well i wouldn't quite put it like that.. Lloyd's a cool guy, but as an 'oldie', i'd say it's just a tendency of the world we live in which tends to offer quick fixes for everything from cradle to grave. It's modern life.
anyways Lloyd, Influx don't mean nothing by it and he aint insulted you, but I can see his point man
Y'know I've see alot of people (my son included right now in fact), at 'tech' colleges, and yoyu get the vibe that they plunge people right in with eye candy SSL's and big digital boards, and lot's of top end stuff
I personaly think it's another symptom of modern shite life, that education like that has to be competitive
People with some grands to spare go to see various colleges or read the glossy brochures and also go to see some of them, etc..... Now, if they go to a place and they get a tour of the SSL room and the Pro-Tools suits, and the mastering room and lots of wizzo toys and really top-end gear, their perception is gonna be "This is REAL music tech, this is what I want to learn, I'll choose to give my 3,4,5 grand a year to this place"
If however, they arrived at a music tech college and they were shown a room full of people each using a stereo reel to reel and a 2 channel mixer, no fx, one mic and some guitars or whatever, and were told; "this is what you'll do for the first 3 months", they will walk right out the door & go to the place with a 4000 series bristling with lights
Now, the fact is, the latter is the one that'll REALLY teach them something valuable, and set the groundwork for what follows, and if what follows is pieced together methodicaly, bit by bit,... etc
It's a symptom of modern life imo that people are told they have 'choice'... and now it's also a choice in education... well if you know fuck-all about music tech recording etc how on earth can you make an informed 'choice' as to what is good for you to learn it?
The potential learner has no basis from which to make any such objective judgement at all.... If i might get a little 'teaching stuff' for a moment...
An illustration which best encapsulates this ideal is found in the classic story which pre-dates western contemporary psychological & educational study.
During the middle ages the Europeans believed that certain eastern 'Mystics' held the knowledge of turning base-metal into gold (Alchemy).
In reality, the 'Alchemy' the Masters were referring to was actually the transmutation of the human individual from a 'raw' state into a state of consciousness and 'readiness' for true objective learning.
In the story, a young man approaches a Master and begs to be taught the secret of turning base-metal into gold.
The master agrees to take the lad on as an apprentice, and on a daily basis the young man attends the Master's house and badgers him daily: "When will you teach me the secret?.. Will it be today?"
To each such request the master simply replies; "yes yes!... but first I need you to do such & such a task"; upon which the Master would prescribe some apparently menial task or inconsequential study to the lad for him to perform that day.
Time passed, and every day without fail the young man would ask when he was to be taught the secret, and the master would simply prescribe yet another apparently meaningless task to the boy.
Eventually after several years the master approached the lad while he was at his work-desk involved in one of the study tasks assigned to him and said:
"Right!... I'm ready to show you the secret today, let's do it!"
The young man replied without even looking up from his desk; "Not now, I'm busy"
This story illustrates the ideal state of the learner which we should as teachers strive to assist in achieving. Involved in their task/study, with concentration and without subjective evaluations as to the merit of the material in terms of purely goal-driven SUBJECTIVE value judgments; such an individual has 'learned how to learn', and can move forward in life with an enquiring objective & positive attitude which will allow them to take best advantage of all situations and knowledge made available to them.
er... or something like that i think is what it means
But really, my kid for example is being swamped as far as i can tell with lousy tasks for which he simply is not prepared.... ok, he learns something each time, but the problem is he's not sure what he's learning cos there's too many variables presented at once. They are fucking around with big digital desks and yet he doesnt know busses or routing theory at all. They are supposed to do a mix, but he hasn't been taught gating or compression at all from what i could gather, I would say he doesnt know the basic definition of compression & what it is factualy... also no lessons were given in mic-ing a kit as far as i could tell prior to having to record a band.
anyways, If i had a music tech college that's what the students would start with, no flashy stuff, just a 2 track and they can spend 3 months making tracks in mono bouncing left to right channel and adding an overdub each time - it teaches you about the absolute basis of multitracking, it teaches you alot about frequencies inherent in each type of sound from an acoustic guitar to a vocal to a drumbox, it teaches you about making descisions in a production or mix because they cant be changed later, it teaches you TONS about routing and signal flow patterns
Lloyd man, the reality is like being a good cabinet maker or whatever, it takes time man, lots of time, don't worry man.
Influx, I dont think it's his fault, it's what he's been thrown into, this is how colleges are now cos it's a competitive industry with colleges vying for peoples grants and savings, and sadly most students come out with some fun expriences getting to use high-end gear, but with not much ground level stuff. So they come out with some hands on time with an SSL or whatever, and mebbe can get a basic mix together on it, but that's more simply like learning keystrokes, like learning an AKAI sampler OS... it allows you to go to a place that needs a person who can operate an AKAI sampler, but does that make them good at sampling?
So mebbe they can get a junior position in a company cos they did a course which included hands on time with a Sony board or whatever, but personaly i'd do it differently.
Lloyd man, don't worry too much about this particular mix, we've all got mixes & recordings going back in time and can pull them out once in a while and enjoy & re-live the experience in our minds again and again ("OMG!!!... Did I REALLY add that much reverb!!", lol).... I guess a mix/recording is like a painting in that it's never ever really finished, only abandoned
In contemporary music, give 10 top remixers or producers the same tape and they'll all mix it totaly differently... so which is the 'right' mix?
There isn't one in reality, and the example of 10 remixers proves that beyond any argument, that's the bottom line, songs/mixes/production either have personality & character or they dont, that's all you can say really, cos in reality if you do a track using 2 old cassette decks, and a small mixer, bouncing from one cassette deck to the other and adding a new 'part' to the mix each time, and then you do another song using a dig 24 track and a good board and outboard... well if they both have character and personality then neither is 'better'
I worked for a while with a guy wh'd come out of a Polydor band called EDEN which was Polydor's tip to take on bands like Spandau Ballet or Duran Duran or whoever, but with their own particular angle, but that market anyways, The did I think one Album or mebbe even it was just one track or session, (not sure, but it couldn't have been more than one album if at all cos they didnt take off or something or were dropped) - Anyways, stories are stories so this is secondhand, apparently Hugh Padgam was called in, and the band had an idea which they were quite adamant about, that they wanted a very sparse open empty sound. Anyways this guy was highly scathing of Padham, saying he spent almost the entire time lying under the mixer complaining of a bad back, and didn't want the sound they wanted at all, and they fell out... he then went on to his next thing which was producing the Police - open sparse, empty... lol, well who knows eh?... one could argue the Police were a 3 piece live and they just went for that sound... talk is talk anyways, who knows if that story is true and if it is, wether if they hadn't met Padgam would still have done hardly any overdubs and filled the stuff out with the Police. The point is if the story is true, in one session he was fighting doing a totaly sparse sound as being 'not right', in the other it becomes an iconic sound cos it is so different and not usual... odd dilema eh
there's also that creative mixing combined with the production and writing as an entity and of course stuff like The Beatles (from around Revolver onwards), and Prince and Buddy Holly, & The Beach Boys etc stand out as landmarks in recording pop history imo cos they were written/produced/mixed as more of an organic creative process with the producer being in the band and also a writer (with the beatles George martin was 'in the band' to all intents and purposes)... it's about all of the 3 (written/produced/mixed) always interacting with the other, rather than a 'recording' of a performance... that's a whole other thing.
I was with a management company at one time who also handled the guy who produced Tracy Chapman's first album, he said basicaly they setup the mic's, hit record and he went down the pub and came back later when they finished playing, lol...an exaggeration no doubt, but it sounds like that eh?... and that's it's outstanding 'production' feature. Still, for an ability to record a band clean and clear and with no fiddling and tricks, country style, i think you'll agree at something like 3 points commission as producer, that's quite a tidy sum if you check how many copies that album sold. I think he'd made like 2 mill or something at the time which was about 2 years after the release or so.
anyways the point is, it's all different, and going to music-tech college perhaps doesnt emphasis this and is more technician-training geared, that's not to say they don't do creative work & have fun, but y'know
if however you are doing recording from the point of view of getting a job in 'industry', then you're more of a technician in a way, other criteria apply, but hey, some people find the life they truly love as a sound recordist for wildlife documentaries... each to their own, it's a big feild with many avenues, beyond recording contemporary music.
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I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!