Thread: wishing to break into recording

Nothing wrong with a bit of honesty. I'm Black and very proud of it but the rap scene is beyond a joke. The music has become so stereotypical and crass and has been reduced to shock tactics. I agree with you 100% about the music becoming conveyor belt music performed by people with zero talent or charisma out to make a fast buck or die trying. I'm on a recording connection program and when I complete it I would truly love to work with people who actually care for their craft and record because they love and respect music. Maybe I'm being naive now.

I hear the recording industry is going through a bad patch at the moment. Due in part to rap artists using home studios, is this true?

Originally Posted by jasonthomas

I hear the recording industry is going through a bad patch at the moment. Due in part to rap artists using home studios, is this true?

Yes, and no...

Sure, rap artists are part of it... but that's just it... they're only a small PART. But it's really due to the advent of cheap recording gear, and such things as Garage Band...

The advent of the home recording studio on the cheap, sampling, lack of respect for intellectual property and p2p sharing has been a large part of the counter culture revolution, since the major labels have been outed for screwing the artists as bad as they have.

With today's technology, one doesn't even need to be accomplished in any facet of traditional music making to produce "listenable" music, to be enabled create a "salable" product that is deliverable en mass.

All you need now is a reasonable amount of skill at editing, software and an internet connection.

Granted, the argument can be made that it takes a level of creativity to make these edits into something, but from a traditional aspect, it takes little skill to learn to edit waveforms, as opposed to say, learning the craft of playing a piano to an intermediate level.

I wanted to post a reply quoting Phil, Remy, Max, Hawk, and the young Marine, but I'll let their words speak for themselves.

My own words:

I was a bassist. I was pretty good, but wasn't sure I wanted to commit myself wholly to performance.
I branched into this business, w/o an EE degree (regrettably).

For me, it's about participating in the creation I knew as a musician, but from a different angle.
One in which I am committed wholly to to being the best d@mn engineer, studio manager, etc I can be.
I've learned a lot, and have a lot to learn.

Sadly, in my area (and many others), the chance to intern or mentor is nonexistent these days.
And has been mentioned, "recording" schooling is suspect.
Give yourself skills for life: people skills, business know-how, and anything else that might be pertinent to being a recordist, mixer, producer, or whatever...
and let your work speak for itself.
This business is contingent on two things: reputation and referrals

In the end, it's all about the work you do, and how you treat the people you work for, and the people that work for you.
Constantly prove yourself to be a quality person that provides quality work and service, and you'll have a much easier time than disproving that you're the opposite.

MadMax. So basically the major labels screwed themselves up the ass by taking advantage of up and coming talent. No sympathy there then, but it is sad how the recording industry seems to be churning out dross, songs that simply steal riffs from songs we knew and loved. I utterly despise it personally.

Soapfloats Thats just why I want to do the mentor program with say recording connection. Work alongside pros, prove your stuff earn a little respect then at the end of the program your mentor and/ or the interning studio will hopefully be happy enough to recommend you to a studio or best case scenario take you on themselves. Like you just said reputation is everything in this business.

Ryan,

It really would be nice if it was a simple as being able to pick one "thing" as the fall of the recording industry... but it isn't that easy.

It's really a combination of things.

Not that I'm any kind of authority, but here's what I've experienced, seen, read and discussed by/with quite a few long time professional's in our industry;

Recordings in the early days of technology, were remarkable. In that there was a way to share the love and joy of music beyond the few who could afford, or were in proximity to centers of performances. Records were a novelty that were really an expensive substitute, but at least they were an affordable commodity for those with nominal affluence.

AM radio was able to bring music to the masses at a nominal cost. The people who were backing the radio broadcasts realized that they could sell advertising to the listeners. The music was just a way to get folks to hear the ads... but the music was still such a "novelty", that it drew all kinds of listeners... kids, teens, adults, and seniors. People listened to the same station and were entertained by the diversity of the program content. Content was primarily local oriented and a few "national" programs... but many national programs were tape delayed... e.g recorded, and either sent via courier, or were mailed around the country. Eventually, this was replaced by direct network broadcast... and thus, "nation wide" advertising and national brands became a norm.

Because the post WWII era brought about a lot of economic prosperity, younger people (e.g. teens) had a new found disposable income. They really liked music, and as consumers, music pretty much became a social phenomenon that presented recordings (45's, 33's and even 78's) as a commodity that could be exploited by those that could capture some of that disposable income.

So, record companies decided to focus more on finding performers that could entertain the masses. What they did was to create an environment where they would "invest" in an artist, and what they did was to create a contractual obligation to financially back the artist. In return, they "loaned" the money to said artist, and in return, the artist got to become popular, but they would continually be in a loan cycle of indentured servitude.

With the advent of FM radio, and eventually television, mass exposure to music and entertainment meant a wider range of diversity, as the post WWII era kids grew up and their tastes changed with the social climate... still... all the while, the record companies kept looking at "records" as a financially lucrative commodity.

They found that wider exposure meant greater revenues, and that hey could actually promote artists to cult status and continue to extort huge profits from their investments.

Then, a few shrewd (greedy bastages) figured out that if they had "friends" who could control as many stations as possible, they wouldn't have to shell out as much payola to get their artist(investment) on the air.

They sought to form alliances, and started the land grab for the US airwaves. Because these alliances had enough influence, and politicians are all about the same thing, they sold out the American people and rewrote the FCC rules concerning the responsibility of radio broadcast companies generating local content... which has cleared the way for corporate monopolies (Clear Channel; et al) to limit the ability of new artists to become "discovered" by the public.

Now, you have at the same time, a technological revolution which allows music content to be created cheaper and cheaper... to the point that almost anyone with a computer can be a "rock star".... e.g. "just another pop commodity"... sadly.

This has served to cheapen the pool of the actual musicianship required to create music, in the traditional sense of a mechanical skill that is acquired through repeated playing. (How do you get to Carnegie Hall??? practice, practice, practice!) This is not an indictment against all musicians... just a good number of them.

You couple in the lure of big money, artists getting screwed, fame and a limited outlet of exposure, and the gear manufacturers start salivating as well... They'll sell millions of dollars worth of "stuff"... mostly cheap... in knowing that the vast majority of that which they sell will just get lost in the shuffle... because the odds of making in the music business are less than that of being struck by lightning (which I HAVE, btw) or winning a multi-state lottery.

Now, you need to tack on another nasty little bit of American culture pollution.... MADD.

As a means to control society (and we're talking about a LOT of people, and money), MADD has had more of a stifling effect that you can imagine. (I'm absolutely NOT advocating drunk driving, I'm just pulling back the covers on the reality of the effect of draconian legislation.) But what better way to control society than to scare them into being less social? The fear of getting a DUI has closed more venues, and/or caused more venues to stop having live music. Mainly, because as people traditionally dance more with live music, they drink more... and bars exist to create a profit from sales of beverages.

In most states, venues are now held legally responsible for the patron who is intoxicated and is involved in an injurious accident. This makes it far less desirable to take that risk... and thus, there is little chance for artists to learn the craft of performing and entertaining.

There's another "evil" concept that is now around... and that is that intellectual property is free for the taking. How this got started is beyond me, and I have had this discussion with a few people that are also scratching holes in their heads trying to figure this one out too. Samples, ripping, and theft of another's property seems to be just fine for an entire generation.

The latest ineptitude to come out of Washington seems to be those siding with the destruction of Net Neutrality... The players with the money want to take equal access out of the hands of everyone, and make it fine to limit the accessibility of content to those than can afford it.

When you couple than continued land grab of the public air Waves and the bottlenecking of bandwidth by the tech giants, the artist who actually cares about creating music has an even narrower window in which to potentially make a living as a performing musician.

I agree with you 1000,000% MadMax. The greedy bastardos had it too good for far too long and now they are gonna get crucified by the home studio clan.

The major's may get/are getting crucified by the home recordists, but the vast majority of home recordists will likely never have a chance to have their music earn much more than a few pennies of income. There is such a proliferation of those producing music and too few outlets for artists to perform music.

While the internet does allow for anyone with an internet connection to get their music to the masses, there is little hope for artists to even continue that avenue, if the major internet service providers have their way, and choke the bandwidth down to give priority to the players with fat wallets.

So, the "greedy bastards" are just changing faces from the loan sharks of the majors, to that of the tech giants.

To quote from one of rock's classic songs; "Meet the new boss... The same as the old boss."

IMHO, artists, studio owners, publishers, songwriters and fans alike, ALL need to be contacting their congressional and senatorial representatives in Washington and being extremely vocal about Net Neutrality and not letting the likes of Clear Channel, Google, Verizon and Time-Warner have their way in monopolizing the net and the public airwaves.