during playback for that "this is what it sounds like to listen to this song" effect.

i've been wanting to use this technique ever since i heard it in an aphex twin song years ago. i haven't found the appropriate time to use it, yet.

[Jeff White]

You can use it to get the shitty drummer to quit by having a running commentary of his timing issues during the song.

[JGriffin]

Microphones in the control room during playback for that "this is what it sounds like to listen to this song" effect.

i've been wanting to use this technique ever since i heard it in an aphex twin song years ago. i haven't found the appropriate time to use it, yet.

Somehow or other an artist I worked with heard the backing track come through the drummer's phones as they were sitting on the drum throne, and liked it enough that we spent a bunch of time playing with placing the phones on the seat, picking which combination of overheads/snare mic/room mic to use to record it, how much to blast the sound into the cans...

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i used the headphone bleed as the intro to a song on my old bands first record...

anyway...

You can use it to get the shitty drummer to quit by having a running commentary of his timing issues during the song.

if only i had known that BEFORE my last session. and they're coming back in a couple weeks to do more songs....that drummer is gonna be the death of me.

[thieves]

producer commentary a la what they do on dvds would be actually pretty great. i would have loved to hear some drunken martin hannett ramblings on the happy mondays stuff... maybe it would actually make it entertaining.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Maybe it's time for a DRM plugin, something to add DRM to songs as they are being rendered/mastered. One could install a 'poison pill' into a song so it would corrupt itself and become unplayable after two listens. Why should the major labels and music outlets get to have all the fun with DRM? Yes, it's time for indie DRM.

[auralman]

this was about recording wasn't it?

I'm going to predict a shift back to "honest" recording, as the tools have gotten so ridiculously good that a monkey could do it. The musicians and songwriters have largely disappeared, though. But if Jeff Tweedy and Neil Finn sat down in my living room and all I had was PT M-powered, a couple of Studio Projects mics, and a few EH 12AY7s, y'all would be drooling at the 'recording quality', while it was really just two heavy hitting musicians and songwriters.

On that tip - I think the Nick Drake/Steely Dan/Janis Joplin sound of total dryness, here's the damn band/artist, bruises and all, love it or lick it - is back.

All that being said, we're a bunch of recording dweebs and music snobs who are seemingly blind to the fact that nobody - it really seems like NOBODY - seems to give two poops about anything music these days. I mean, the 80s were better for chrissakes. Hell, I even miss five years ago!

[wedge]

NOBODY seems to give two poops about anything music these days.

This type of lull usually presages the arrival of something new and exciting. Think of what was going on in the mainstream before Nirvana, and before The Beatles, fer instance. Snoresville.

[auralman]

my memory isn't so poor - in the "lull" right before Nirvana I was happily listening to:

Jane's Addiction
the Cure
Rollins Band
Soundgarden
Firehose
Ministry
RHCP
Nine Inch Nails

Plus, in this lull, I remember....
many people waiting until midnight to buy Use Your Illusion...
the average age at the Pink Floyd Division Bell tour somewhere in the 20s....
Primus and Fishbone playing what seemed like once a month in New Haven...
Plus, there was still music on MTV, VH1, and you could go see Fugazi for 8$.

Maybe it was just my perception, but things were WAY more musical then.

[???????]

what it amounts to is that power in the music industry has become more and more consolidated. What was happening in the pop mainstream at the time was similar to what's happening now, the difference is there were semi-commercial avenues BESIDES the pop mainstream.

[;ivlunsdystf]

I know we're in trouble when the most interesting new musical phenomenon is Britney Spears' pending 'comeback' ...

[wedge]

Jane's Addiction
the Cure
Rollins Band
Soundgarden
Firehose
Ministry
RHCP
Nine Inch Nails

That's all great, interesting stuff, but it wasn't exactly mainstream, which was point I was trying to make. I mean, I was a culturebot listening to the radio back then, and not searching for anything challenging, so I remember station after station playing Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson's "Bad". Which was, coincidentally.

There was one station here in DC (WHFS) that was "alternative" (and it really was at the time), but I wasn't in the right place in my life to appreciate bands like the Cure and NIN then, like I do now. But as Nirvana 's success snowballed, they crept from HFS here in DC, as I remember, then bust open onto every local rock/pop station, and they knocked Michael Jackson from the top of the pops for good. Soon, all the other "rock" stations were willing to play non-mainstream bands, and the mainstremization of alternative rock began. Nirvana's success cracked the music industry open like an egg, and allowed other grungy, edgy, angry and genuinely rocking bands to flow in.

But the music industry is in a radical shift, and who knows what the gak will happen?

[A-Barr]

HFS! Man I loved those guys back then, Ahhh the 90's.... *sigh*

I really can hear no difference between the blah alt rock pop rock drama BS over-emotive singer completely unoriginal mainstream stuff of today and what was going on maybe 10, even 15 years ago. Nirvana/Pearl Jam had an impact of making "real" and creative music hip for a bit, but now it is just part of the formula to add a touch of synthetic realness/creativity. Same on the teen pop angle, I mean I guess there is a difference between Christina Aguilera and 80's Paula Abdul, but it's only just different enough to make people not realize that it is the same formulaic drivel being shoved down their throats.

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. There really are a lot of great bands out there now. Truly! The biz is just not interested in them if they don't fit one of their established markets (i.e. they are too original or creative).

[auralman]

well gnr was mainstream....

but yeah, you're right.

[JASIII]

I blame Hootie and the Blowfish for the downfall of music. They became popular at almost the moment things went down the shitter. Coincidence? I think not.