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anonymous 15 February 2005

I was just curious what the pros thought about Damien Rice and the Producing that is done with his album... since I have a similar sound, what would you change to his music if you could?

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anonymous Tue, 02/15/2005 - 21:10

OH MY GOD!!! anyone who says something negative about damien rice is crazy. I love the guy he's such a talent.

I think his recording style is cool, very raw and rugged. It just goes to show you dont need all these synths and machines to make great music.

i was at he's concert here in Sydney last year and it was just him on stage with an acoustic guitar and blew everyone away. Better than all the big names like pearl jam, metallica etc.

he's a tribute to all musos out there. Absolutely spectacular.

id recommend hes recording style as its something different and fresh.

Damien rice is a god hehehehehe

inLoco Wed, 02/16/2005 - 07:28

as you all can understand i'm talking about production not his soundwriting skills! this is a recording forum...

what i meant is that kind of pop can gain from a good use of instruments and production! i've seen josh play with just his guitar and it sounds amazing! but with the band sounds even amazier! who knows if damien rice couldn't gain from that kind of treatment... tori amos does...

machina Wed, 02/16/2005 - 16:47

inLoco wrote: who knows if damien rice couldn't gain from that kind of treatment... tori amos does...

You have to understand that every record out there doesn't have to sound hyper-produced like avril lavigne or jewel. Damien Rice's music is tailored perfectly with his production, and vice versa. His production is part of his expression...part of his "sound". He wrote the songs, he recorded and mixed the album. The music is more personal that way. Honestly, I don't think his music would benefit at all from a lot of fancy production work. It's made to be as raw and as real as possible.
Check out Pedro the Lion's albums for some more good "raw" production.

anonymous Thu, 02/17/2005 - 08:51

inLoco wrote: i don't like much his production...

i'd recommend an album that i've been listening very much these days that has a better production and the style is similar...

try hearing

1972 from josh rouse

amazing music and very well produced! his new "nashville" album is cool too!

inloco is right josh rouse album 1972 is the album i would have written.... the production is amazing, i am only starting out in recording but when the first track on any album makes you sink back in your chair and close your eyes.... wow .... thats what i'm going for....

nice to meet(?) a fellow rouse fan inloco

darryl.

anonymous Thu, 02/17/2005 - 11:04

inLoco wrote: i don't like much his production...

i'd reccomend an album that i've been listening very much these days that has a better production and the style is similiar...

try hearing

1972 from josh rouse

amazing music and very well produced! his new "nashville" album is cool too!

inloco is right josh rouse album 1972 is the album i would have written.... the production is amazing, i am only starting out in recording but when the first track on any album makes you sink back in your chair and close your eyes.... wow .... thats what i'm going for....

nice to meet(?) a fellow rouse fan inloco

darryl.

anonymous Fri, 02/18/2005 - 11:24

i have to agree about not needing more production. if damien hyper produced his album it wouldn't be half as interesting to listen to. that saying all the recording engineers say about if you threw up 1 mic in a room and recorded a great musician that the song would still be great applies to his music. even if he recorded it with a radio shack mic into a tape player it would be better than half the shite that is modern pop music. his music has soul. the kind of character that makes you want to just sit and listen.

inLoco Fri, 02/18/2005 - 17:03

i disagree simply because i feel production is such a big tool these days!
i can give some examples...

dave matthews has his acoustic album live at luther college with tim reynolds and it sounds amazing... but we hear the same songs it the band and we're blown away...

jack johnson is that classic songwriter with no big production... but we can look at ben harper and see a glimpse of what he's missing... yet the songs sound amazing because when it's good songs you can use any kind of production and it will always sound amazing...

yet... i feel that rice's production is boring cause it's always the same...

anonymous Sat, 02/19/2005 - 20:06

guess everyone has their own opinions but I think Damien Rice's "rawness" puts 90% of all other music out there sound like absolute chicken $H!%... I agree with those who say his songs would sound amazing in a room with a drum set brushed, cello him and his acoustic with one mic to pick it all up... to a true musician his music is absolutely amazing and his production is a part of his artistic capabilities....

machina Wed, 02/23/2005 - 13:14

inLoco wrote: yet... i feel that rice's production is boring cause it's always the same...

I feel quite the opposite. By producing a "raw" recording, Rice added character and flavor to the album. More production, in my opinion, would make the recording "boring" because it would risk sounding like every other pop/folk album floating around out there.
Rice recorded the album in various "houses and homes" (as he puts it in the liner notes) around the UK and in Paris with a simple 4-track recorder. I love that kind of stuff. Using the bare minimum, he created a record that obtained platinum status in a mere three months following it's release.

wwittman Wed, 02/23/2005 - 14:34

just an aside:
If a producer decided, or helped decide, to make a record without a lot of tricks or overdubs or extra instruments... that IS the production.
It's not "less production".

If you weren't in the room you'll never know for certain, bnut a prodeucer may have helped pick the songs, hire the band, hire the studio and engineer, and direct the recording and mixing to attain the sound it has.

That's not "less" producing than on a record with lots of layers or lots of engineering tricks.
Know what I mean?

The engineering is not the "production" , in and of itself.
It's not really even the major part, usually.

machina Wed, 02/23/2005 - 16:47

wwittman wrote:
The engineering is not the "production" , in and of itself.
It's not really even the major part, usually.

I beg to differ. The technical aspect regarding the way a song is actually recorded (mic selection, placement, environment, media, etc.) has as much an impact on the final product as the post-production (or other aspects) does. A recording done live with the band all in the same rehearsal room and laid down on tape is inheritly going to sound more "raw" compared to a direct ProToolsHD mix using a trillion tracks recorded in the most pristine acoustic conditions. Depending on the recording techniques, the sound of a song is "colored" in such a way that all the post work in the world can't reverse.
I do agree that the engineering process alone isn't the "production", but I do think it has a big impact.

anonymous Wed, 02/23/2005 - 19:30

Hi, everyone, I've just found this forum tonight, I live in Dublin and Damien's 'o' album came out here about 4 years ago. He was massive over here then and still is quite big. I'm a producer myself and I know that album inside out but I'm a bit confused as to what you are arguing about.

Everybody is throwing the word production around like they don't really know what it means. Granted it can be vague at the best of times but I think some of you are actually referring to the mix and not the production.

I've heard a lot of music and worked in many genres and Damien Rice 'O', four years ago, was the most refreshingly produced album I'd heard in years. There is no denying that the production on the album, ie the instrumentation, the arrangements, etc., works really well and is extremely original. Howeve the mix, ie. eqing, compression etc. for me works but is, technically, disgraceful. It's not a taste issue, it's a fact. The mix, by professional standards, is not good. Personally I like the rawness of the mix, i think it adds to the albums human feel but it is riddled with flaws.

dos

anonymous Fri, 04/01/2005 - 02:14

Damien's Raw Sound

If you want an even better example of Rice's genious with simplicity pick up his b-sides album. there's a demo version of volcano on there that proves he just sounds amazing regardless of mixing. and his production style is wonderful and hopefully opens up some doors for those of us without a lot of money that use home studios for all our projects

anonymous Fri, 04/01/2005 - 23:36

I agree that more production would have made Damiens album less appealing to me.. When i first heard it, the production was what got me hooked, then the songs. Theres something about the raw quality that makes the songs more personal. There are several bands that can choose pristine sounding production, and choose rawness. A good example is Glassjaw's Worship and Tribute. I dunno if you guys know this album but it was nominated for a grammy. You can tell that the instruments are nice and everything, but on first listen it sounds like a cheap local release. But that rawness for that kind of music makes it more emotive. It could sound better, but the band/producer/label/ whoever else decided that it would be more effective produced the way it ended up. I definetely feel the same about damien rice. If his album sounded like Dave Matthews (sp) it would definetely lose some appeal for me.

bobbo Sat, 04/02/2005 - 15:13

re glassjaw

A good example is Glassjaw's Worship and Tribute. I dunno if you guys know this album but it was nominated for a grammy. You can tell that the instruments are nice and everything, but on first listen it sounds like a cheap local release.

I love glassjaw, and I really love they're first release's recording too. But when I heard there new cd it kind of made me sad, Now I like the rawness of a band, (mr. rice, mars volta, etc) but I think worship and tribute sounds like one bad mp3 file. in my opinion there is a good sounding raw and a bad sounding raw, and that album was the bad, I don't even listen to it now just for that reason. I really only listen to bands with either a good quality recording or a good expriemental ambient sounding recording, and that cd was a let down compared to they're first one.

Bob

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