Production Trends

[john]

Hey guys

i thought it might be worth compiling a list of current production and post production trends. What effects and processors are used, how and why...

We could maybe go through different instruments? Different genres? I'd suggest drums or vocals as a starting point, but I guess we could just do whatever comes to mind and sort it our later....

Cheers

John

[Chokai]

What is it nowdays with people using pissed vocals all the time? Listen to the Kooks or Kings of Leon, they always sound like they've downed 10 shots of vodka before singing. And MIA cant even sing full stop! Ahh! How does this get popular?? (rant)

What ever happened to legible lyrics and smooth singing voices? Mind you, the "pissed" sound does actually work for some bands namely Radiohead.

[Boff]

Yea, I noticed the same thing listening to Timo Raisanen, the vocals aren't perfect, but I guess that might bring more emotion into it? "Just a guy with a guitar singing his heart out".

[Prometheus]

I've got the opposite complaint. Everything is over produced and over processed nowadays. I even overprocess everything so my products don't sound out of place.

I was listening to a song by ladyhawke the other day that was beautifully written with emotional singing, but with this preposterous eighties synth wash on it and a mix that was flat as f*ck.

It struck me how much better it would have sounded if she had just been able to record the song the way she'd written it without some conformist clown of a producer taking over and spoiling it. I thought the song should have been thick and dynamic, but the production and mixing process is so heavily conformist these days that everything just sounds the same.

Edited January 28, 2009 by Prometheus

[john]

hey

I just like to know the techniques, I can then choose to use them or not as required.

Then again production wise i believe what is right for the song is what is right full stop. I like older more dynamic mastering in general. Now that overlaps into production so much. It sucks. Everything is measured by loudest average track. I can still use the techniques employed to do a sympathetic application of the techniques. Same goes for production.

Cheers

John

[Chokai]

I've got the opposite complaint. Everything is over produced and over processed nowadays. I even overprocess everything so my products don't sound out of place.

I was listening to a song by ladyhawke the other day that was beautifully written with emotional singing, but with this preposterous eighties synth wash on it and a mix that was flat as f*ck.

It struck me how much better it would have sounded if she had just been able to record the song the way she'd written it without some conformist clown of a producer taking over and spoiling it. I thought the song should have been thick and dynamic, but the production and mixing process is so heavily conformist these days that everything just sounds the same.

hear hear, well said. its everyone jumping on each others band wagons until all the band wagons are rolling down the same road production should not really follow a trend, rather express the music in its best light.

[john]

hey

Well I'm more or less saying the same thing regarding my personal approach to trends, however new techniques do come to light, and they are not all bad. Like not knowing a D chord would certainly make you less likely to use it.

Steve, yes splitting it up into separate topics may be a good idea, but I have tried a few times to start conversation on individual aspects and the threads have fizzled out pretty quickly so i thought I'd try this approach

Chokai, the idea was not to promote the bandwagon but to realize that some had nice wheels...

True, trends are all about fashion, but they are also vehicles for engineers and producers pushing to create something new, interesting and palatable.

Every genre there is was produced as part of a trend, be that in songwriting, or recording and production, or some even marketing.

I am sure you already do this, even on a subconscious level. It's part of what helps you envision what a track will sound like before you even start.

Learning from direct experience is one thing, but my experience so far has taught me that learning from the experiments and works of others can be just as rewarding. It seems folly to condemn trends just because they exist.

I rarely use any technique as is. I work out how they are done, I adapt and create. I can be almost as inspired by a production technique as I can by the music.

On the vocoder, I agree they have their uses, but like any trend the technique gets over used almost exactly as is from song to song to song.

If anything trends are the beating to death of technique by the band wagon jumpers. Me? i still want to know how it is done so I can file that away for future reference.

Cheers

John