61–70 of 72 posts
Yet, I see many rappers living in multi-million houses and owning Ferrari's etc, in MTV Cribs. Do they do something different?
This is one article in a row which describes how the recording industry exploits creative persons. It looks like you can't earn much as a musician. Yet, I see many rappers living in multi-million houses and owning Ferrari's etc, in MTV Cribs. Do they do something different?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Programmers are creative people.
The best programmers are creative in their work, but that's different than being a creative professional. The programming equivalent of a creative (not the verb but a noun) is the person who comes up with the next big thing, or at least tries to do this. Woz, Bill Gates, Zuck, etc. all fall into this category -- but the person slinging .net code to keep an insurance database isn't in the same category. And those in t…
Maybe the insurance database programmer is the coder equivalent of a session musician?
I do not disagree with Courtney Love that the system is not great for artists but the solution is probably not in the distribution method, or the structure of the financing. It is most likely in solving the cost problem. If it costs $500,000 to produce a record, like she says it does, that would create limited room for a great number of bands and artist to record. The market size ($s of world wide discretionary incom…
I think the cost problem has largely been solved. Someone can throw together a DAW for $2 or $3k and start creating really great sounding music following hours of practice. I think most young musicians know about and go this route when they are learning. The world Courtney Love is from is the old world, where you needed a specialist to do all these different jobs. You needed to pay a producer, engineers, buy studio t…
Also, a big part of recording is having a producer/engineer, who knows how to capture the essence of a performance in a recording. If you've watched American Idol's last season you could see how high profile musicians and producers zero in on strengths and weaknesses of a performance.
I think one thing the Love piece really pointed out is that there is a lot more to getting your music out there than recording. The distribution system is about to be solved but all the other problems, the really big problems, still exist.
My kids pretty much use Grooveshark, Pandora and iTunes to play music. CDs are only used in the car and even there we frequently use MP3 players. Even though we still have a vinyl record player for my old Blue Note records it's not used very often.
What hasn't changed is the fact that there's a lot more record companies do than distribute the final product. It's pretty clear that the reason these companies have so much power is that they produce and market artists. Without that power the distribution wouldn't be so valuable. Someone still has to pay for studios, producers, designers, publicists, etc. This is particularly true for bands that survive not so much on the musical skill of their members but the overall sound and image.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best programmers are creative in their work, but that's different than being a creative professional. The programming equivalent of a creative (not the verb but a noun) is the person who comes up with the next big thing, or at least tries to do this. Woz, Bill Gates, Zuck, etc. all fall into this category -- but the person slinging .net code to keep an insurance database isn't in the same category. And those in t…
No, I don't know what you mean. Woz, Gates, and Zuck made names for themselves with good execution on the right idea at the right time. While admirable, that's not exactly the definition of "creativity" in my books, especially not in the programming sense. In fact, I would speculate that somewhere out there, there are .net DBA code monkeys doing more creative things to keep an aging insurance database infrastructure…
the key difference is freedom/autonomy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I don't know what you mean. Woz, Gates, and Zuck made names for themselves with good execution on the right idea at the right time. While admirable, that's not exactly the definition of "creativity" in my books, especially not in the programming sense. In fact, I would speculate that somewhere out there, there are .net DBA code monkeys doing more creative things to keep an aging insurance database infrastructure…
how about this... if a product manager hands you a spec with mockups and youre expected to return pixel perfect code in return, you're on the engineer end of the scale. the key difference is freedom/autonomy.
Creativity is not art.
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I think the cost problem has largely been solved. Someone can throw together a DAW for $2 or $3k and start creating really great sounding music following hours of practice. I think most young musicians know about and go this route when they are learning. The world Courtney Love is from is the old world, where you needed a specialist to do all these different jobs. You needed to pay a producer, engineers, buy studio t…
The hardware is only the start, though. Unless the music is totally electronic you'll need microphones and someone who knows how to record those. Many guitar players will want to use their amps and speakers to get a certain sound. There's still a lot of craft in the front end that can't be learned in hours. Also, a big part of recording is having a producer/engineer, who knows how to capture the essence of a performa…
The hardware, everything I mentioned and one or several mics (or a guitar amp), is still only about $3k to get started. SM58s (great for guitar cabs and ok for rock vocals) are used all over the place, they cost $99. An introductory condenser, like an SM81 (acoustic guitar, drum overheads, most acoustic instruments, some vocals), is about $300. If your voice is what you want to showcase, spend $1000 on a Nuemann TLM103 (my college roommate had one of these). $1000 is about the cost of a guitar amp and a guitar to get started.
This equipment will not make you rich, but it will give you access to the tools you need to learn the craft. I'm contrasting to a time (the 60s) when you needed half a million dollars just to put a sound on tape. Putting a sound on 'tape' these days doesn't even cost anything, the technology is everywhere.
Edit: To more specifically address your post, yes you're right, the talent is still the "hard part" of making music. My point was that if you have the talent, recording it is not as expensive as it once was.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the cost problem has largely been solved. Someone can throw together a DAW for $2 or $3k and start creating really great sounding music following hours of practice. I think most young musicians know about and go this route when they are learning. The world Courtney Love is from is the old world, where you needed a specialist to do all these different jobs. You needed to pay a producer, engineers, buy studio t…
Can you give an example of a band that recorded a CD for $3K? I'm curious what that sounds like.
Recorded as a favor from a studio owner. Sounds pretty decent, I think!