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Accessibility of music tools in “21st Century”

2/23/2013

1 Comment

 
I decided to write something about today’s music production, or rather the stage where it currently is. 

            I constantly hear a lot of people complain that today’s music is I’ll quote “shit”, at the same time I hear a lot of people say it isn’t hard to do music nowadays, so… those two things connect in straight line… Whatever is easy, it isn’t good right? Yes? No?

Ok my position on it as an (old/new school) audio engineer/producer is somewhere in between. I’m actually happy the music tools are so accessible to everybody for just a fraction of the cost, I’m also very sad that a lot of people simply cheat on how they make music. How? What? Cheat? Well, let me explain.

When I started making music blah blah blah, this doesn’t matter. Let’s go just few years back, I worked hard just to put some money together to get myself production tools, and I know there were a lot of producers doing the same thing. Working and buying hardware gear, I’m pretty sure very expensive gear.

Now lets go to 2010 maybe 2011 when plugins synthesizers actually started sounding GOOOOD, yes GOOOOOD. It’s coming from a person who was obsessed with hardware sound, I still like hardware but nowadays I’d choose software. Yuup I would.

Anyway, back to the topic. It’s easy to make music nowadays because it’s simple to download cracked version of FL or any other sequencer/ daw etc., it’s easy to download any synth plugin not paying for it… Not paying… Is it fair?  Nope. How does it relate to sound itself? To quality?

Let me explain. Most of producers nowadays are not too business orientated because they don’t understand the value of their own business. If you get something for free do you really care to make the money back? I doubt it, because you didn’t spend any money at al nor you didn't do any effort for the cause. 

Look at it from this perspective:
a) Person X downloads all the software to make beats, after 2 weeks the person realizes they're "SICK WITH IT" and decide to open a beat store. Can somebody be great doing something for 2 weeks? you answer it yourself.

b) Person Y downloads all the software to make beats, they're actually pretty good with it after some time, how much money did the person spend? $0 everything cracked. Beat store.. Their sell exclusive beats for $10.. what do you think about it? I'll keep that for your brain to process. All I'll say is that, somebody who spent a lot of money on their business, has to cut their own prices to compete with the "competition" I could write pages and page s about that but i wanna be brief with it.

I truly believe that most of “producers”... ok sorry, first of all I’m using wrong word. Beat Makers didn’t spend more than $100 maybe $200 on the midi controller because the rest is cracked software. 

Ok so what’s the point here? The point is that if you don’t invest, you shouldn't expect to make any money back. Everybody talk about hustle don’t they? Well even drug dealers buy their product to sell it for higher price, it’s simple rule of business.

Now, I don’t wanna make everybody feel offended, because there are people who don’t take shortcuts. There’s still people who will spend $300 on plugins instead of new Jordans.

Ok man, where the f are you going with it? What does it have to do with quality?

To close this up, even talentless people have a chance to make music nowadays. Yes, its super simple to line up few drums on grid, and so on. Talent or talentless? That’s a good question too. I believe sometimes simplicity produces hits however sometimes there’s a thin line between genius and p.o.s.  however there's a huge difference between genius and p.o.s.

I’ll call myself a music spiritual guy, I don’t make music when I don’t feel like it, but again I’d rather work a bit harder to make something unique, find the sounds, find the inspiration instead of just putting few 808s in the track and making it bang.


I speak from perspective of engineer and producer, even tho I don't really make beats, i like to sit down with an artist and word on the music together that way we can find the common language, b


1 Comment
Jake
3/19/2018 08:45:47 pm

I'll say this man, assuming everyone be spending $300 on J's is ludicrous. A lot of us come from pretty "humble beginnings" and i aint ever had a pair of J's, riddled in student debt broke af... the sauce isnt in the plugins you have or whether you paid for everything that comes from within....i will agree the beatmaking community is way too over saturated........ always appreciate your insight

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