what is going on in your musical life

i thought i was happy with how my new EP sounded but then i heard it on Spotify via my girlfriend's laptop's speakers and i wanted to die.

what is going on in your musical life, Milton? You are going on tour soon, yes?

i thought i was happy with how my new EP sounded but then i heard it on Spotify via my girlfriend's laptop's speakers and i wanted to die.

I like to mix the vocals on laptop speakers for this reason

me too

that's a good idea, this was more no bass (duh) and some slightly harsh mids from a bell tone, which sounded like it had a lot more sustain on the laptop speakers vs any decent stereo where those frequencies blend in more.

a lot of great music doesn't sound like anything on laptop speakers

I pushed for using a different master for the vinyl vs digital release

this was not a popular decision among all involved in the process but I think it was the right one

does anything sound good on laptop speakers?

that shit ruins whitehouse

I am tagging along for this: http://vague-terrain.com/2013/exploring-the-nebulous-cloud-like-three-dimensional-sound-space-at-the-center-of-four-speakers-does-this-space-evoke-comedy-cavernous-terror-reassuring-pastoral-birdsong-inhuman-wire-mother-blee/

― Milton Parker, Tuesday, October 8, 2013 5:26 PM (57 minutes ago)

awesome, see you next week brah

got the video back last night from my community theater version of Jesus Christ Superstar (Pilate) yesterday. really amateur quality video (small black boxy theater):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84ewZfdKrjk

a lot of great music doesn't sound like anything on laptop speakers

true i'm not too worried about it but mostly got anxious because she was like "is that what it sounds like? i liked it better at the show." and i mean yeah, i hope it sounds better over giant speakers & subs compared to tinny laptop ones.

That was great, Neanderthal! I grew up listening to JCS. I performed Pilate's Dream at my induction to the thespian society in high school at age 16 or so, probably looked like a total goofball, but I always wanted to play Pilate.

if the listening public/music writing body understood how their musical experiences are so definitively created by not the songwriter, or the producer, or the performer, but by the mixer and the mixing process, 90% of all fun rhetoric would dissolve

Definitely.

A flimsy song with fantastic production is much more likely to do well than a fantastic song with lousy production.

Depends what you mean by "do well."

not sound like shit

Neanderthal, that is GREAT

I don't know, it seems like having shitty songs is a good way to sound like shit. Anyways I just feel like saying it's ok to have boring songs if your production is good is a glib statement and I doubt you really believe that.

I've always known I don't have "good ears" but more and more I realize that I just have no idea what sounds good or bad to other people. I hear some stuff and I know it's well-produced or well-mixed but I rarely hear something that is ruined for me solely by having bad production or a bad mix. Which is not to say that those things aren't important but just to say that I am totally unable to gauge them.

I can't listen to the first Smiths album despite loving pretty much every song on it because of the way it sounds

@ NA, when I say "do well" I typically mean "will find resonance in 2013 with the music writing community and the consumer-listener base".

And I'm not trying to say that "a shitty song" can be made to sound good. I just don't think there are that many shitty songs. Can you form a complete sentence? You can write a song. Beyond that it's performance (almost arbitrary in 2013), production and mix

I was responding to this:

A flimsy song with fantastic production is much more likely to do well than a fantastic song with lousy production.

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Wednesday, October 9, 2013 5:57 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm a massive fan of lo-fi stuff but I kind of agree about production/mixing? Though I wouldn't go so far as to say 'a shit song can sound great with good mixing', I do think the line between a good and bad song is often small, and a lot of it is to do with arrangement, production, mix. And the caveat that I love lo-fi is kind of irrelevant, because the bands I love that sound for are bands that suit no production/rough production/anti-production or whatever. The form suits the content, man.

What I was trying to express is that there's external success (how much other people like a song) and internal success (how happy you are with a song you write) and they are both valid measures of success. I have trouble with defining the success of a song solely by how much other people like it because there are lots of other factors with this that aren't related to the song itself (i.e. even getting your song to the ears of the music writing community and consumers) and because lots of people like shitty songs. I also don't really understand saying that performance is almost arbitrary - not in a "I disagree with this" way but in a "this is just a confusing statement" way.

There are also things like cultural moments/trends and the connotations of certain sounds that put you off songs, of course. Things like, when Nouvelle Vague first came out, I thought the arrangement was kind of charming, but now if I hear people doing covers like that I want to murder them horribly.

xpost to myself, there.

Oh and production/mixing can definitely push a song from good to great. I'm not even arguing with anyone. I just feel like when I was starting to write songs and play music, there was an attitude of "I write these songs for myself and I don't care what other people think about them as long as I'm happy with them." I realize there's a percentage of bullshit in that statement but it still makes me a little sad when people only think they're doing well if they're reaching a significant commercial audience and getting good reviews. If that's your measure, then there are plenty of artists who are now canonical who never "did well" in their lifetime.

I guess 'performance is arbitrary' is a reflection on the number of things one can do to 'fix' performance flaws in the modern age? I was a little confused by that at first, too.

I do not believe "how happy you are with a song you write" is a valid measure of success

I mean, I write lots of songs for myself and I sell records to myself and I go to all my own shows and license these songs to commercials selling myself to myself

Really? I mean, fair enough, it's not a good measure of success if your aim is to make a living writing music, but it's perfectly valid if your aim is just to write good songs. 'Success' is not a monolithic thing.

The production conversation is interesting because I tend to have this feeling like a lack of production sheen has maybe held my material back in the past from reaching more people, but at the same time I know there are albums that I love and that also have tons of fans that don't sound objectively outstanding either. It's like I can think lo-fi is a cool aesthetic except when it applies to my material, when it doesn't sound like an aesthetic choice as much as just mediocrity. Although I guess there's still good and bad aesthetics as far as production goes even among lo-fi stuff, or "less than super hi-fi" stuff.

But with vocals too I often find myself being able to accept and even enjoy a lot of roughness from other singers, but when it's my own performance it makes me cringe if it's not right on because I feel like it just doesn't work. Maybe it's psychological, or maybe it's just a stylistic mismatch or something.

If that's your measure, then there are plenty of artists who are now canonical who never "did well" in their lifetime.

I have a whole song about this idea on the album I'm recording now, it's called "Vincent van Gogh." Titular lyric: "It worked for Nick Drake and for Edgar A. Poe / Franz Schubert, John Toole, and Vincent van Gogh." Of course I'm not really convinced yet and haven't figured out how to not be miserable about not being more successful.

fgti is operating in a different musical world from most of the rest of us here

The form suits the content, man.

^^^this. i think i get away with a lot of things in my own recordings (noise, hiss, etc) because it's part of the aesthetic that would never fly if it was supposed to be a polished pop or rock record. it's also a lot easier to make a good sounding record when you're working with a lot of samples vs a lot of live instruments, imo.

Damn xposts, I was going to make a hilarious aside about 'Edgar Allan Poff'.

ha crut well on one hand I feel like "why don't more people aim high and write songs with listeners in mind instead of seeing songwriting as a kind of therapy?" and on the other hand I'm like "remember I approached music-making with enthusiasm and joy? oh yeah that was when it was a hobby"

*"remember when I approached..."

Steve otm about vocal takes. It's super important that singers work with somebody to help them through their own psychodrama.

Why don't we take this onto a production-specific thread instead of unfairly obscuring Neanderthal's awesome turn as Pilate

not all listeners want the same thing tho! I make music with the listener in mind but in my case "the listener" is a relatively small group of people who probably have different standards of form & fidelity than you & your audience. I would like to make a more "accessible" record though. I just have a lot of aesthetic hangups that I have to figure out my way through before I can get there.

Steve otm about vocal takes. It's super important that singers work with somebody to help them through their own psychodrama.

oh man, OTM; one reason why I don't sing that much on ILX pre-cover submissions is because I usually don't want to go through the ten day death spiral of "oh that sounds all right/JESUS CHRIST I AM TERRIBLE/well it's not that big a deal/I SHOULD NEVER SING SOLO EVER AGAIN/I need a voice teacher/I FUCKING NEED A VOICE TEACHER"

Yeah and I mean I am totally into a lot of music with rough singing, but in my mind that stuff registers as cool or non-chalant or rock and roll or something, but when I hear myself sounding rough it just comes across as awful.

But I think there might be something to the type of melody and musical context that affects how this works as well, and like the type of stuff I write just wants to sound pretty. I dunno but I have to go record vocals in a few hours and I'm nervous.

xp lol your singing is awesome btw

oh man, OTM; one reason why I don't sing that much on ILX pre-cover submissions is because I usually don't want to go through the ten day death spiral of "oh that sounds all right/JESUS CHRIST I AM TERRIBLE/well it's not that big a deal/I SHOULD NEVER SING SOLO EVER AGAIN/I need a voice teacher/I FUCKING NEED A VOICE TEACHER"

― Bitch Fantastic (DJP), Wednesday, October 9, 2013 11:13 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

co-signed - I HATE recording. my pitch is solid when I sing live because it's a fluid, connected performance, and even if a bad note slips, oh well, it'll slip into the night and be forgotten.

Recording actually rewires my technique - I've watched video of me singing during a recording and I have these tics that negatively impact that sound that I don't do when I sing live, and it's because I'm too overanxious, too overthinking each individual note. I also feel caged being forced to sing in a tiny room into a mounted microphone; too restricting! So I tend to make more mistakes, sing flat on recordings where I normally wouldn't. I've scrapped projects I worked on for hours in anger and told myself I should never sing again many many times.

and one time I was depressed for a week because my last two recordings had come out whiny, nasal, and tinny, and I was convinced I'd lost all of my talent, only to record myself with the shitty computer built-in mic on the same song and hear an entirely different sound. The stupid cheapo mic had scooped out all of the great frequencies and had made me sound like I was lead singer for Sunny Day Real Estate.

IMO the only way I'll ever record vocals well is if someone tapes me without me knowing.

btw thank you for your comments DJP and Go1db3rg :)

I kind of have a dumb joke, whenever anybody asks me to listen to their unfinished record for comments, I always tell them without even listening to re-sing the entire thing. 'Cause why not? You can re-sing an album in a day. And it's not like you're losing your old takes.

not all listeners want the same thing tho! I make music with the listener in mind but in my case "the listener" is a relatively small group of people who probably have different standards of form & fidelity than you & your audience.

You are already distinguishing between "songs for self" and "songs for an audience" so we are in agreement, regardless of the difference between your audience (your friends) and my audience (my in-laws)

I kind of have a dumb joke, whenever anybody asks me to listen to their unfinished record for comments, I always tell them without even listening to re-sing the entire thing. 'Cause why not? You can re-sing an album in a day. And it's not like you're losing your old takes.

― you and me against the board (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, October 9, 2013 11:40 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. can never have enough vocal takes. eventually after singing too much you get to the point of diminishing returns, but if they've been away from it for a while, you can get a fresh new take that improves a few areas.

^^^^ 100% agreed

i've always enjoyed this anecdote about "Together in Electric Dreams":

When Oakey recorded the song it was over very quickly, after the first full recording Moroder told Oakey that the first take was "good enough, as first time is always best". Oakey who thought he was just rehearsing insisted on doing another take. Moroder let him but to this day Oakey is convinced that Moroder still used the first take on the final production.

but obv not all of us are Phil Oakey