ableton creating a saturated market for producers?

rbmonosylabik · Post by **rbmonosylabik** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:33 am

hambone1 wrote:
rbmonosylabik wrote:I think the term "Producer" has been cheapened very badly. Nowadays, when I ask someone "what do you do?" and they answer "I'm a producer" they instantly loose credibility, simply because I know it means "I have a computer with Reason/FL/any other cracked app and know how to load a drum loop, a bass line and some other presets"
Yep.

To me, Rick Rubin, George Martin, and Mutt Lange are producers.

Please add Nigel Godrich to that list

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 9:01 am

Talent does have a lot to do with it...

But if you really want your music heard, you need to market it properly. Think of all the producers who are absolutely famous from one or two tracks, and their music fucking sucks balls compared to DJ Noname in his bedroom with a copy of the Minimoog VST and Cubase, who produces amazing music but still struggles to get people to at least review his music.

You can't get "big" on talent alone. It takes skill to market yourself too.

elektrovert · Post by **elektrovert** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 9:40 am

There's always been bucketloads of crap music everywhere.
Just with the advent of the interweb we're all aware just how much crap there is out there.

forge · Post by **forge** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:17 am

Contra wrote:its not about the machine(or proggram in this case) its about the person using the machine/program

+100

Andrew Russell NYC · Post by **Andrew Russell NYC** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:34 am

yeah saturated with bad music....

Cryptic UK · Post by **Cryptic UK** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:01 pm

Yes saturated with diarrhea, have a stool on me(not on me......ya know).

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 2:15 pm

forge wrote:
Contra wrote:its not about the machine(or proggram in this case) its about the person using the machine/program
+100

'That's all well and good, the problem wrt saturation of the market is rather that modern software - hell, even on cellphones! - put the user in a situation, where it's remarkably easy to make a montage of sounds that sound *passable*, leading them to believe that they *could* be the next big thing, and then they run off to build their MySpace. Add to that the fact that music is (still) a big industry, they're going to push a very large variety of acts on us.

Back in the day you were either a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stones fan, a Sweet fan or a Slade fan, etc. etc. Now there *is* saturation, and I'll be damned if I even heard all the IDM-crunk-waltz that is out there.

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:21 pm

Machinate wrote:
forge wrote:
Contra wrote:its not about the machine(or proggram in this case) its about the person using the machine/program
+100
'That's all well and good, the problem wrt saturation of the market is rather that modern software - hell, even on cellphones! - put the user in a situation, where it's remarkably easy to make a montage of sounds that sound *passable*, leading them to believe that they *could* be the next big thing, and then they run off to build their MySpace. Add to that the fact that music is (still) a big industry, they're going to push a very large variety of acts on us.

Back in the day you were either a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stones fan, a Sweet fan or a Slade fan, etc. etc. Now there *is* saturation, and I'll be damned if I even heard all the IDM-crunk-waltz that is out there.

Extremely well said. And that would be the Beatles and Sweet for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is0dlAUMmv4

rasputin · Post by **rasputin** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:10 pm

Although it is true that it's the talent, not the tools, as far as "saturation of producers" goes I have to agree it's the marketing/networking. This has always been the case. I have heard phenomenal classical, rock, jazz, electronic, experimental by trolling the niches and crannies of the internet that will NEVER see wide release; mostly because the creators don't care about wide distribution and money. Sort of a pity.

99% of what sells is what's familiar to people due to marketing/hype/promotion/etc. Outside of the anorak types in this forum, how many normal people really go way out of their way to discover new music?

30 years ago, a couple friends and I would spend two or three hours every Saturday morning at Arcade Records downtown, where they had 10s of thousands of used, cutout and discontinued vinyl. I discovered things I never would have if I only bought records in regular stores. Now you can do roughly the equivalent thing by trolling the net, which is a good thing, as used CD and record stores seem to be disappearing in my area...

r.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:20 pm

knotkranky wrote: Extremely well said. And that would be the Beatles and Sweet for me.

Same here!

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:25 pm

Seems like it might be self-balancing to me. Sure, there are 1000% more bedroom producers out there, but that just means its harder than ever to get noticed, which means 99.9% of those bedroom producers will give up after a few years because they can't handle the sacrifice necessary to actually make a living doing this.

On the other hand, in the psytrance world there are so many bad bedroom producers! It's easy to tell the 20 year old kid with a hard drive full of software that can make some crazy sounds - its a bunch of crazy sounds and processing with absolutely no heart, no originality, no depth, no musicality, and it gets old before the track is finished. Yet, because its relatively easy to make something that sounds passable, they get record deals and the audience is left with a bunch of good-sounding, crap music.

The bottom line is that you can never substitute or fake the experience and talent necessary to make really good music, and "making it" in todays world requires more creativity and tenacity than simply creating some tracks and sending them to record labels....

dataspore · Post by **dataspore** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:50 pm

rasputin wrote:I have heard phenomenal classical, rock, jazz, electronic, experimental by trolling the niches and crannies of the internet that will NEVER see wide release; mostly because the creators don't care about wide distribution and money. Sort of a pity.

well put.
i don't steal music, or spend much money
on records anymore, so whenever i need a fix i just
start surfing artist sites, download.com, whatever.
i still have a mental block about paying for mp3s,
but eventually i'll start ($)supporting weblabels.

kennerb · Post by **kennerb** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 5:58 pm

Seems to me that the more people that put there hand in trying to make music gain a deeper respect for those that do it well. I know I do. Once you realize how much work it takes to make something sound really good you know that the tools are just part of the equation.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:21 pm

I've seen some absolutely incredible musicians playing for peanuts... even for nothing.

Respect to those with character not interested in selling their souls for the Almighty Buck...

hujib · Post by **hujib** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:10 pm

I don't remember where this stat is from exactly but I read an article a while back about a large group of 16-24 yr olds who when asked 80% thought that in their lifetime they're be famous.

could you imagine a concert with 80 people on stage and 20 in the audience!

ableton creating a saturated market for producers?

IMO "it's the marketing"

Re: IMO "it's the marketing"