Originality and superstardom
Do you want to be original or reach for the stars and the big crowds? Or maybe both? Flickr photo by RodrigoFavera.
Though being active in this scene for a while now, sometimes I still feel like a newbie. My career as an artist is just beginning. Though being a DJ for years, my network expanded vastly after I started at Finity. Working for Finity, and now for Subtraxx, have given me credibility in international level. Credibility is something people have to work for years in the business at the moment.
Producing is relatively easy these days. Software is cheap (if not free) and easy to use. I’m using 100% software myself and started producing just 3,5 years ago so I should know.
Anyone can these days get the best plugins (legally or illegally, I’m not going there this time) and start producing. Everybody has a computer powerful enough these days. Heck, even I do my music on a laptop.
Originality, what’s that?
While starting making music on your own computer has came easier and easier, it has brought us a downside also. Young producers try to mimic the sound of the current hot producers (like Sean Tyas & Deadmau5 for the last 12 months). Seldom are trying to create music on their own terms.
Fellow Innotunian (is that even a word?) Marcus Schössow is a good example of the latter . He produces the kind of material he wants and it is going to take him far. One of the not-so-known new comers really doing like the heart says are the Finnish brothers from Synthika, Tempo Giusto and Ima´gin. Check out Ima´gin’s remix of Disguised Reality. Now that is original!
While the production quality might be a tad lower than the superstars, it has more originality you could hear from bunch of top-50 trance names. Being classically taught, Ima´gin can create themes and atmosphere’s seldom heard in trance. Gothic Trance seems to be a great genre for his music.
Why do trance sound all the same then? Youngsters are trying to mimic the sound of their favorite producers. Combined with the preset sound banks of modern VST-synths and not being musically trained is the perfect combination. There are vast number of producers who have releases, but don’t even know the basic chords.
Luckily I’ve been taught how to play the keyboards, I know the chords and understand about the harmonies. Added nearly a decade of DJing and a good ear, I could pick up producing in just months. Learning how to use sequencers, how the synths really work and how to polish the sound have been a journey itself. I don’t think I’m the best producer there is, but I certainly aren’t the worst either.
Superstar effect
One of the best bloggers in club world, John 00 Fleming posted right on the money post about what is wrong with the scene in his Myspace blog. With 20 years of experience he seems to recognize the trend cycles in the scene. His insight of the state of the scene and the superstar cult of the moment fading away soon is right to the point.
What’s next?
John 00 Fleming’s Joof Recordings have taken the logical step, selecting quality over quantity.
I made a huge decision this year with JOOF recordings to just concentrate on quality rather than quantity. As more and more producers head towards making music to please the masses in hope to fast track their careers, I find it harder to find quality music that meets the JOOF threshold stamp of approval. So now we’re happy to wait for a decent product and focus all of our energy on that. Judging from the reaction of our first release of 2008 from Vibrasphere, it looks like we got it 100% right. Plenty more gems lined up for the rest of the year, our producers are taking their time to get them right
Source: Joof’s blog. (2008)
At the same post he tells his label will work as a artist management from this point on, which is one move I’ve been thinking myself.
I think in near future there will be more synergy between artists, labels, booking agencies and event promoters. Some of people are already doing all this stuff (anyone heard of Madonna?), but I predict this kind of coalitions and all-around-agencies will rise more and more. What do you think?
7 Responses to “Originality and superstardom”
Leave a Reply
Podcast episodes
 |
Listen at Mixcloud |
| The RSS podcast feed has been shut down, but our 13 podcast episodes are still available for streaming at Mixcloud |
Connect
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|
Yeah well, making something resembling “music” is easy, and has been for the past 15 years – with tracker programs and such. The arrival of soft synths and entry-level professional music producing all-in-one-packages such as Reason have taken the bar even lower. Fast forward to “00″ Fleming’s blog : too much bullshit out there.
It’s cool that there are original composers and producers out there, since I’ve been missing that originality from music as a whole. Beginning in the wild west of electronic music, the Amiga Scene, it’s been quite a drop in originality when we’ve progressed to club circles and taken our tunes to broader audiences, those who don’t have the “approving ear” of sceners when it comes to sounds and technical limitations of tracks.
Producers nowadays compete with the very best in the business from the beginning. If your track stands out from the Tiëstos and other megastars’ productions with inferior sounds, that is how you will be perceived. Result : a LOT of people strive for technical profess and forget about the compositions along the way. Ffwd to J00f’s post once again.
But why are producers so eager to release new stuff so fucking often, when they should really concentrate more on the quality of their releases? Is it because of some of the labels, who just seem to take a 30 sec listen to some of the demos they get, and put it out there in the next mass email? Is it because the neighbouring producer does it ; puts out 10 god damn tracks a year, 20 maybe? Is it because it’s all about keeping the name out there? IDK. But it should be addressed that most producers should really just put out less stuff, more gems.
The result would be that maybe the most talented producers would really stand a chance at being noticed, and not just get trampled by those who have the time or ability to find the right contacts. The scene would benefit in the long run, because all DJ’s wouldn’t have to go through endless shithills of average promos, get bored, and then just find the banging tracks that everyone else are playing by going through the Top 100 @ Beatport.
It’s good that basically everyone has a chance to have a go at producing these days, but I wish that more label bosses would do what John has done : put a fucking cork in it and really just release the 10 / 10 stuff so the rest of us wouldn’t have to marvel at the lack of originality.
Rant over…. for now.
I mostly agree with you both Ville and Toni. The general problem in my mind in the issue is that you cant ignore the fact, it still is a business and there are people who want to do this as more than a hobby. It creates pressures to also address the audience and I dont think pleasing the masses is as big a crime as it sometimes is made to be like.
Mostly I think that the people who sell their own concept and sound by doing very similar things one track after another, are quite smart. Thats how you create a fan base and also keep them satisfied. Labels can also trust your sound to be consistent considering remixes and stuff. I might stop buyin their tracks cause they dont sound distinctive enough but most people arent like that. And thats a fact that just doesnt seem to change.
I agree that endlessly imitating the sound of the pros is boring, but it is also a way to learn the trade. I honestly admit that my “career” in EDM began with trying to make tracks that sound like the superstars. That’s how I gradually became better at producing and that way i collected ideas from which to derive more original material later on. And i also admit that i observe the scene and trends that come and go, and I would be lying if I said it didnt have an effect on what im producing even today.
I really dont know what my point is in this
. Well, originality is great, and if people dig it, even better. Still, its the audience that buys the stuff. If nobody bought the boring imitation then this discussion would not exist. So lets not lay the blame too much on the artists that are making a buck even if we dont think the material is original enough. 
Hola,
First of all this is nothing personal – its just conversation!
I have to say that speaking about originality and producing tracks on a laptop in a same sentence gets me almost mad!
Being original in my opinion means staying true to your own beliefs and not taking to the shortest route! I find artists being original when they really use analogue synths, effects, record hi hats from kitchen tools etc to create an unique sound! I don’t think the musical education is always the key. I happen to to know several really talented composers that really don’t know the production side at all. Often you hear not musically educated producers really nailing it! its because they have visions. they dont know all the chords etc. but they really try something new..they aren’t stuck into rules or basic melodies (mainly used in trance btw). Its painful, but true.
About the commercial/superstardom issue. If somebody asks Im not afraid to say I’d love to be “commercial”. Making money with my beloved hobby! what would be more handy? If you want to be underground, you should give away your production for free. If you want to be original you would’t use any booking agencies (cos you would do it for free – right?) or labels to distribute your music. If you have your tracks on itunes, it means you are commercial. If you don’t have them there – Im sure you would love to have them!
About the producers who are imitating the big guys. I don’t really hear that a lot.. I just Hear bad mixing, bad sounds and worst of all bad ideas. I think this amount of shit in the stores aren’t because of bad producers. Its because bad labels. But this is business like there has already been conversation about the issue. Business means rivalry – and rivalry often means cutting out costs and trying to get the most out of the material available.
Peace and love! Be an Original and keep on dancing!
yours truly
I have always loved trance and wrote my first tracks when I was about 16.
At that point in my life, I reacted very strongly to anything creative that I thought was stale or copycat, so I completely moved away from the trance scene and stopped producing in that style completely.
It was only relatively recently that I came back to producing trance and worked seriously to get my tracks released, because I learned that we have a fantastically flexible musical form here that can embrace an astonishing variety of interesting styles.
You can have electro trance, minimal trance, 8-bit trance, epic trance, pop trance…anything that is around a certain speed, has a 4×4 kick and is melodically driven is fine! It was really through Gareth Emery’s DJing style that I came back to the genre: he’s someone who’s not afraid of playing anything, but yet manages to craft coherent sets which are really genre-hopping. I don’t agree with some of his tastes, but that’s exactly the point: he delivers a big spread of sounds; I’m GLAD I don’t like all of it.
The legendary DJ John Peel went a step further: he would play music of literally any genre on his radio show. Genre didn’t mean anything to him: nobody has even come close to this in the dance scene.
I’m getting bolder with my productions now, and I want to keep pushing myself to do more innovative things. At the same time, I do want my music to “fit in”, in that people can go to a club, see me play and dance, but that’s about it! Beyond that, anything goes.
Now, where I *do* think some imitation is imporant is on the engineering side. It doesn’t matter how innovative your tracks are if they don’t stand up to others in a sound engineering context. I think that the emphasis has gone far too far this way, and there are some very annoying trends in sound engineering around as well, but also that it’s important for those looking to get innovative material out there to learn from the masters. There is *NOTHING* wrong with copying and imitating mixing and effects tricks: all producers and engineers do this. Good engineers amass a mental “library” of such things: any time you’re in the studio with a decent producer they will do something and say, “Oh, X told me about this” or “Y does this kind of thing in his tunes quite a lot”. I think mixing techniques are in the public domain, and the copying of these is actually beneficial to music. One example might be the side-chained reverb effect which is all over every current trance sound: I actually think this technique really improves certain reverbs, and I’ve taken it and used it in other work (soundtrack pieces for example), where it has got a good reaction. That’s something that I simply stole from the tracks where I first heard it – nothing wrong with that.
So, in summary of my utterly rambling comment: celebrate and innovate within this fantastic genre; but use your natural desire to copy in a productive way, by perpetuating strong engineering techniques.
originality ftw people
[...] Originality and superstardom Ville Lope wants more originality in EDM. [...]
By far the most concise and up to date information I found on this topic. Sure glad that I navigated to your page by accident. I’ll be subscribing to your feed so that I can get the latest updates. Appreciate all the information here