How To Preserve A Vintage Mindset And Why It May Hurt Sometimes.
“But why”… That was my reaction when I was in a music production session with a few younger new school DJ-producer students. The question came from the fact that they constantly turned off the music as an edit was performed. “Why are you stopping the music all the time?” “Well, they said, this way I can concentrate better on what I want to edit”. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but it soon became annoying, and it started to get the better of my ADHD. Every time I got into it, a groove or rhythm, the music would stop. They would pull up a plugin and start programming and editing in digits, much like IT specialists. I went into meltdown mode as I felt the inspiration leave me as if I was exorcized. With a steep deadline and the pressure of having to finish this rather prestigious project, time was of the utmost to not waste on this stop dance bs.
And some days that passed, I kind of revisited that working process and decided to call said one of the producer guys, apologize for my M&M (mental meltdown) and ask him why he worked the way he worked. He said, “What on earth are you on about?” “Dude, about you constantly stopping the music while editing”. “Ow, is that what you meant? I didn’t get why you were so upset. Well, I can better ‘edit’ the sound and fully concentrate. And that made absolutely no sense to me but then it dawned on me. I asked him where he picked up those ‘editing tricks' and he said the magical words: Well, YouTube is my holy grail bro, I look up what I want to learn and ‘memorize’ that process. I then started to sink into a discussion resembling me treading water, but instead of a pool, I was stuck in quicksand.
He got to where he was going but I debated that if you were to add or subtract stuff (read Equalizing, Compressing, Saturating) the brain does a better job at filling in blanks and creating a palette, listening to the track while adjusting. But he preferred the meticulously pressing digits as if behind the register at Costco. But at the risk of sounding like an old fart (I had long lost the discussion, so the damage was done), I felt like Dexter of Dexter’s Laboratory explaining “I was not Grandpa with an Omelet Du Fromage on my face!”
Was I vastly becoming vintage, and was my philosophy something God's only son bragged about during his last supper? Or could I convince these youngsters of another reality?
It has to do with “vibe’. So now I'm thinking. Where does this different way of thinking come from? And low and behold. It comes from the more vintage way of music production. From adding synthesizers to beats and sound designing and shaping (or folding) a sound in a way that compliments the production. Getting ‘Into The Pocket’. Mastering a synth and working it! All these Ableton templates, all this prefab bullshit, and all this ‘getting results fast’ takes out the fun in developing your hearing and adjusting your perception to subtle fluctuations within the sound. But that was where it was at. Since everything has become so unbelievably digitized, acquiring a skill like using one's ears for which they were designed, sounds like a revolution. And it’s surprising how much you can hear if you focus and listen.
Of course, this situation is hypothetical, and no young producers were hurt in the process. As a matter of fact, this whole mixing session never took place, and I didn’t yell at anything. It’s been one of those alternate reality things I envisioned when I saw someone turn off the music, use the calculator method, and then move on. I noticed it in a glimpse and moved on as it happened while visiting a studio where I was merely a fly on the wall. However, I’m happy that www.LearnToPlay.Live exists because of the Obvious. Just the simplicity of creating instead of programming. I love puzzles, especially once you get them right… I love scale modeling, as you see nothing become something under your hands. So, if you feel where I’m coming from, check out www.LearnToPlay.Live and join the movement. Don’t worry, we won’t yell at you.
