Are Todays Daw's Making People Lazy Producers ?

[jancivil]

For me the biggest problem seems to be that I like to experiment with signal processing. A lot. Most of that doesn't result into anything, so it's not that productive. But then sometimes it leads to huge revelations, so who knows?

if that's your focus, why not give yourself a break on 'not productive'.

It seems to me the word 'produce' is the capitalistic mindset you spoke about. Producers (rather than musicians, we never see 'composers' as a thrust), being productive. It's almost as though since the means of production can be set up in your house now you have to produce. Produce what? Is my whole point.

But you seem to be saying you've changed focus to DSP and mixing. I have no idea how that works so I'll keep my mouth shut. I have something to mix so I learned specific things and obtained specific tools. I have something to produce (except when I don't! Nota Bene.) so I make the thing. If I have a job to do I'll do it on time. Typically I'm just being an amateur (the original meaning of the word), doing it for the love of it.

But:
Any activity that leads to "revelations" I think one should be open to, where they clearly have the means to.

The other side is:
If one's goal is to make a living with teh DAWs and such, one has to get their shit together and place themselves in the world and accept the pressures and vagaries of the life. School sometimes is a path to a profession. A producer in the old-school sense was a social animal, managing people quite successfully in order to have access. I watched it happen in more than one town, it's impressive and intimidating to me.

[IncarnateX]

To me it will always be pointless to try make universal claims about music gear. Not because it is a matter of “taste”, like when you discuss music or art or fish, but because of personal needs and goals of the musician. I tried Cubase, Sonar and Reason before I stumpled upon Orion Platinum in 2009 or so. It was the pattern based approach that made it significantly different from others and suited my way of composing. Evidently, having such a marginal status, Orion was certainly not a DAW for everyone, though it is the tool behind 85% of the tracks on my soundcloud. I only left it because of third party GAS and hardware nostalgy, which applies to any DAW, not because it was not a great tool for my needs. Same with Reason, which really suits modular nerds, Appleton Live, which suits loopers, or FL Studio, which suits..hmm...those who like to have most of the above united in one single intriguing clusterfuck.

“Horses for courses” makes great sense to me. Only downside is that this premise virtually makes 75% of KVR discussions pointless by default. “Which DAW is best or worst for X” only make sense if translated to “Which DAW is best or worst for your particular needs”. Thus we can exchange opinions and compare them, but trying to cancel each others preferences with reference to our own needs is but a lame fallacy repeated in countless variations. However, I am willing to pretend this is not the case just to participate in KVR debates for the sake of pseudo-socializing, so never mind me.

[vurt]

i only left orion because the audio side was becoming more important and it was a bit naff for audio.
midi wise it was great.
for the beginner with less money, the included instruments where pretty damned good too


and as a "modular nerd" ill be honest, i never really clicked with reason.
used it through college because we had to, along with pro tools.
but have never used either in my personal works.

[jancivil]

Further than that, I'd say <horses for courses> is all you can really say about 'gear'.

Saying a tool makes you lazy leads to further absurdities, clearly. Ironic to see that stated with two operative terms in the thread title both using the apostrophe incorrectly. (Plus: Is it a song title? Why are all words capitalized? I'm to take you seriously as all that, no off-topic business, right-o.)

I was reflecting on my youth last night, or somewhere in there. I was clearly very lazy. I could get away with it. I was allowed to. So later in life, there were areas in which I could not get away with it. I had to woodshed. So then I wasn't, at all.

But back to how I am by nature or nurture. I could get a lot busier with granular synthesis than I am. If I don't have to, I'll go with the tools which allow me to, to do less preparation and get down to it. Not that "it" is so efficient or painless. The tools cannot reasonably be granted any causality I don't think.

[vurt]

Saying a tool makes you lazy leads to further absurdities, clearly.

hammers make you lazy, you should push nails in with your thumb!

[jancivil]

reductio ad absurdum, ladies and gentlemen

[vurt]

its what i do best!

[whyterabbyt]

Saying a tool makes you lazy leads to further absurdities, clearly.

hammers make you lazy, you should push nails in with your thumb!

nails are lazy, you should use your fingernails.

hence the name, obvs.

[EnochLight]

TL;DR

So what you're saying is... rock and roll is dead?

Got it!

[Bombadil]

Now I have that old folk song 'If I Had Hammer' runnin' around my brain.

[chk071]

The OP, in the meantime:

[wagtunes]

Thanks to the Music Cafe for linking to this thread.

Here's the way I look at it.

I'm sure that I'm at least in the top 10% of the oldest age group here having been born in 1957. I started writing and producing my own songs in 1977 on a Teac A3440 and hardware synths and electric pianos.

It was hard. Very hard. Getting a decent sound without spending a fortune (my modest setup cost me over $3,000) was very hard. Even harder if you had no training or anyone to teach you.

Today, we have DAWs where you can load loops of drums and other things and make something that is infinitely more intricate than anything that could have been made 50 or even 40 years ago without having quite an extensive studio, if some of today's productions were even possible back then. I have my doubts. In fact, attempting to do a 60s Brit Rock project, I'm finding it difficult to get such a dirty, gritty and sparse sound given how few tracks they had to work with.

On a pure technical level, it is easier to do things today than it was 40 years ago. That isn't even up for debate.

But...and this is the ONLY thing that matters in the grand scheme of things... lazy people existed in both eras. And lazy music in both eras sounded like crap. My friend played in a local band in NJ back in the early 80s and they were just God awful. That's the only way to describe them. They didn't last long. At the same time, a band by the name of Spice was doing Styx covers that were off the charts amazing.

The only thing DAWs has allowed (given their ease of use and price point) is a lower barrier to entry. More people can produce crap today than could produce crap 40 years ago. That doesn't mean the technology itself is to blame for the crap. The blame goes to the people who are too lazy to put the required effort in to create a decent product.

Also, and you need to keep this in mind, because of social media and forums like these, there is more opportunity to hear this crap whereas years ago you had no idea what John Doe was doing in his basement because there was really no way for him to get his music heard. At least not to a wide audience. More people have heard my songs in just the last couple of years that I've been on Soundcloud than in the 38 years prior combined.

So if it makes you feel better, blame the DAWs and all the VSTs and whatever else you want to blame.

The real blame starts with the reflection in the mirror.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

I was reflecting on my youth last night

That's illegal in most parts pf the world

[V0RT3X]

i only left orion because the audio side was becoming more important and it was a bit naff for audio.
midi wise it was great.
for the beginner with less money, the included instruments where pretty damned good too


and as a "modular nerd" ill be honest, i never really clicked with reason.
used it through college because we had to, along with pro tools.
but have never used either in my personal works.

Have you tried Bitwig?

[kelldammit]

i'm not too sure about "lazier"...sometimes, the new tech just makes it easier to create a whole lot more work for myself.