Food for thought about music production

[Andrew Milner]

I think in the realm of "I took that personally memes" comes this discussion.

So I was watching some Rick Beato clips which I sort of agree with and disagree with. It's about how computers destroyed rock music because everything is quantized to the 16th beat.

Quantizing is basically the process of making sure everything starts EXACTLY on the beat. And by exactly I mean...exactly, no budging there.

You can watch them here:


and here:


Now I do agree with his overall sentiment that such a thing kinda ruins the experience but with that being said...if you're like me and have to use MIDI drums because you simply can't afford the recording studio money, then quantizing your stuff is I think a default thing in Reaper. Sure, you can spend time humanizing the drums and stuff, as Ailee pointed out in a video not so long ago.

But honestly...while I enjoy un-quantized music, I don't know if it's just nostalgia or not (since that music is older). A lot of the mid-2000s songs that he mentions are quite enjoyable to me.

What do you think? Do you believe this process ruins the musical experience too much or not?

 

[idssdi]

I don't mind quantized stuff as much but for my own stuff I usually use the humanize functionality in my daw which basically makes stuff slightly off beat and randomizes the velocity to make it sound more human.

What i do agree with is that if every velocity and every hit is exactly on the beat you do risk your music to sound a bit bland and it lacks dynamics which typically isn't a good thing

 

[William B.]

I think it's a good tool, when the music gets played live it will be unique. Sometimes people will get tired or unexpected things happen.
I use the midi drums 'n' bass too and when I place notes it gets messed up often. Probably just the computer in general changed all music, cause you can just look stuff up these days. Lot's of players had to learn things from records and/or see a live show up close. Was going to say more but i'm getting side tracked

 

[Andrew Milner]

@Ids Schiere yeah, I kinda agree. Though many plugins are somewhat smart and they have this thing called Round Robin where they play a different sample for each note. The paying ones at least sound realistic. I should know, I use them a lot ) .

@William Byerley true, it did change it a lot.

All in all, one of the things I feel has kinda...dampened rock music in recent years is over-polishing a song. Even some older A7X songs suffer from this. There's too much fuzziness from the distorted guitars cut out. They sound too mellow. I think that's why I like Set Me Free so much. You can hear the roar in Syn's guitar tone. Not necessarily the fault of the computers directly, but I feel it is a direct byproduct of them.

 

[Ed Seith]

I do not play drums, so when I record, I use EZDrummer 2. I always like it best when I turn the "humanization" all the way up. That's when it feels closest to real. I don't want it mega-quantized.

 

[AGA]

The invention of this tools gives us options and it is up to us how we use them or misuse them.
Certain styles of music require "human feel" and the best results are produced by tracking the band live off the floor. Other styles require machine-like precision. It completely depends on the effect you want to achieve.

I think the abuse of this tools can be detrimental in some cases. That is why it's important to use your tools with PURPOSE. If you want to use them correctively, do it only where it's needed. If you want to use them creatively, then make that a conscious choice and work within those parameters accepting that the sound they will yield will be different than the "natural".

In my experience it's best to let the organic be organic and the synthetic be synthetic. I love both sounds, and when combined tastefully they produce incredible music. But in order to do this successfully, one needs to accept each with its own limitations instead of forcing them to be something they are not. In other words, if you have a real drummer don't force them to sound like a machine. If you have a drum machine, don't force it to sound human.

 

[Andrew Milner]

The invention of this tools gives us options and it is up to us how we use them or misuse them.
Certain styles of music require "human feel" and the best results are produced by tracking the band live off the floor. Other styles require machine-like precision. It completely depends on the effect you want to achieve.

I think the abuse of this tools can be detrimental in some cases. That is why it's important to use your tools with PURPOSE. If you want to use them correctively, do it only where it's needed. If you want to use them creatively, then make that a conscious choice and work within those parameters accepting that the sound they will yield will be different than the "natural".

In my experience it's best to let the organic be organic and the synthetic be synthetic. I love both sounds, and when combined tastefully they produce incredible music. But in order to do this successfully, one needs to accept each with its own limitations instead of forcing them to be something they are not. In other words, if you have a real drummer don't force them to sound like a machine. If you have a drum machine, don't force it to sound human.

Extremely well put. I think you just need to compromise. If you have a band and each member can record their own parts, then just go with the natural flow and feel. If you don't and you can only use samples/VSTs for certain instruments, then you just need to accept there's a good chance it's going to sound less humanized.

I was debating in my head if I should fiddle around with the humanization factors a bit. Maybe I can get it working, but if not, well, I've learned to deal with this aspect. And I know what I'm gonna get and in all honesty, so long as I enjoy it, others will too.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

I dont aim to be 100% if it happens it happens. Tempo changes will mess with that though. Especially when you have a drummer who changes tempo mid riff.