Curious about the music industry? Find out stuff.

[BonsaiK]

I recently grauduated as audio designer. Got a job for me? Here's my portfolio http://www.mass-ad.com (hope you read dutch hehe)

I'm not clicking that link, what the fuck is that. And no, I can "design" my own audio, whatever that means.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

This may have already been asked before, but what genres do you think will make up the future of the music industry?

Its just I personally dont see much future in all the fairly generic rock and metalcore bands that are constantly emerging, I fear that they will be so prevalent that they will very quickly oversaturate their genres and everyone, including their formerly die hard fanbases will become bored and move onto something else, possibly destroying those genres forever, I guess like what happened to grunge.
But what would that something that everyone moves onto be? What is the future of music?
Although of course I guess it would be hard for anyone to say, but you surely seem to have more of an idea than anyone.

 

[BonsaiK]

This may have already been asked before, but what genres do you think will make up the future of the music industry?

Its just I personally dont see much future in all the fairly generic rock and metalcore bands that are constantly emerging, I fear that they will be so prevalent that they will very quickly oversaturate their genres and everyone, including their formerly die hard fanbases will become bored and move onto something else, possibly destroying those genres forever, I guess like what happened to grunge.
But what would that something that everyone moves onto be? What is the future of music?
Although of course I guess it would be hard for anyone to say, but you surely seem to have more of an idea than anyone.

I agree with you about metalcore. Metal is a constantly evolving style and what's hot now won't be hot in ten years, that's a given. I guarantee you one thing though - whatever it evolves into, you'll probably like it less than you like metalcore.

I think in the future there will be a 90s revival, because these things tend to go in about 25 year cycles. Also plenty of forum-readers will be happy to know that I predict less obvious Autotune in upcoming years. It'll still be there, but you'll notice it less, it'll become more subtle as the overt use of the effect becomes less trendy. In fact, this is already starting to happen. I think crunk and crunk-core is here to stay though so get used to it, in fact I think that kind of music is the logical conclusion of what bands like Mr. Bungle were doing in the 90s - seriously. As for big long-term trends I probably have even less idea than anybody else... being an insider means it's often hard to see the wood from the trees if you get my drift... if you want a better answer to that question I'd suggest going out to see some local young up-and-coming musicians in your area, you never know, one of them might have the sound of the next decade...

 

[IBlackKiteI]

I agree with you about metalcore. Metal is a constantly evolving style and what's hot now won't be hot in ten years, that's a given. I guarantee you one thing though - whatever it evolves into, you'll probably like it less than you like metalcore.

I think in the future there will be a 90s revival, because these things tend to go in about 25 year cycles. Also plenty of forum-readers will be happy to know that I predict less obvious Autotune in upcoming years. It'll still be there, but you'll notice it less, it'll become more subtle as the overt use of the effect becomes less trendy. In fact, this is already starting to happen. I think crunk and crunk-core is here to stay though so get used to it, in fact I think that kind of music is the logical conclusion of what bands like Mr. Bungle were doing in the 90s - seriously. As for big long-term trends I probably have even less idea than anybody else... being an insider means it's often hard to see the wood from the trees if you get my drift... if you want a better answer to that question I'd suggest going out to see some local young up-and-coming musicians in your area, you never know, one of them might have the sound of the next decade...

I dont really dislike metalcore, but I am kind of irritated that there are so many bands sort of capitalising on the trend, meaning that the whole style of music could burn up very quickly.
So whats left when thats gone?
Nothing but pop, rap etc, mass produced and made to cater to the masses often oblivious to the fact that this style of music is often quite...processed and well, bad really.
God I hope your right about autotune.

Like, how often do you hear of an 'up and coming band' being anything other than metalcore or generic rock?
Sure you seem to get the occassional band claiming to be attempting to revive 90's alternative rock but they are kind of bands that get no recognition other than 500 views on Youtube, along with bands that are a complete rip-off of AC/DC/Greenday/Whatever.

The only band I can think of right now that wasnt in existance until the 21st century, is currently quite successful and isnt metalcore or generic rock, is somewhat unique and is actually decent and worthy of recognition would have to be the Silversun Pickups.

There are probably a few more lights in the darkness, but ehhh...tired...

Anyway, what I'm thinking is good music will fairly soon die, leaving nothing but crap and the odd good musician(s) here and there which will be outshined by the crap.
A good band will be needed to break the cycle of suckery, which wont come until a very long time.

Eh, maybe I'm just something of a chaos theorist, or maybe I should take a break from reading Nineteen Eighty Four...

...or I'm just really damn tired.

 

[BonsaiK]

I agree with you about metalcore. Metal is a constantly evolving style and what's hot now won't be hot in ten years, that's a given. I guarantee you one thing though - whatever it evolves into, you'll probably like it less than you like metalcore.

I think in the future there will be a 90s revival, because these things tend to go in about 25 year cycles. Also plenty of forum-readers will be happy to know that I predict less obvious Autotune in upcoming years. It'll still be there, but you'll notice it less, it'll become more subtle as the overt use of the effect becomes less trendy. In fact, this is already starting to happen. I think crunk and crunk-core is here to stay though so get used to it, in fact I think that kind of music is the logical conclusion of what bands like Mr. Bungle were doing in the 90s - seriously. As for big long-term trends I probably have even less idea than anybody else... being an insider means it's often hard to see the wood from the trees if you get my drift... if you want a better answer to that question I'd suggest going out to see some local young up-and-coming musicians in your area, you never know, one of them might have the sound of the next decade...

I dont really dislike metalcore, but I am kind of irritated that there are so many bands sort of capitalising on the trend, meaning that the whole style of music could burn up very quickly.
So whats left when thats gone?
Nothing but pop, rap etc, mass produced and made to cater to the masses often oblivious to the fact that this style of music is often quite...processed and well, bad really.
God I hope your right about autotune.

Like, how often do you hear of an 'up and coming band' being anything other than metalcore or generic rock?
Sure you seem to get the occassional band claiming to be attempting to revive 90's alternative rock but they are kind of bands that get no recognition other than 500 views on Youtube, along with bands that are a complete rip-off of AC/DC/Greenday/Whatever.

The only band I can think of right now that wasnt in existance until the 21st century, is currently quite successful and isnt metalcore or generic rock, is somewhat unique and is actually decent and worthy of recognition would have to be the Silversun Pickups.

There are probably a few more lights in the darkness, but ehhh...tired...

Anyway, what I'm thinking is good music will fairly soon die, leaving nothing but crap and the odd good musician(s) here and there which will be outshined by the crap.
A good band will be needed to break the cycle of suckery, which wont come until a very long time.

Eh, maybe I'm just something of a chaos theorist, or maybe I should take a break from reading Nineteen Eighty Four...

...or I'm just really damn tired.

Criticising a style of music for being "mass-produced" makes no sense. All styles of music are mass-produced if they're popular. The reason why pop exists is because people like it. The reason why people buy rap records is because they like them. No-one forces them to buy that stuff (and trust me, if we could, we would). Rock music is just as "processed" as rap music and to be honest a lot of well-known rap records are surprisingly low-fi compared to rock from around the same time period. In fact the whole modern rock recording sound from the 1960s onward with close-micing of instruments is a completely artificial construction to increase audio fidelity - there is simply no way you could hear that sound naturally with your ears. It's such processed music that if you take that artificial acoustic construct away, it doesn't even really sound like rock anymore. Pop music is obviously sheeny but then it's trying to appeal to as many people as possible so why shouldn't it be - "pop" is just short for "popular" after all. Why not process it so it can sound as pleasant as it can? As for whether it's "bad", well that's pretty subjective and no-one can really tell you that you're right or wrong, but the fact that a lot of people buy it suggests that many disagree and you can't really tell them that they're right or wrong either. The golden rule is: if you like it, it's good music to you, and if you don't, then it isn't. Not much else really matters.

I hear of up and coming bands that aren't metal or rock all the time, but then I guess I'm in a unique position of getting new shit sent to me for free on a daily basis. When something supposedly "new" comes out boy does it always come with an over-the-top press release full of critics gushing praise... but then, so does the fairly retread kind of stuff. For instance I got sent The XX's album a month before it came out with some write-up basically saying that it was manna from heaven and they would save music... I was then dismayed to put it on and find out it sounded exactly like Australian 80s rock band The Church but with synthesisers. People have a funny idea of innovative I guess, but hey whatever...

 

[II2]

I was deeply interested in sound synthesis and digital signal processing, so I sought out hardware I felt would allow me the biggest canvas to work on and learn (like NI Reaktor or Clavia's Nord Modular synths).

Did u ever look into Max/MSP? As "canvas" goes, u can't get much bigger. It's great for the more experimental noisey tracks. I use it all the time for algorithmic composition, soundscapes, sound design. It's also great for interactive installations, video generation.. well basicly.. evrything multimedia related. It's not easy to learn though

I'm mucked around with Max/MSP 4.5.5 a bit and Miller Puckette's freeware Pure Data. They're great!

That said, I don't really have enough experience with them to say much more than that they're extremely capable, flexible environments. I have more direct experience working with the Mode/Pluggo/Hipno VST packs built in and powered by a Max/MSP runtime shell - great tools, some are incredibly whacked out.

I hope to develop at least a competant understanding of Max in the future, but diving into a new programming language is always pretty time consuming. Having got my music work flow to where I'm quite comfortable, but still afforded a lot of room to grow, I've been focusing more on learning Video production software - Adobe production etc... Perhaps learning video will lead me in a circle back to Max and Jitter .

 

[II2]

I recently grauduated as audio designer. Got a job for me? Here's my portfolio http://www.mass-ad.com (hope you read dutch hehe)

I like your stuff!

The Beauty and the Wicked and Twisted Events on a Stormy Night/I Have a dream are neat studies of spectral analysis/resynthesis/fourier transforms and granular, time-domain sample manipulation, respectively. Very music concrete. Good listening.

 

[Ham_authority95]

So I'm thinking about taking a sound engineering course at the local community college. I'm only 15, and you've said that a ton people people in the industry have taken it before, but I think it'll set me ahead of the curve in terms of age.

How much would you recommend this, and what other skills besides a pair of ears are required for this?

EDIT: If you're worried about whether they'll allow me to take it, the college is fee-only and doesn't require a highschool diploma.(I could even transfer the credit from the course to my school transcript if I wanted to)

 

[BonsaiK]

So I'm thinking about taking a sound engineering course at the local community college. I'm only 15, and you've said that a ton people people in the industry have taken it before, but I think it'll set me ahead of the curve in terms of age.

How much would you recommend this, and what other skills besides a pair of ears are required for this?

EDIT: If you're worried about whether they'll allow me to take it, the college is fee-only and doesn't require a highschool diploma.(I could even transfer the credit from the course to my school transcript if I wanted to)

If you've got the money and you're young and still being supported by your parents, do it by all means. Let's be honest - the career opportunities that the course will give you are limited - but what doing the course will do for you is get you in a room with tons of other people who are into the same shit that you are, and it'll allow you to get a little bit of a network going. That's a very valuable thing and it could lead to further employment down the track, or if not, some valuable experiences.

Skills you'll need:

* Good ears (by which I mean you are not deaf)
* A good sense of rhythm and relative pitch will definitely help
* Basic understanding of how mathematical ratios work (needed to use compressors effectively)
* Reasonable literacy (I can see by your posts that you already have this)
* Tolerance for unusual behaviour
* A good judge of character, so you don't get involved with any dodgy/scammy types
* Ability to resist peer pressure, especially concerning drugs/alcohol
* Basic social skills (and if you don't have them, use this course as an opportunity to learn them)

I'm of course assuming that the course you're taking is comparable to the one that I did. Requirements may change a little depending on what exactly the tasks in the course are.

 

[Ham_authority95]

So I'm thinking about taking a sound engineering course at the local community college. I'm only 15, and you've said that a ton people people in the industry have taken it before, but I think it'll set me ahead of the curve in terms of age.

How much would you recommend this, and what other skills besides a pair of ears are required for this?

EDIT: If you're worried about whether they'll allow me to take it, the college is fee-only and doesn't require a highschool diploma.(I could even transfer the credit from the course to my school transcript if I wanted to)

If you've got the money and you're young and still being supported by your parents, do it by all means. Let's be honest - the career opportunities that the course will give you are limited - but what doing the course will do for you is get you in a room with tons of other people who are into the same shit that you are, and it'll allow you to get a little bit of a network going. That's a very valuable thing and it could lead to further employment down the track, or if not, some valuable experiences.

Skills you'll need:

* Good ears (by which I mean you are not deaf)
* A good sense of rhythm and relative pitch will definitely help
* Basic understanding of how mathematical ratios work (needed to use compressors effectively)
* Reasonable literacy (I can see by your posts that you already have this)
* Tolerance for unusual behaviour
* A good judge of character, so you don't get involved with any dodgy/scammy types
* Ability to resist peer pressure, especially concerning drugs/alcohol
* Basic social skills (and if you don't have them, use this course as an opportunity to learn them)

I'm of course assuming that the course you're taking is comparable to the one that I did. Requirements may change a little depending on what exactly the tasks in the course are.

May I ask why I need tolerance for weird shit, drugs/alcohol, shady people etc etc? The college is pretty tame in terms of its alumni...(it wouldn't be much of a problem, though. I wait for the bus 2 hours a day in the trashiest part of my district, so I need tolerance up to my eye-balls)

Otherwise, I should be able to get those skills in order. Thanks.

 

[BonsaiK]

May I ask why I need tolerance for weird shit, drugs/alcohol, shady people etc etc?

Come on, this is the music business...

 

[Tipsy Giant]

With recording becoming ever more affordable and distribution through the internet, is the "record industry" finally coming to a close?

eg. If I can recreate the same quality record for free and release it for free, where is my incentive to include an outside source (record companies) whose sole interest is not in the artistic merit of my work?

 

[Ham_authority95]

May I ask why I need tolerance for weird shit, drugs/alcohol, shady people etc etc?

Come on, this is the music business...

I see now....

 

[Seldom]

I write lots of songs, both in a band and electronic/symphonic instrumental songs on my computer. I'm quite interested in music, and would enjoy doing it as a career, but I'm not sure if I'd want to actually take a degree in it. Would you say that it's worth it, or should I just continue to write, and hope I get discovered one day?

 

[BonsaiK]

With recording becoming ever more affordable and distribution through the internet, is the "record industry" finally coming to a close?

eg. If I can recreate the same quality record for free and release it for free, where is my incentive to include an outside source (record companies) whose sole interest is not in the artistic merit of my work?

The incentive is that you may be able to theoretically produce the perfect album, but who the hell is going to know about it besides you?

Read post 305 on page 9, that goes into more detail.

Regarding "artistic merit", you'd be surprised - many labels won't sign an artist that they don't believe in the artistry of.

 

[BonsaiK]

I write lots of songs, both in a band and electronic/symphonic instrumental songs on my computer. I'm quite interested in music, and would enjoy doing it as a career, but I'm not sure if I'd want to actually take a degree in it. Would you say that it's worth it, or should I just continue to write, and hope I get discovered one day?

Not sure exactly what you mean by "get discovered". Most people who get anywhere in the world of music don't sit back and wait to be "discovered", they make an extremely active effort to get out there and make themselves more easily discoverable.

A music degree is actually pretty useless in a lot of ways. It's good in a few niche areas (like teaching, but even then you still need a teaching degree to teach in a classroom) but not having one won't hurt you too much. Having said that, given the choice between going to Uni and doing some boring shit or going to Uni and doing music, I sure as hell know what I'd pick. Also doing a degree is good for meeting lots of like-minded people and that's a really important thing as it can sometimes lead to work or other rewarding music-related adventures.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

With recording becoming ever more affordable and distribution through the internet, is the "record industry" finally coming to a close?

eg. If I can recreate the same quality record for free and release it for free, where is my incentive to include an outside source (record companies) whose sole interest is not in the artistic merit of my work?

The incentive is that you may be able to theoretically produce the perfect album, but who the hell is going to know about it besides you?

Read post 305 on page 9, that goes into more detail.

Regarding "artistic merit", you'd be surprised - many labels won't sign an artist that they don't believe in the artistry of.

Why should I care "who the hell is going to know about it besides you" shouldn't art be made for the pure expression, if Van Gogh had been told by an art seller to alter his style to sell to the mainstream art scene, he may have been rich, but at what cost?
Surely if you create from the heart, the production isn't really gonna matter, i'm making records for the future and if just one person hears my record and feels what I felt, i've done my duty as an artist

 

[Tipsy Giant]

If you were presented the option of recording your own album in a rented recording studio and mixing/packaging/distributing it on your own, would it be better to go forward with the whole process mentioned, or try to get a deal with a label?

Why do you need packaging/distributing?

You could put it up on torrents for free and start a grass roots campaign to get people to dl it, then when you tour people know who you are and are more likely to come see you live (where the money is made) cos if you sign to a major and don't go platinum you are making the same money as giving it away

 

[Tipsy Giant]

Whats your opinion regarding some of the more outrageous of todays music stars such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna?

Also. Just what has become of the concept album?

They are the next Britney Spears, Nubiles with auto-tune created by record companies to sell pop and sex.

as far as concept albums go

Mars volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Boris - Smile
Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

You just gotta look for them, by the way the above three are three of the finest albums ever created imo

 

[BonsaiK]

Why should I care "who the hell is going to know about it besides you" shouldn't art be made for the pure expression, if Van Gogh had been told by an art seller to alter his style to sell to the mainstream art scene, he may have been rich, but at what cost?
Surely if you create from the heart, the production isn't really gonna matter, i'm making records for the future and if just one person hears my record and feels what I felt, i've done my duty as an artist

I completely agree with you on all levels. However your original question was about the music industry, and my answer is that no, the industry will not die, because people still require promotion. Some people have your attitude and are happy to do things solely for art's sake. That's wonderful and I wish more people had your attitude, if nothing else it would save me a lot of pointless busywork. However, not everybody shares your worldview, some are quite happy to dance with the devil... because as bad as it can be, being paid to make the music you love (or at least don't despise) sure beats working in a factory somewhere, putting spindles in boxes (cookie for reference)...

Why do you need packaging/distributing?

You could put it up on torrents for free and start a grass roots campaign to get people to dl it, then when you tour people know who you are and are more likely to come see you live (where the money is made) cos if you sign to a major and don't go platinum you are making the same money as giving it away

Gosh, I suppose you could. But where's this magical touring money going to come from? Touring can make money, if you can fill venues, but it also costs money. Is a free torrent campaign enough to get enough people to fill a venue to make touring profitable, so you can do things like eat and pay transport costs? And what is this "grass roots campaign" going to look like? How are you going to get enough people to do your bidding, unless you pay them or bribe them? Chances are that anyone pursuing this route either has to heavily raid daddy's nest egg or needs to get themselves a real job in the real world in order to kick it into gear. Which means that you're still selling your soul somewhere.

Also some people like packaging. I certainly do, I think good packaging is nice, I think it actually forms part of the artistic statement of the group.

As for Boris, I thought Smile was awful compared to Amplifier Worship, but hey whatevs.