Slashdot Mirror
Cheap Audio Production
OneInEveryCrowd writes "Rolling Stone reports that four out of five new albums are now produced by a program called Pro Tools (or similar packages) that costs $495 for the home version or $15,000 for the pro version. The article describes a fairly amazing savings in time and effort compared to the older ways of producing an album. I realize that a talented producer can cost a lot of money and some bands drink a lot of beer, but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
the benefits aren't being passed on so that the industry can maximize profit margins. Old skool.
Word.
To hell with the consumer, how about the artist?
why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
I suspect its because 99% of the cost of producing commercially successful records is not (and never has been) studio related. Sure, studio time costs a fair bit, but never anything like the amount of money that is typically spent on publicity, production, promotion, distribution, and stuff like that.
That's easy. There are 2 ways to increase profits -- raise prices of lower costs (ok 3 - you can do both). Any of the three ways results in a higher profit margin (== price - cost). To pass along savings means to lower your margin or keep it steady. Increased margins == increased profits.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
--screw the consumer, they'll buy what we tell them to anyways
The band gets a certain amount of money from the record company to pay for recording costs. Any money not spent goes up someone's nose.
Let Apple lead the way.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
Here is a Link to the people who make Pro Tools.
--sig fault--
well.... that cost has never been much of the total cost of the record to begin with.... also, the bands usually get a recording budget advance on the sale of the album, which is used to pay for time taken from their jobs at starbucks or painting houses as a psuedo-salary... so don't be suprised. Consider that the band actually makes a very small amount of money from the real sale of the album.
The cost of recording and producing a record is
very cheap compared to promoting a band. When you buy a CD your not paying for the Production your paying for the bands Brand reckognition and promotion costs not to mention all the RIAA lawyer bills, and reckord execs like a big pay day too.
Because you gotta pay for all that COWBELL, baby!
Production savings will only get passed to the consumer when other producers are willing to compete on price - but if Band X produces their next album for $200,000 less than the previous one, why should they cut the price at all?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
because there is no competition!
It it were a truly open market, then these increases in efficiency would be passed on to the consumer as lower prices. However, since the recording industry has done everything possible to insure that there is little or no competition, it just results in higher profits.
This is the danger inherent in monopolies and oligopolies.
I'm still at a loss to tell what it does that is so special...
Of course it records and mixes, but what else? What is so incredible that this has, that no other software has had before??? Anyone...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
...and while it does make some good points about cheap, home-brewed recording (whether Pro Tools or not) it doesn't take into account:
Using said studios
Hiring people to mix, master, and produce albums
Advertising and promotion
Paying everyone associated with the album in a fair manner aside from the artist
The fact Hilary Rosen does not have enough money.
I am not who I say you are.
THere's an open source tool that I just started playing with called Protux that just happens to be very similar to protools, but has a smooth keyboard and mouse interface. So... I guess the point of this post is that for $495 you can get the industry standard but for $0 you can get the "free" and "almost function complete-similar" tool that you could contribute $500 worth of work into to make better... IMHO a better deal :)
.: 2+2 = PI SQRT(1+N)
most $ the record companies spend covers marketing and their losses on the releases that fail (which is somewhere around 9 out of 10).
You didn't see them drop costs when distribution format (LP,8-Track,Cassette,CD) prices dropped.. Why would you expect any different now.
Business is Business and Business must grow, Regardless of crummies in tummies you know... -Onceler
Hasn't Pro Tools (in one form or another) been the de facto standard for audio work for quite some time? They make it sound like Pro Tools is something new. What am I missing here?
You're talking about a $14,505 savings. Big name producers, studio time, etc cost a LOT more than that.
Trolling is a art,
because the bands pay production costs most of the time. Here's a better question: when CDs first came out, their outrageous price versus cassettes was justified by the fact that there were only 2 stamping plants in operation. Why didn't they ever go down in price?
a pro tools setup is actually hardware based, running off dsp cards and costs around $15000 for a basic studio quality setup, the home version is software only and is basically the same as cubase or logic.
because of this price constraint, it is predominately large studios that run a 'decent' pro tools rig and charge accordingly.
also, record companies are money grabbing bastards
Actually I do a lot of recording myself, and I've never used pro tools before, although I have heard great things.
If you are looking for a good alternative to pro tools, I am quite happy with my Tascam US-428 (http://www.tascam.com) and Cool Edit Pro 2.0(Multitrack recording)(http://http://www.syntrillium.com/)..
Infact, I just recorded an eight track demo for my friends who are in a little band, and I can tell you the quality is pretty damn good compared to the price of recording in most studios(Some run about $100 an hour). Anyway, thats my two cents.
The punk mentality has paid-off in some situations. Look at Epitaph or Fat Wreck Chords. Not only are they highly sucessful, but are good to the bands. And, the bands are good to the fans.
Click here or here.
I don't want to start a flame war, because I pretty much hate the recording industry, but there are a lot more costs involved in recording than just Pro Tools.
First, you need a good way to get that audio into your computer, and these are still expensive. The newest consumer level Pro Tools mixing board costs about $1500 and can mix 8 sources at a time. The price of larger boards increases exponentially. A professional audio DAT drive ain't cheap, and, most importantly, TO GET A HIGH QUALITY RECORDING YOU NEED A STUDIO. Good quality sound absorbers aren't cheap.
My point is, and let the flames begin, that there are still a lot of costs to sound recording. Also, the cost of producing an album isn't why they're so expensive. If that was true, CD costs would have fell when they became cheap to produce.
Wow thats gret rolling stone. how long has pro tools been used in the studio (mid 90s or so)?
"... why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
No real competition in the industry. Any company will maximize its profits, with real competition, the products will have to be sold to someone with a choose, and all things equal people by the cheap one.
What do I mean by 'real'? Two or more competitors that arn't either locked into some forced pricing, or in agreement to price equally.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How else are they going to pay for J-Lo's insurance?
it's depressing how such a featureful tool is used mainly for evil.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
Why do movies still cost an arm and a leg to go see when they use Linux clusters rather than SGI machines to do the rendering? Just because a company becomes more efficient doesn't mean they have to pass on the savings. What if the company was losing money until they found a way to shave a few bucks from their costs and make a profit? Are they supposed to cut their prices and continue to lose money?
Trolling is a art,
I suppose the question is a troll looking to prove why record companies are evil. Nothing stops you from ignoring record company promotion -- lots of bands independently produce their music. The reason you haven't heard of them is because, of course, they can't afford to promote. However, there are lots of avenues for finding them -- just go down to your local alternative music store.
It's like sheep complaining where the sheperds are leading them -- you could instead decide to stop being a sheep. If you don't like how big record companies behave, just stop buying their music -- there are plenty of alternatives.
"...but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
Pro Tools might knock a few tens-of-thousands off the cost of producing an album, but the real cost is the producer himself. Good producers can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for a big album. In short, it doesn't matter what tools Puff Daddy uses to produce an album, all that matters is that Puff Daddy produced it.
Even with the slickest low cost hard disk recording system, there are still several other important items involved in making a good sounding recording.
... well like you used cheap mics.
1.) Microphones: It's very easy to spend $30K on mics for drums alone. Using cheap mics makes things sound like
2.) Recording Space: Without an Acoustically good space in which to record, it's easy to end up with a real thin "inside a tin can" sound.
3.) Engineer/Producer: Even in a high-end pro studio, results will be poor without some talented people running things (both technically and aesthetically.) Pro tools systems work especially well for electronica/hip-hop/modern r&b where real recording of real instruments are rare, but to get a really professional sound out of a live band, there are very few alternatives to spending some serious (sure less serious than even 10-15 years ago) money.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
Here is a link to a Potential Free Software Alternative, Ardour
(at least it's being worked on, anyway)
http://ardour.sourceforge.net/.
There are no Pro tools! The RIAA owns the rights to all recordable medium. Making your own music will see your stomach roast in the fires of Hell!
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Yes, most songs are produced using Pro Tools and yes there is a consumer version of Pro Tools available for less than $500. But that is not the same version used to produce most popular songs. A much more expensive version with a number of breakout boxes and specialized hardware which makes it possible to use a vanilla G4 is used to pruduce those songs. The costs of the break-out boxes, plug-ins (mentioned in the article), and other add-ons adds up to a lot. You can end paying tens of thousands of dollars for a tricked-out Pro Sounds set up. And you still don't have a live room, mics, instruments, etc.
I would like to see the price break down for Butch Vig's $15,000 studio. I bet it's actually more when every bit of software and hardware is accounted for. And those producers are very expensive.
I always knew that "Studio Magic" button in the Simpson's episode where Bart joins a boy band was really just hiding pro tools & a trained hamster.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
I realize that a talented producer can cost a lot of money and some bands drink a lot of beer, but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
This opens up a bigger can of worms than just wanna-be home music-producing-armchair musicians with a PC and dumbed-down software. Sure, anyone can buy protools, record some tracks in their basement, and mix an album (albeit amateur) and burn a few CDs for their friends. But this absolutely doesn't take the place of a well-trained, well- connected producer established in the industry. Unfortunately very few who produce their own make into the big leagues, but those who have, have done it quite well. But then again, those musicians are in the slim minority.
If you've taken a look at the music industry (trust me, I'm in it) lately, the money doesn't end up in the hands of the musicians, nor the producers (but they're not doing bad, mind you, if you hit the big time) but lining the pockets of the major labels. Remember, artists pay for their studio time and mixing and post-production, not the labels, who mass produce and market the albums once they are released. Besides, production isn't the major cost associated with an album's success- it's the marketing done by a major label.
A fully configured pro tools system capable of keeping up with the rigors of the demands of musicians and producers can easily cost upwards of $100,000. Add in $20k-$60k for reference quality audio monitors, a dozen or so microphones at $2k dollars a piece, an acoustically treated recording quality environment between $250k and $750k.
Yup anyone can go out and spend $15k and get a very powerful Protools system. But that doesn't complete the loop of George Martin, Abby Road, John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
Why aren't lower production costs being passed on to the consumer? Because they don't have to be. That only happens in a competetive market (I have an econ final tomorrow). One record label isn't going to cut their pruduction costs and start selling CDs at a lower price than the other labels in an attempt to win market share. They're just going to pocket more money. There are two answers why, pick which one you like:
1) The members of the RIAA are illegally conspring to stop competition in their market.
2) Since the music market doesn't sell homogeneous goods, this is just how it works. Only one label sells Britney Spears CDs and they can charge whatever they want becaue nobody else is going to compete directly against them. But a Christina Aguillera album is a subsitute good that people will turn to if the Briney album is too overpriced (I'm going to ace this final tomorrow).
-B
Someone will more than one econ class can chime in now and tell me I'm full of shit.
Rare that the submitter doesn't even read the article thoroughly:
that costs $495 for the home version or $15,000 for the pro version.
The article says that the dude's whole studio costs $15000, not the software. If you go to the company's website, you can see that the pricing is much more complicated than that.
Lets take an article where we could possibly discuss the technical merits of specific software and the evolution of the recording process and turn it into a pointless discussion over RIAA business strategy that can be answered with a "duh, what are you stupid?" response.
Uhh. Yeah. And Rolling Stone just figured this out? I'm currently studying Audio Engineering, and the studio where I'm at uses ProTools almost exclusively (except for when they hold classes, then they use the Tascam MX2424 for learning excercises). Yeah, some studios use analog tape still, but that's usually when the producer wants a certain sound. It's going to end up digital anyway.
Another way to cut costs is for the studio to self-master the projects. Mastering is a very complex process, and there are individuals who do nothing but mastering. Studios commonly contract mastering artists after the CD has been mixed to finalize the project for mass prodction, and radio airplay. There's a LOT of stuff that goes on, and lots of money involved. Tape is expensive ($150 for 15 min of decent 2" tape). A studio ProTools setup is expensive at first, but it pays for itself down the road in time and effort saved.
[root@your.box]# logoff
http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree/ptfree_qa.html
Free as in beer, obviously, and limited, but hey - beer good!
The rest of the money goes into gigantic Stonehenge monuments.. you know, like the druids. That, and custom-made amplifiers that go to 11, not 10.
This is a typical dumb response.
Apple's music store isn't in competition with the RIAA members. The RIAA members are making money with Apple's music store. This is a *good thing* for them.
If it takes off (which it won't), it will be the savoir of the RIAA, not the death.
Do you get that? Can you grasp that concept?
by independents. Jeez, does every question need to be this easy?
No, the band recieves a loan for production costs which is paid back by the band's share of the sales. The loan generally has to be paid in full before the band ever see's any money from the record.
My next Slashdot post will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
It is a heck of a lot more than 15 grand when you purchase the hardware that works with protools tdm hd setup. Then you have to buy a pc or mac to support it. The equipment to record it such as mics, I/O's, peripherals, cables, HUI mix boards, preamps, keyboards, and drum machines. Plugins for tape saturation and tube emulation that helps make your music sound more analog like really gets expensive. When all is said and done it is at least $25,000 - $30,000 for the whole setup. Protools LE gets a lot cheaper though, but I doubt 4 out of 5 albums are mixed with that.
...to fund their crusade on college students.
... bringing harmonizer warbles to talentless singers everywhere.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Why should the cost savings be passed onto the consumer? The only mechanism in place to pass savings onto the consumer is competition. What incentive does the RIAA have to reduce the cost of their product? Unless someone else comes along and creates a product with equal demand for less money, they will not lower their prices.
In an environment of true competition, it would be very difficult to become obscenely rich. Artificial restraints like patents, copyrights, and monopolies are the only way to become rich. (other than the lottery, if you consider that being "rich")
I'm not so sure... I mean, sure it's 15k for the pro version and all... But that's just the protools setup, and if I remember right, not a large one... Besides all the interfaces, firewire drives, computers and mixing boards, a studio still has to have mics (which good ones cost thousands) eqs, effects modules (better reverb units can cost around 15-20k), vintage equipment for artists who like that sort of thing, special computing equipment and enclosures, and so on and so on and so on... Not to mention that audio recording requires specifically designed space to do it in (with soundex and all of that). It seems like if they even *suspect* you might do something audio related with a product, they slap a few hundred bucks on it...
Besides, protools has been the recording industry's baby for years and years... It's not too new... (most refuse to use anything else, despite some of it's shortcomings)
To me, not much has become cheaper... And where things have become cheaper, the industry has found ways to stay expensive... *grin*
certainly, the tools have been democratised, but that does not give people talent. I'm not going to go into the costs of marketting and distribution, but the reason that lower production costs have not been passed on is because they are not relevant. Just as DV cameras, cheap high quality editting software and home DVD burners are not driving down the price of making your average blockbuster movie.
You still need to be able to use the tools effectively, and those skills are not cheap. Studio time is expensive, studio engineers are expensive. The odd hit is produced completely in the bedroom, but on the whole, the mainstream music industry landscape is just not changed by the price of the tools coming down.
I realize that a talented producer can cost a lot of money and some bands drink a lot of beer, but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
Oh Grasshopper... you are close, but without understanding. Pro Tools has increased the cost of recording. Why? Because you can approach "perfection." Great take, except the bass drum quaff at 2:14, don't worry we can edit that. Well while you are at it, can we change the attack on the bass opening, sure. Ad infinitum. So in theory it should be cheaper, and if you used Pro Tools to emulate a 16 track it could be cheaper. But you can get a very good analog 16 track for less than 15K, thanks to Pro Tools. Funny how the wheel turns.
OK, so the record companies are greedy. I think most money is spent on marketing anyway. But, given these cheap tools, what alternatives are there.
Could good, well produced records be sold over the web on the back of a marketing image created cheaply on the web?
Yes, most albums are produced on Pro-Tools, which is a very good piece of software. As a matter of fact, the company that makes it offers a free version (anything below win2k and OS9 only). But saying that Pro-Tools in inexpensive, therefore albums should be cheaper is like saying the a hammer builds a house, and hammers are cheap, so I should be able to build a house cheap. Pro-Tools is a tool. The most expensive parts of album creation are the musicians (yes, most artists still use actual musicians, and that includes rap artists), and the producers. A good producer will cost hundreds of dollars an hour, plus expenses. The producer will also get a piece on the backend. Also, there is the process of Mastering, which is done using a lot of outboard gear. Mastering can be very expensive.
But with that said, Pro-Tools is the Avid of audio editing (Avid is the most popular brand of professional video editing software and equipment). If you are interested in audio tracking, then definitely check it out.
Mayhaps because far more than "four out of five new albums" never reach the top 500, and most likely "four out of five new albums" never get heard at all by more than 1% of the population? And that those cd's that cost much are actually produced in ways that are still superior (for now)?
Or, maybe there's a conspiracy...
OR, maybe production is just a tiny fraction of the cost anyway...
OR, inflation...
OR...shall I go on? There are a lot of low-priced CD's out there. Most of my favorite music is pretty damn indy, and I would imagine that at least 95% of the stuff I listen to was produced digitally. Lots of conjecture, but hey...its what you asked for.
It could well explain why much of the stuff being pumped out by the music industry today is complete and utter crap.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
Passing the saivngs on to the consumer is a realtive issue. There are records youc an buy that were recorded on a traditional studio setup but which are somehow still only $8 from your local independent record store. Conversely, you can have items like "Bread You Off," from the latest Roots record - this song alone cost $300k - why? the licensing for the samples. a-ha! The truth is that there are way more players taking their cut than just the labels and the bands. take it from someone who knows!
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RKauffman s.e.c.r.e.t.m.e.d.i.a.g.r.o.u.p
One would think that prices are based on something like supply and demand. Unless they reason like the swedish government, a 10% increase in tax is 10% more income to the government.
What? companies are leaving the country, why?
Sorry if I seem rude, but that sounds like a stupid question. When you factor in studio time for recording, the cost of a decent producer, production of cds, marketing, etc, etc, etc, the *one time* cost of your mixing software is pretty much nil. If the billing department at your local garage switched to linux from windows, would you expect them to charge you less for an oil change? Hell no. Lower costs equals greater profit. This is basic business here. Just because it's the recording industry, doesn't mean we should be angry. They do a lot of vile, underhanded things, but this isn't one of them.
do not read this line twice.
The only thing cheapening production equipment does is allow for a lot of un-talented musicians to create cheap sounding music and upload it to mp3.com where it collects dust.
I believe that the money invested in producing a quality CD is not spent on gear, its spent on the labor involved. Record labels don't go out and buy new production equipment everytime they sign a new band - they line up studio time with whatever producers and engineers fit within their budget. Those producers and engineers don't use the cheap version of pro-tools. Along with the super-expensive version, they use racks and racks of expensive analog equipment which (according to them) sounds a million times better than all of the digital plugin crap polluting the market. Personally I'm not sure that it sounds "better" - but I do know that every piece of analog gear they use has a unique sound that their ears have grown intimately familiar with over the period of many years, and thus they must continue to use that gear to get the sound they want. Since those guys are the driving force behind the major label albums, there's no reason why the cheap-gear market would have any effect on their studio costs.
The cheapening of the production equipment isn't all bad, because for every 1000 or 2000 pipe-dream consumers who think they can produce the next Britney Spears album by simply shelling out $600 for the latest software, there are 1 or 2 dedicated musicians who wisely invest in the equipment thats going to be with them for the next several years while their skills mature.
The only reason it seems like gear has become more affordable is because the industry has realized that if they sufficiently cheapen the quality (aka price) of their gear, they gain access to an entire market of wishful thinking wanna-be rockstars and dj's who wouldn't know what a good sound was if it tore through their eardrums.
Hasn't anyone here seen American Idol?
This is because we are used to paying £15 for an album. The companies are merely fulfilling our expectation.
To get a price change you need to change the public's expectation, for that to happen you need real price competition - that is not in the interests of the music publishers and so it doesn't happen.
They claim that there is competition when prices differ by 20%, we will have real competition when they differ by 50%.
I have several points to make:
1. Professionals do not just use a $495 copy of protools. They use the $15k version or even higher cost protools workstations.
2. There is much more to a studio than the ProTools rig. There are mics, sound foam, cables, eqs, preamps, and all sorts of external equipment that is still used. There is much more to consider aside from the rig.
3. Also, note that savings are being passed along to the consumer. Look at the Apple iTunes Music Store! $9.99 an album is quite a savings over anything you will find at Amazon, Best Try, or Circuit Sh*tty.
So quite your whining and keep buying the music.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
Blame Canada.
There are a couple of ways you can approach the idea of recorded music. As a musician, youc an either try to make it sound as close as possible to a live performace as possible - or you can take the flexibility and creative potential afforded by technology and create something that reflects a particular refinement of vision, if not an accurate reproduction of live performance. As a recording artist and technologist, I can see it both ways.
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RKauffman s.e.c.r.e.t.m.e.d.i.a.g.r.o.u.p
Supply and demand determine prices. The cost of production doesn't directly affect the supply curve, therefore doesn't drive down prices.
However, before someone starts talking about competition and all that...lower production costs can allow for prices to be downward driven, but that has to be pushed by some other factor.
To discuss it another way, a thing may cost you 'X' to make (or provide a service, or whatever). However, when determining your prices, you don't just say (or at least it's not too smart to just say) "Hmm, total cost of production is X, so I'll charge....X+3" (or some other modification of X). Instead, what you should do is, try to understand the value the "thing" provides to your customers, and set a price that will maximize profits. Cost shouldn't be a consideration of pricing, except as a last step of comparing your price to make sure your costs are covered (plus some profit).
A modern day witchhunt.
Wow, musicians are recording digitally now? Rolling Stone might as well write an article about that new technology, the CD, or that upcoming artist, Al Jolsen. (Not to mention, they don't even talk about Pro Tools Free, which gives you twice the tracks that they had on Sgt. Pepper.)
Because instead of having 4 studios that are full purposed, folks build their own studios and spend the money on their own equipment than they would have normally at the big boys.
:-) What kind of studios are they going to be running? Ones that are $100k - 300k in just equipment.
In the end, it STILL costs the industry the same amount of money or probably more.
That and the human element has gone up steadily as the pricing of the hardware has gone down. before the Home Recording Revolution occured, I was able to charge $20 an hour to show up and help someone with their gear...generally I was paid for by the studio I was in. NOW I show up at someones home, read the manual to them and charge them $75 an hour and I'm not even what I'd call professional (I've worked with several professional artists in the past and I'm going to be the head music tech for an up coming Al Green show next month, so I work with folks that are VERY professional...still pretty much a hobby for me so I can support my university and its research addiction).
And what happens AFTER folks finish their home opus? They generally head to the bigger studios to polish it up. Producers are going to ask a LOT of front money to work on this -- along with their own engineers that retrack certain items -- and they will STILL ask for points (though that generally comes out of the artists share...EVERYTHING comes out of the artists share
Looking at my HOME studio, I have 2 K2600s ($5500 each), Digital Mixer ($3k), Mac G4 ($3k), PC ($1k)Audio Interfaces for both Macs and PCs ($2k), Software (DAW -- Logic Audio $1k / Softsynths & Effects $2k). Thats almost $25k right there (Heh! Glad most of this was comped as I couldn't afford it). There is NO WAY IN HELL that Vig's entire studio is $15k at Stone tries to make out...I wouldn't be surprised to know it was on order of $150k at the MINIMUM.
BTW the $500 version of the CHEAP Protools is NOT Protools...its a cheap immitation with the same interface. its designed solely as a learning tool to get folks use to what the big boys use and hooked so that they can go into the studio with a little preknowledge OR convince them to buy the more expensive stuff.
Theres no doubt about it, recording a major label album is going to cost a lot of money. Indie albums will be MUCH less.
Don't take my word for it, I run one of the largest Logic user groups dedicated to digital audio. Take a look at:
http://community.sonikmatter.com
and check out our user forums. These folks know what they are doing and we have quite a few folks that have worked on albums that have resulted in precious metal on the wall. Again, I'm just a hobbiest that been caught up with the big boys because I was a geek when they needed technology taken care of and don't consider myself to be anywhere near their calibre -- but its a fucking shame to see that my bedroom studio is bigger and better than Butch Vig's if we are going to take this article at face value.
clif marsiglio
cofounder sonikmatter
The licensing costs of the production software are a negligible part of overall production cost. To use ProTools you still need some serious computing hardware (especially disks) not to mention the fact that whatever's going into ProTools WILL still be going through top quality mikes, a desk, and an array of rack mount gear.
On top of that you have the investment requirement to prepare an acoustically worthwhile studio, expensive mastering prices, and a plethora of other money-sapping costs.
In practice, ProTools is mainly used to replace a multitrack tape recorder - so you're replacing the cost of the tape machine and tape with the cost of top-end hardware and disks. I would say the cost was comparable, if not more expensive.
coldcity
code, life, art
Ive read many articles on how the introduction of cheap software based home recording setups like Pro Tools will free artists to record and produce thier own music and sell it directly to thier listeners cutting the big music companies out of the picture. I havent however heard much discussion on how artists plan to fund thier own world tours, or even fund just a US tour. How about the artist funding the marketing, mass production, and distribution of thier music? I could see an already established artist being able to fund some of this by themself to a certain extent, but would one failed album completly wipe them out? Thats one thing the big music companies have going for them. They can absorb failed albums, infact many of them.
Your post is right on - new popular music is simply unlistenable. Fortunately we've got people as attractive as Britney Spears spitting this garbage out... At least you can watch it, even if it's hard to listen!
*** I'm personally hoping for an "anti-pro tools movement" that may bring genuinely *good* music back into the mainstream. The real musicians & artists aren't making music for a paycheck.
I'm simply amazed that people are still asking such basic questions. Surely we all know why the savings are not being passed on by now?
It's easy:
Monopolies and cartels do not have any reason to pass money on to consumers. They will not change unless forced to, and they should be forced to.
Before anyone claims that I am suggesting intervention, regulation etc. let me say I am most certainly not. They didn't get to the position they are now by being left alone in a free market. They were unfairly given monopoly status in the form of outrageously long copyright terms. This government invention called copyright is a massive intervention on behalf of the cartels into everyone elses activities. That's what needs to be stopped before they have any incentive to reduce prices (and to innovate, streamline themselves etc, etc - you know all the stuff copyright was supposed to do in the first place in fact)
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
they have to buy Macs to run Pro Tools?
:)
It's profit margins again... just not the ones you were thinking of.
Almost every time I hear a professional soloist or well-organized group play live music, I can buy a CD from them of their music. Recently I encountered a very good guitar/tambourine player in a restaurant. He didn't have a CD, so I referred my friendly local CD producer to him.
Music production is moving from the expensive studio to the musician's garage. I don't use Pro Tools, and I don't have a sound studio, but I can make a simple demo CD for a music group by mikeing their rehearsal hall for about $500. That's $250 for me and $250 to stamp the CDs commercially. My friendly local CD producer charges more but gets better results. If all you want is a demo or a CD to sell at your gigs you don't need a $100,000 producer.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
I've got several albums of small artists which were recorded in their living room. Brilliant quality. Some friends of mine made a demo in the ruines they practice in, with a quality to rival proffesional productions.
I also have several demo's made by bands who coughed up a lot of maney for a studio and a producer, but it still sounds like it was taped in my bathroom.
It's all about the quality of the tools you work with, and the dedication and skill of the artists and sound engineers.
No expensive studio needed.
The band gets a certain amount of money from the record company to pay for recording costs.
This is true, if by "gets" you mean "is loaned".
If a band can save money on the production of their album, then they have less debt to the record company, and start making a profit off their work sooner. What's wrong with that?
Most of the expenses of producing an album do come from distributing copies. All those expenses are normally taken out of the musicians share, which is why musicians don't tend to make money directly from CD sales. They make money indirectly because the exposure gets them gigs.
Musicians now have the technology to get the same exposure by distributing their music freely themselves, without cluttering up the world with little plastic discs, and without letting the companies that make the discs control their careers.
When enough musicians figure this out, record companies will become extinct.
Music has no intrinsic value. Its valuation is based on hype, idolatry, and mood alteration.
So it doesn't matter what the production cost is. That's hugely variable based on the artist's pay anyway. It only matters what the sucker will pay at the cash register.
The cost of recording a cd is going up, not down. While production costs may be decreasing, the cost of a record deal to a label is increasing, the costs of advertising, video production etc is increasing, and so is music piracy, which is also seriously harming profits. Since when were the record labels considered to be financially comfortable? All I ever read about is how they're on their way out. Besides, the equipment a major label is recorded with is still very expensive, the studios are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Personally though, I prefer the more raw feel anyway. I'm a musician and recorded an album in my apartment on 70s analog equipment (which you can hear at richlowenberg.com - sorry for the cheap plug!). Bring back the old skool!
Oh, won't someone think of the children!
(that intense beeping you hear is your sarcasm detector)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I just moved into a new apartment. The rent here is lower. I was thinking that the honest thing to do would be to tell my employer that since I now have an extra hundred bucks every month that maybe I should take a pay cut, since I don't want to appear greedy. Any thoughts?
do not read this line twice.
Apple's new music service works with the major labels. They are trying to reserect the very same beast that you want to kill.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Just like in so many fields, software advances have allowed things to be done that used to be done in hardware. I've just recently purchased a piece of music production software I just can't recommend enough, Reason. Remember the big synth / sampler combos that sounded (more or less) like an orchestra? That's all in software now.
Equally impressive is Steinberg's Cubasis. Cubasis has a lot of cross-over with Reason, but its main capability is doing actual audio recording (whereas Reaons's reason is digital sound generation). Both of these pieces of software are sub grand price.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Which is why Sting, U2, blah blah blah all have thier won studios at home. $500,000 one time hardware expense is better than $250,000 for every album just to pay for the people there, much less the studio rental fees / cocaine / whiskey / beer / girls / boys / whatever.
"3.) Engineer/Producer: Even in a high-end pro studio, results will be poor without some talented people running things (both technically and aesthetically.) Pro tools systems work especially well for electronica/hip-hop/modern r&b where real recording of real instruments are rare, but to get a really professional sound out of a live band, there are very few alternatives to spending some serious (sure less serious than even 10-15 years ago) money."
So that means that Classical music is out. I also wonder how all this Protool's stuff sounds to an Audiophille?
I agree. Production costs are a huge financial obsticle to independent musicians, however. So by lowering the costs, we will see the benefits of diversity. New musicians no longer have to pitch lofi demos to big record company executives to score a contract and make an album. Record executives are reluctant to take risks because they are under pressure to get high return on investment. If record executives spend tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars on large numbers of acts to produce their tracks, they will lose money. Now that artists can create quality tracks on their own much more easliy, we can expect more people to avoid contracts with large record labels, at least until they are big enough to sign contracts that work more in their favor. The result? Artists who don't need the help of famous producers like Mutt Lange to make them sound like Def Leppard or Foreigner will now prevail.
Production budget for My Big Fat Greek Wedding: $5,000,000
Production budget for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: $94,000,000
I bet tickets were the same price to see each one in a first run theater. The cost of entertainment (well, anything really, but especially entertainment) is based on perceived value. The cost is however much people are willing to pay for it. The only way I see this bringing down the cost of CDs is that it is so much easier for an individual to set up a recording studio of their own and put out high quality (not quite professional quality, but much closer than a 4-track cassette recorder) music for a price that drastically undercuts the RIAA based music.
With today's software and fast computers, it's amazing the quality of stuff that can be put out with just a couple good mics, some time, and a good/creative ear.
That's funny. I just saw an interview on VH1 this weekend with Gene Simmons where he admitted that they never played completely live.
Why don't they take the studio versions and add crowd noise instead.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
"News for nerds...and those freaks next door who have their own goth band"
The good news is that it might increase the quantity of music available for purchase. Hopefully there will be more good new tunes with lower production costs than there woould be otherwise.
Note that lower production costs do not necessarily mean that music producers make more $$$. Since more music is likely to be produced, music sales may be divided between more producers. Unless people buy more music, some producers could wind up making even less $$$.
The lowers costs aren't passed on to the customer because . . . they never are. No business ever voluntarily passes on cost savings. They'll only do it in the face of competition or regulation, and the record companies are acting more like a cartel than an industry.
The studio and time for engineers is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. A gold record, that sells half a million copies, and generally puts the band into debt, not makes them money, will net $5 million if wholesale prices are $10 bucks a shot.
Your studio didn't cost $5 million to build from the ground up. Nowhere even close.
The record companies are using copyright to enslave musicians and steal their work. Period. They're a bunch of bastard middlemen that drive up the price of everything for their own benefit.
You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in a studio and not come close to putting a major dent in the revenue of a gold record.
Studio costs are not a major factor. It's marketing, payola, promotion, litigation and outright theft (from musicians and consumers) that cause albums to be so highly priced.
I was just reading this about 5 minutes ago..
from the producer of one of nirvan's cd's
he talks about where the money goes..
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
...is that the band usually ends up footing the bill for the studio time. So ultimately, all this leads to is the band being out less money to start out. This doesn't affect the studio because honestly, the studio doesn't pay for it, your studio time comes out of your advance.
;) will spend a minimum of 3 or 4 weeks in the studio tracking and mixing.
It gets posted here all the time, but Steve Albini has a great article about the economics of recording that's worth a read.
I also have to wonder if one of the big reasons behind the decrease in recording costs has to do with the rise of hiphop. An average hiphop record can be recorded in just a few days (you have no live musicians to track) whereas even a really productive, organized band (if such a thing exists
Pro Tools Freeis compatible only with Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows ME, and Mac OS 9 operating systems. Almost no new computers are sold with one of those operating systems anymore; it's always Windows XP or Mac OS X, with which the Pro Tools publisher has sworn not to make the program compatible.
Will I retire or break 10K?
http://www.cakewalk.com/
The money they save in production costs makes up for the money they are loosing to MP3s.
Because there is only so many times a week that I can stomach listening to Slashdot's collective indignance about the recording industry and its antics.
Surprise, surprise: advances in technology drive down the costs of production; I'm sure that every aspect of the music business has benefitted from this in some way or another.
Equally unsurprising: We're not seeing any of this money, as the industry is effectively an oligopoly, with high barriers to entry on a national/international level.
And between a) apathy-induced boycotts of major label artists on the grounds of not being very good, and b) illegal distribution of the very little we can be bothered to buy via P2P networks, we'll either remedy the situation through the collapse of recording industry as we know it or make it worse through yet further consolidation of record labels, putting even more power in the hands of the people we despise the most.
God I'm feeling cynical today.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?
The savings and talent are available. Just check out Hex and Phantom Stranger. They sell their fine music for way below what you find in the big stores. Of course, they also don't have the 'major label overhead' to deal with. It's great to see some the results that can be had with quality equipment in home studios.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
I've used both Cakewalk and Cool Edit Pro for some recording work, and I believe that both programs are a bit lacking, each in its own way. However, I think the market is getting better, as proved by ProTools. Just today, I found a new program, Ardour. While it only runs on Linux and has yet to be fully relased with a stable version, it looks like it has a lot of promise (and will be absolutely free)! It has 3 years of development under its belt, and the features list is quite extensive. So for the price of a little Linux-learning, ProTools may soon be beatable.
production costs aren't the major issue in getting music out there. the real money pit is "advertising", loosely defined to include getting your music on radio stations by hook or crook. check out this somewhat old but very interesting article by steve albini to follow the money.
i'm happy with having a few people listen to my music every day over the web, but i imagine a lot of musicians want more than that. when we solve the distribution and advertising cost problems, musicians will no longer need the labels. until then, you can't even give your music away, because no one will take it unless you convince them it's cool, and it's OK for their social lives to listen to you. the way people choose music seems to have little to do with music.
majority of the cost of the abulms goes to RIAA and the studios... so they have more money to spend on harassing us.
Scott
janitor
sdn website family
email: scott at sboss dot net
The main reason that albums aren't any cheaper is that the record lablel "loans" the band money for recording. If the band does not sell enough disks, they get stuck with the bill, or stuck in a bad contract for extended periods of time. There is a great article about how bands are screwed over by record labels available at:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
sure, with enough mixing and tape-splicing, you'd be able to do a lot of this (although digital compression and retuning are out of the question, for instance). but even if all of ProTools' features were magically possible in the analog world, they wouldn't be possible through a few clicks of a mouse. i guess maybe you haven't spent much time in front of a splicing block, but let me give you a hint: you want to be clicking and dragging instead. (Oh, for an Undo key on the razor blade.)
That's the problem here, and it's not a problem with PT. It's a problem with humans. It's just too easy with PT to wring the soul out of music, and people are doing it all the time.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
Here's a picture of my home studio.
I use some really cheap software called GuitarTrax Pro. For less than $100 it lets me record a huge number of tracks and modify them with effects.
Most of the pros still record in huge studios, but smaller artists can do some great stuff now on the cheap. Eventaully this will have an impact on the music industry.
If anyone wants to hear a tune recorded in my home studio you can check out this.
I work in a pro audio shop called Atlanta Pro Audio (shameless plug). Saying that cheaper hardware has reduced the cost of an album is just like saying the reduced cost of computer hardware has lessened the expense of developing software.
.75 to 2 million dollar range.
It is true that Pro Tools has made the hardware costs of getting a *demo* out pretty cheap, but to say that the pro version only costs $15,000 is an untrue statement. If you really want to cut an album that will be suitable to SEND to a real mastering house, you will spend $50,000 at the very least. And if you want the little Mbox for $450, you still need a computer ($1,500), and plug-ins ($2,000), and keyboards ($2,000), and instruments ($MUCHO), and outboard gear ($MEGAMUCHO), and mics ($1000)...
Audio engineers are still expensive. Producers are expensive. Getting a record mastered, and I guarantee everything you've heard on the radio has been mastered, is *very* expensive. Mastering houses still have equipment in the
All of this is still irrelevant. Payola still runs the music industry. I have heard it from more than one of our customers that if you have a million dollars for advertising, you have a gold record.
Pricing isn't based on cost. Cost is only a consideration. If the market is willing to pay $20 per disc there is no reason to lower the price. Lower production costs means a lower point at which profit can be seen. Linux is promoted on the same principal.
The RIAA regime isn't going away until the need for it is diminished. I have yet to see any solution that addresses how to cover and recoup recording costs and promote/distribute the product. Until someone steps up, keep shelling out $20 or hire a lawyer.
If anyone wants to set up a discussion on how to do this I'd be glad to offer input. My background is Music Production.
Duh.
This shows a total naive opinion on how much
it costs to do business.
Work out the salaries alone for 6 months of
recording time, even at minimum wage!
Or, how about this, Ok, we'll pass the savings
on to you. Say we saved $100,000 on the recording costs. Say two million CD's sell. 5 Cents each.
Big hairy deal. Mind you, thats about what the artist will make, and generally the industry takes expenses off the artists cut first, so you're fav is now working for free while you get 5 cents off.
There. Feel better now?
" ...but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
This question deserves an explanation of how record companies finance record production.
First, once an artist has been 'signed' (which essentially means that the record company retains all legal rights to material produced by artist 'x' for a specific duration of output, determined in either number of albums or number of years, contingent on performance, behavior, and sales), the record company then forwards the artist an advance on their future record sales with which to have their album written, produced, tracked, and recorded to a medium.
This forwarded money is expected to be paid back to the record company by the artist once the record is on store shelves, regardless of how many are sold.
Recording artists receive a pittance of record sales revenues, touring revenues, and royalties from radio stations, commercials, and the like for the playing of their songs... remember, the record company had the artist sign a contract which passed those rights onto the record company. Additionally, the record company applies all revenue to the repayment of their loan, and until this has been repaid in full, the artist does not receive any profit.
Many recording artists (take TLC, the female african-american rap group, for instance) make an average salary of $30,000/yr - or less - after paying the record company back for their loan.
This terrible financial arrangement being the case, the only way for recording artists to maximize their revenue potential is to retain a larger portion of the original recording loan, which can then be used to either pay the record company back more readily, or invested to generate its own revenue, etc etc. This being the case, many recording artists turn to commercial recording equipment in order to cut production costs, and actually stand a chance of making money off of their creative material.
What is the "post anymously" check-box now removed when a user is logged-in? I don't think it accomplishes anything.
Production costs are so high still because, in part, of the fact that the people working in the studio are skilled and well compensated professionals. Wait, I know!! If you want cheaper CDs lets move music production to India!!
I wondered about the costs of making an album too, and spoke with a friend of mine who worked for a major distributor. Aside from the actuall cost of recording / mixing the songs there are a lot of other folks involved who each get their cut. The songwriters get a very large percentage, then there is the band, the producer, the record label, the distributor, the local sales rep, and then the store's profit. That's a lot of folks. Not to mention all the marketing and shipping costs.
...still cost as much or more than they ever did.
Cheap audio production is just *slowing* the increase, not a source of cost reduction.
but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
On this planet the recording industry is pretty well known for being
greedy. I feel they have been ripping me off for years. When CD's came out they cost twice what an LP or Cassette did. They said that was because they had to build new plants to produce CD's and as soon as they were built and the quantities went up the prices would come down. Well maybe I blinked and missed it, but I never saw a major reduction and I think $18.99 for a single album is outrageous. I refuse to pay that much for a CD. I usually wait and try to find it in the cut-out or used bins.
A few years ago I was involved in a business that sold used CD's and we did some new CD's. From the distributor we could buy new releases for around $12 and super savers were around $10. I am guessing that the distributor only made a dollar or two so that means that the record company was getting $8-$10 per unit. From having checked into producing a CD I could have one made with quantites of 1000 for less than 2$. Therefore I would bet that they can produce the CD's for less than $1 for quantites > 10,000. So lets say they make $8 per cd. To me that's a pretty good profit margin.
I'm also under the impression that they rip the (non-superstar)
artists off.
Bottom Line: I'm not holding my breath waiting for a little savings on production costs to be passed back to me.
Don't give the industry any more ammunition. Soon they will be using this (the home version) in their own ("pro") studios, producing more albums, selling them for less, claiming they are earning less money, get on everyones back about file-sharing, bla bla bla.
It just does get better than this!
no text, jackass.
"There is a market for shelf space (slotting fees) that is not a paradigm of the best features of a free market in action."
Well since theyre's no such thing as a free economy. What you see is capitalism, everyone taking a proportion of the total based (in part) on their role in contributing to the desired end result (a product or service for you to buy)
If you want best (with best being defined by most who use the argument as "what's in their own best interest")? Then you'll have to cut as many middlemen out of the picture.
Food? Go straight to the farmer.
Clothing? Go straight to the rancher.
Shelter? Go into the woods.
Anything else means middlemen and their "slotting fees".
Look at this ridiculousness:
Known Incompatibilities
Caution - Digi 001 is NOT supported on the following systems or systems with the following components:
Computers with motherboards containing SiS (Silicon Integrated Systems) chipsets
Hewlett Packard Pavillion line of computers
AMD K6, K6-2 or K6-III, K7 processor based computers (however newer AMD Athlon processors are supported - see Supported CPU Models & Speeds)
Pentium I or Pentium II processor based computers Computers with motherboards containing mixed chipsets from AMD plus VIA combined "ESS Solo-1 PCI AudioDrive" Sound, video and game controller. This device can be disabled from the "Device Manager" in the "System" Control Panel.
SampleCell II PCI cards and SampleCell Editor are not compatible with Windows XP
Knocking all those AMD processors out of the picture is a little nuts. I actually bought the system(~$800), but it wouldn't run because I have all AMD chips! I didn't realize there was such a huge compatibility problem until it was too late...
The MIT Logrhythms (insanely great college a capella group, which honestly my brother is a part of) just spent an odd number of tens of thousands of dollars to BUILD their OWN recording studio in a part of one of their student buildings. They've got almost everything a professional studio has including soundproof recording room, mixer table, and editing computer. Now instead of spending tens of thousands on studio time, they can just hire a sound engineer for a fraction of that cost on their own system, while they learn it themselves. It's amazing what professional software can do for small organizations.
-Christopher Wu
http://www.christopherwu.net/
"$495 for the home version or $15,000 for the pro version.
why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
Because that's one program. Install it on your Alienware PC and you'll still create terrible sounding crap.
Now pay rent on a building. Properly set it up for acoustics. Add perfectly matched, pro level monitors. Add some seriously expensive sound cards that can work with multiple sources and no lag. Add a set of mics at a couple of grand a pop. Add a mixing desk that connects to pro-tools so you can actually make smooth fine controls. Add a decent guitar/amp (about $5k), now multiply by about five for all the variations used on a typical album. Add a drum kit and a lot of heads (Dave Grohl reportedly got through a set of heads per track when recording Nevermind). Add pro-grade cabling so your sound doesn't get muddied up. Add a PC capable of dealing with it all, fast SCSI drives and all.
Those are just the bits and pieces I can think of, just being an amateur guitarist who never records but does spend too much time in guitar shops. I'd imagine there's a hell of a lot more.
All of a sudden, the $495 seems insignificant. Even the $15,000 for the pro version.
Yes, you can record music with pro-tools and a typical home PC. A lot of people do. And it sounds fairly good compared to recordings of say the 1950s.
Just because one aspect gets a bit cheaper, doesn't mean the process gets cheaper. It just means that the capabilities get higher. I remember paying $200 for 4mb of ram, $3,000 for a 16mhz 286. Now I can get a hundred times that power for about $250 yet I still buy $3,000 PCs. How can that be?
Fitehouse has just released their first album, done with Pro Tools, with no record label backing. Labels are dead, they just don't know it yet.
Free cell phone tracking
Ten years ago I recorded some songs on a 64 track board (I forget the manufacturer) that cost $500000 (American) brand new in the 70s, and that doesn't include a single effect.
Sure gear is still expensive, but it's nothing like it used to be. The growth of small studio's and record companies in the early to mid 80s demonstates that to me quite clearly. That is, until the major labels began (quietly) purchasing all the indie labels for sick amounts of money, and proceeded to release albums from those same indie labels as if they were still indie. That some of these labels still exist and release "alternative" bands leave a bad taste in my mouth, what is it an alternative to? But I digress.
Noone can tell me that it's as expensive to record an album now as it was then. And the over compression of American music can be tied to label expectations moreso than to equipment use.
I still use as little as possible, which usually means a little on my voice because of my inconsistencies. But then, I'm not afraid of taking chances!
These savings aren't passed on to the consumer simply because the consumer has never paid these costs to begin with. Most standard recording give the artist an advance to produce their album, varying in amount based on the artist, the label, etc. This money is recoupable, paid back by the artist in full to the record label. If the label advances $50,000, the first $50,000 in sales (should the artist ever hit that point) goes to the record label. Only at that point does the artist begin to see profit.
As for ProTools being the cause of all music's woes, it is only a tool. Handing a chimp a paintbrush certainly won't make him Rembrandt. Over-compression is simply a bad production value, compounded by radio compression, or MP3 compression in some cases. ProTools is certainly capable of dynamics. Voice pitch correction? This isn't included in ProTools, when I last looked. There are other companies that provide pitch correcting plugins, but if you rely on those, you shouldn't be singing. Overdubs have been happening for years, since the advent of multi-track recording (Thanks, Les Paul!).
And Frankly, if a full featured ProTools system could be had for $15k, I'd own one by now.
As the cost of political campaigns goes up, it takes more money to buy a senator these days. The RIAA has to own senators in order to infringe on any rights of consumers that it *THINKS* hurts profit margins, so they must keep more money.
Besides, the RIAA thinks 9 out of 10 songs are pirated anyway, so they are just recouping losses.
Get with the program, buddy. Work. Pay Taxes. Consume. Repeat.
The real value of a producer is somebody who knows how to organize the sounds you record. The real value of an engineer is having somebody who knows how to get those sounds with the right equipment. Finally, the real value of a studio is a place that (a) has good acoustics that allow you to create those sounds, and (b) the necessary equipment to capture them. This includes microphones and preamps both of which are crucial to getting a good song to tape.
Daniel Lanois once said something to the effect that the recording medium accounts for very little in the final sound compared to the input audio chain. Not to dismiss the warmth of a nice 2" tape, but the mics and pres have way more noticeable impact than either tape or digital.
Also can't overlook the importance of good A/D and D/A in your audio interface.
When a musician had to be talented? Those were the days! Now any idiot with a bandaid on his face can spew dirty limericks and Dr. Suess rhyming patterns and have a number one hit.
[FromTheMorning]
From the chronicles of Mixerman: (good read, funny)
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
(nice inflammatory title there, matt)
.. it is also true. Shite is shite.
.. um ... not-so-great music I get to hear. And I'm not talking about the quality of the recordings, but the quality of the songs themselves. As a local musician and music addict, I own lots of nice shiny CDs full of highly produced and highly-polished musical turds. [Note that I am NOT saying all independent produced CDs are bad. sheesh.]
from the article: As I leave, Vig offers a historical note, reminding me that Pro Tools makes high-gloss sonic polish available on a budget but doesn't substitute for musical genius: "The Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper's on four tracks.
Genius always wins. A great song is a great song whether it is recorded on 200 tracks of Pro Tools or simply sung into a handheld cassette recorder. And the converse
One side effect of cheap recording tech I'm noticed in this area is that as the bar lowers for producing pro-sounding recordings, the more
Now that anyone can record a full blown CD in their bedroom using their computer and press up 1000 copies at will, all for less than the price of a DAY in a top studio, "anyone" will do so. I suspect one reason we always hear the refrain "music used to be so much better; all of today's music is crap" is due in part to this effect. It used to be a significantly expensive endeavor to record an album. If you didn't have good songs, or didn't have monied backers (who thought you had good songs), you didn't get much recording done.
With all that said, I'm going home tonight to record my cruddy songs on my 10 year old, state-of-the-dump Tascam 4-track cassette portastudio, and love every minute of it!
This is the real reason that RIAA wants to kill P2P audio sharing. Now any band that can afford instruments, a van to get to their gigs and a bit left over for beer can afford to cut a few tracks. What do musicians need record labels for any more? Recording is handled by tools like this. Advertising and distribution can be done on the net.
$500 or $15000 for Pro Tools. Gee, whiz. You can save $14500! Then you have the artists, the lawyers, the producers, the marketing agency, the management, and the stockholders. After all of that, you sell 5 million CDs for $20 each or none at all because people think that your song sounds like ass.
I certainly don't want to be in that business. Great for amateur musicians, yes. Cost saving (compared to having more talented musicians in a group), yes. Effect on bottom line: marginal.
"but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?" Simple, they are not interested in passing any savings onto the consumer. They play the 3 card monte with excuses why the product costs what it does. It's just smoke and mirrors for the chumps in the RIAA/Music industry.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
why do double albums put out 30 years ago still cost 25-30 bucks on cd? Wait! I know! GREED
This is kind of a silly point. Movies are edited using Avids. Compare the cost of an Avid to the cost of the movie. There are a few orders of magnitude of difference. The biggest costs associated with movie and music production come from the people, not the equipment.
For example, hot music producers cost a few hundred thousand dollars per finished minute of song. For a three minute song, that's already over a million dollars not including anyone other than the producer!
While I think that the initial question posed in the OP has been addressed, I can't help but think that the real impact Pro Tools has had on commercial music is not lower overall production costs.
Like any software tool, Pro Tools can be an excellent way for skilled people to create good things. It can help novices or amateurs (see meaning [1]) develop their skills relatively cheaply. It can also create a whole universe of music that is flat, bland and mind-numbingly the same.
Whenever a particular tool becomes dominant in a field (whether it "deserves" to be dominant or not) it tends to place it's mark on a wide swath of work in that field. I'm thinking particularly of tools like Photoshop and Quark. Anyone who is familar with these tools is usually familar with the standard dreck that is churned out using them.
I've noticed the same trend with Pro Tools. In some ways, Pro Tools can be a bit of a lie: you can get four guys to stand up and belt out a tune and using Pro Tools you can normalize, compress, expand, quantize and otherwise tweak the hell out of the recording and make it sound good. Or at least as good as everything else.
There is a universal sameness to much Pro Tools produced music. Everything is limited to just below peak. Vocals are compressed, doubled and quantized to unearthly degrees. Each instrument is patched through the standard reverbs de rigueur. There are 128 tracks per song not because they are put to good use, but because you can have 128+ tracks per song.
This is not to say that Pro Tools can't be used to make good music. Nobody could say that, just as nobody could really say that Photoshop can't produce good print-ready images. But Photoshop is not a good tool to paint a picture, and Pro Tools does not replace the entire studio and a smart engineer with big ears behind the console.
As a musician, the trick is to know the limitations of your gadgets. Pro Tools will not, and can not, replace old-fashioned tracking, microphone placement, wet/dry mixes, or human-tuned compression.
The success of Pro Tools has created the Pro Tools sound, and one that I am not overly fond of. As music in the digital domain matures, I hope and expect we will move away from overuse of any single tool. This seems to be the history of popular music, anway.
-- clvrmnky
Bunk.
An "anti-ProTools movement" if successful would take inexpensive music-making tools out of the hands of exactly the "real musicians" you want to hear. Those people are making music at home, in basements, in tiny studios, with a generation of affordable tools that level the recording playing field in the same way the web has helped to level the publishing playing field.
BTW, I'm recording a choir tonight with a tiny DAT deck and mics and earplug headphones that all fit in my pockets and run on 2 AA batteries and will make a recording that will sound better than many CDs in the stores. I'm darned happy all this stuff is out there and affordable.
So what if everyone uses protools. You got to understand that Protools is just a software that aids in music producion and ultimately the composer is the one who has got to sit dow and right down the notes. Protools comes in to picture when the composer decides, to recordd each instrument one by one, to rearrange chunks to his liking and add some effects.
Now if the production turns out to be crappy, can we blame it onto protools or the composer? There are several alternatives to protools that does more n less. (like Reason, Acid and some one mentioned COll edit earlier).
Just OT, here are some small pieces composed by my friend in protools. His productions are of enigma-deep forest style.
htt://groups.yahoo.com/groups/ranoshare. This is not a blatant self promotion.
there are many composers out there who don't want to perform live. Not everyone feels the need to get in front of a crowd.
That's what the mute button on your remote is for.
" What matters is the idea that artists who are not backed by major studios can now produce a very professional-sounding CD."[1]
There's an unstated assumption here. "The producer at best is redundant, at worst uneccesary". Your assuming that the (so far) only barrier has been that musicians lack the skills to operate the equipment, and make the judgements to produce a good sounding record. However there are musicians who have gone on and became producers. So with that being said how come their haven't been more "professional sounding CDs" coming out?
[1] There's another hole in your argument as well. The majour labels don't own all the studio's, and for the money that's required for a "protools" investment. One can rent an independent studio.
pro tools doesnt necessarily cut overall time / cost. it saves a ton of time in the actual recording process, but the real benefit of a good producer is helping the bands make better songs. pro tools just gives the band / producer more time with that
Ed Felten has an interesting item on where the money goes for a CD. I'm sure there's a fairly wide variation, but what he quotes is $2.85 for the artist and about $5.00 for the record company overhead. So - is the contribution of the record company worth almost twice the contribution of the artist? To get a bit more on topic, I'm not sure which side of this the cost of a tool like Pro Tools comes from, but from earlier comments it appears the artist, since they have to cover the production costs (yes, from an advance, but that gets taken out of their $2.85 till its paid off, if ever). So...umm...I'm not where I'm going from here...Lets see - less expensive for the artist is good, but overproduction is bad..umm.. hmmm...
Ok, so you have to use Win 98SE/ME or OS 9 to get it for free but nevertheless...
http://www.protools.com/
Click on "support" and in the submenu "downloads".
So far I've seen a million and a half rants concentrating on pro-tools (or insert multitrack/mixing/editing/effects app here... cakewalk,cool edit, etc..).
.. well one sm57 mic on the frethboard, perhaps another further back over the guitar hole. Then maybe a single coil pickup to make it a FULL sound.
But this software has almost nothing to do with the true quality (and expense) of recording non digital instruments.
Would anyone be as kind as to fill me (and others) in on these important, and insanely expensive details:
Let's say we are recording a single accoustic guitar track.
What do we need?
430$ 2mics 1 pickup ( I think in canadian dollars)
Then we need a mixer/ pre-amp for the mics/pickup that can line-out to our soundcard.
Anyone have a price on that? I've been using my friends old 4 track which has several XLR ins etc.. It's 800$ and sounds like poop.
Ok so now what soundcard do we need? Does using the stereo inputs of an Audigy2 cut it? no?? What low budget card does?
Third, what about the room? I have nothing but hardwood floors and wood/metal furnature in my apartment. I don't even wanna think what it would take / cost to put foam on the walls.. and carpet a room.
Last, ok so you mix it together, you get your levels right, EQ, you add some reverb here.. some compression there.
What about the rest of the Mastering process? Sweetening the sound? if you think the production proccess ends here, well your wrong. Anyone wanna give me a quick run down on what Mastering is left?
I encourage people to fill in the gaps... I'm no expert. I do know that I've tried and failed to do a proffessional sounding recording, low cost pointers are welcome! I want Brands/Models mentioned!!
--zuchini
. . . but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
The cost of CDs (or almost anything) is dependent on two things: supply and demand. Since the industry controls supply (they can manufacture as few or as many of a particular recording as they please), demand is the only thing keeping prices of CDs high.
If enough people are willing to pay $18 for a CD at the mall, why would they charge less? They're not in business to be 'fair', they're in business to make money.
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
its about marketing, distribution etc..
its not the artists that define the price of the track, its not even the labels..its the distributors..so the distributors dont give a shit if you did a track using fruitloops or a 100,000,000 dollar studio
Beacuse labels often own, or have "agreements" with more traditional studios, and going back to the heads saying "You know all that shit we spent 2 million on 4 years ago? It's outdated." People HATE being wrong, especially with money, and even more so when there jobs depend on it. So while a large portion of recordings are possibly edited in Pro Tools, it's become more of an "add-on" for existing "physical studios". Another thing to keep in mind is that production cost is primarily a "service fee", ie cost the the producer himself, the mastering, the engineer, etc. Their time has, and will always be the most valuable/expensive asset, and irregardless of wether their setup costs $500,000 or $25,000 THEIR TIME will likely never change. Sure, there are great plug-ins that save time, but why should the Suits ever know about this? Just because they could do something in an hour that used to take them 5 doesn't mean they will - and believe me, I know guys like this, and they won't lose there livlihood to a few CD-Roms.
Think of it as a replacement for the tape machine ( although it does alot more ).
Besides the recorder, you need microphones, cables, mic-preamplifiers, compressors, etc... Check out some pro-audio websites and see what Neumann mics cost. Like German cars, they're *expensive*!
Then there's the studio space itself. A good studio is designed from the ground up to be a studio. A lot goes into the acoustics of a good studio; think noise isolation, reverberation, etc... Add HVAC to the equation and it's even more expensive. So, whether or not your using pro-tools or not, someone needs to pay for the use of the studio physical space. The more money that went into the studio construction, the more money the band pays per hour/day to record there.
Then add the time of the engineer(s) and producer. Building a CD is some ways similar to building a software release. There's a long list of tasks that need to be done by creative/technical people, and someone needs to run the whole thing... that's the producer. The better they are, the more they get paid.
Yes, pro-tools has done alot to make recording more affordable, but not to the point where you're gonna see the savings passed on to the consumer.
As long as the RIAA and the big five continue to act like the crooks they are, any money saved will end up in their pockets, not your's, or the musicians' who really deserve it.
protools has long been considered the most expensive studio option around. why? protools uses a proprietary protocol (TDM) for its' plugins and hardware. Protools _doesn't_ support VST plugins, which are standard for most other music software. You're pretty much tied to digi hardware (although they usually support Emagic's control surfaces too). Protools is basically the Microsoft of music software.
-BlueLines
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
Keep in mind we have no idea how to run the program in the first place.
So, why should I have to pay $20 a CD? I realize with more instruments, there would be more work to do, but this really says a lot: Production is overrated.
I've been backing away from idealism lately, but I honestly think that once more and more amateur musicians get these sorts of programs, it will become common knowledge that it honestly is NOTHING to record decent-sounding music. A professional will be able to make the final touches that Jasbir and I could never make. However, even assuming that this person is salaried at $200,000 a year, this DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE PRICE OF MUSIC.
End of rant.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
You can find a pantload of cheap music if you're willing to look past the Big5(tm) labels in order to find it.
I sell my CDs at around $6.99 a pop (the lowest mp3.com will let me go). I'm thinking of moving to CD Baby, in which case I imagine I'll sell them at about $.50 above cost. I don't plan to make any money off of my music, I'm more about exposure. You wouldn't believe the high you can get when someone you've never met comes up to you and tells you how much they enjoyed some of your music.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
Where are you getting that they won't keep up development?
Pro Tools Free is advertised as compatible with Windows Me but not compatible with Windows 2000, which was first published before Windows Me. The web site also shows no indication that the developer is in any way working on a version compatible with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It smells less like getting behind by accident and more like getting behind on purpose.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I didn't mean "anti-pro tools" as in "you don't use software tools to record, produce, distribute, etc. your music". I'm a strong supporter of the new inexpensive & powerful tools we have available to us and I hope they continue to improve!
What I mean by the "anti-pro tools" movement is that artists do not use these software tools to mend poor performances and create artificial music. I'm suggesting that these tools be used as tools & not as instruments.
Where are you getting that they won't keep up development?
Anyone who is intimately familiar with this company and its products knows that Microsoft will release MS Office Pro for Redhat, Mandrake and SuSE long before Digi will release a free ProTools-lite that will run on 2K/XP
- Other software: software instruments, software effects processors, etc
- Other digital hardware: audio interfaces, midi interfaces, mLAN interfaces
- Other studio hardware: effects processors, mixers, etc, etc.
- microphones
- Instruments
- Musicians
Of course the discussion about record labels, etc is right on as far as why CDs cost so much, but my twofold point is: 1) ProTools has been making music cheaper/better for years 2) ProTools alone can't make a single sound -- you need plenty of other gear"why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
Because monopolies can price anyway they want!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
People seem to think the recording industry is all done on a computer. It's not...there are many computers involved. There's the console automation and the one that controls the High Volume Low Velocity cooling system, and the one for editing the tracks, and the one used to master it all, and so on and so on...
The microphones aren't cheap. Sure, I can run down to Radio Shack and get a microphone, but usually, it sounds like crap when compared to my Neumann U47 or AKG C12 (around $5-10K a piece). Or if I want to go for a budget, I might use a little AKG 414 which is basically a modern version of the C12 (a little under a grand). I'll go cheap on the snare drum and use a Shure SM57 (about $100), but micing the rest of the drum kit can really drive up the costs. The bass we'll take direct but a direct box costs around $250. The guitars can work with a Sennheiser 421 but double it since we need a stereo track ($200 each). Then, I need some outboard processing. I can get one of those cheap Lexicon units, but that really doesn't cut it for the voice. So I'll go bargain shopping for the 480L and hopefully come in around $8K. And a rack full of compressors...gee, that could get expensive depending on how esoteric we go.
Speaking of rack, I need some place to record all this stuff. The basement's too noisy with all the noise from the people walking around upstairs, and the air conditioning. Constructing a small studio and control room can easily get into some serious cash...no parallel walls and all (flutter echo is usually a bad thing). Of course we'll need an iso-booth for the lead singer, and we need to hire some background singers since the rest of the band can't sing a note on key.
So now I can buy a nice multitrack recorder for $50K. If I want a good Pro Tools setup with nice A/D converters, I'm going to need to spend about the same amount of money. Then, I need a console to take the tracks and mix them. Geez...I could easily get a nice SSL or Neve at few hundred K a pop, but I need to go budget here and spend as little as possible and still get a good clean sound. I can get an Amek, designed by Rupert Neve, and spend only around $100K.Oh CRAP! I forgot I have to have people to run these things. A semi-talented recording engineer will cost me a few hundred bucks a day plus a point or two on the gross. I suppose I could try to produce it myself and get the engineer to throw in a few comments...maybe for an extra point on the back end. hmmmmm...that might work.
Now, let's get it mastered, do some cover art and liner notes (gotta thank family, friends, and fans), get the distribution going and promos for the radio stations to play.
Let's see how much we've spent...holy crap that's a lot of money!!
I guess there is some justification in the cost. Gosh...my limited view kept me from seeing how much money is spent and realizing that it's not just the medium the tracks get recorded on. I suppose I could pull my head out of my ass and realize things like this, but it's so much more fun to get everyone on /. in an uproar.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
Well, sometimes. And the benefits are not necessarily financial. Benefits != Money. Protools lowers the cost of production. This means that records are getting made today that wouldn't have been made in the past. Have taken a look at Indie music lately? It's flourishing and in no small part due to the lowered cost of producing an albumn. Please hold your comments about (intentionally) lo-fi indie stuff.
The consumer benefits from more choice. The consumer gets to pick recordings that were possible with big record labels footing the bill.
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
Why doesn't somebody smack you? You think they're in business to save YOU money!?!?
What difference does $100000 mean to the artist compared to the consumer?
An artist can now actually produce the record they have wanted to.
After a record is produced and sold even only 100,000 (I use ONLY hesitantly) records, that comes out to $1 cheaper per cd to produce.
Our real advantage is the ability for the independent musician to make music that is the same quality as those albums coming from the "Big 5".
The whole notion that Pro Tools and my personal favorite Cool Edit Pro (someone please make a Linux clone or port it with Wine or something!) will make the recording industry sell CDs for less is absurd.
Look guys, everyone here on Slashdot is always talking about the music revolution where the artist produces and markets their own music. Well its here now and guess what? It completely sucks.
Now it is super cheap and easy to get great results at home (if you have a clue what you are doing and most people DON'T!). You don't need expensive recording studios or audio technicians worth beans. The good part is that. I've been able to do a lot of my own production far cheaper than before and it sounds better, because I know what I'm doing and have been trained in the area.
The bad part is that so can Joe Sixpack and his band. Nobody thinks they need help, but 99% of people out there really need a second pair of ears (and someone with experience) more than they need high-tech recording gear.
Recording studios know this. Overproduced or not, Brittany or whatever decent looking bimbo they find on the Mickey Mouse club is easier to market than any good band that isn't pretty (thanks MTV). Now these unpretty, but good muscians are less likely to get a contract, partly because of filesharing.
An intelligent rock(jazz or whatever) band generally has a more sophisticated audience than Brittany Spears. Do most of the Slashdotters download Spears? Probably not. Whereas Boy Band audiences are less into technology.
Isn't it interesting how the free music revolution helped to kill real music? You guys got your free music and from here on out, that's what most of it is going to be worth no matter what Apple or anyone else makes us pay for it.
Whether or not filesharing is actually hurting revenue for bands themselves is another question, but in the eyes of a record company what makes more $$$? Do you think a real group would be more profitable or Brittany? In most cases, Brittany and the Boy Bands. They're also a lot less likely to try and bite the hand that feeds them a la Pearl Jam, Ticketmaster and MTV.
So now these good muscians who can't get a record deal can at least produce themselves, but the results are usually pathetic. Go on MP3.com and show me any really good homerecorded bands. Then tell me how long it took you to find them. Then tell me if you are actually going to go see them in concert.
Love 'em or hate 'em we need record companies, radio to sort through the crap so the cream can rise to the top. Kazaa or any of the other filesharing systems don't really expose you to new things. The only good music broadcast out there these days is at radioparadise.com. Tune in. You'll be glad you did.
To hell with the consumer, how about the artist?
I hear that he's back to calling himself Prince, now. probably still wears the butt-less pants, too.
ptfree is not the same as protools - ptfree is limited in the number of audio and midi channels, does not work with any of the digidesign hardware, and has limited plugin usage
i o_Menu.htm
read more
http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree/ptfree_qa.html
in general, the midi implementation in protools is limited compared to emagic's logic audio
other really good music production suites that won't break the home studio bank
Tracktion
Fruity Loops
Reason
some electronic music producers who use the big software tools occasionally screw around with the cheaper packages and then show how you can make the original song using them - such is the case with Infected Mushroom's "Dancing with Kadafi"
http://www.infected-mushroom.net/Studio/Html/Stud
Protools may be great but there are other less expensive solutions with the same audio fidelity and professional feature sets. Steinberg makes Cubase SX and Nuendo, my favorite audio production programs.
The cost of Pro Tools typically involves hardware for audio processing. With Steinberg's software my Pentium 4 1.8 Ghz handles everything, and I can run 16 tracks without even slowing down my system.
Not only is technology making record labels obsolete, it's also making studios obsolete. With a $2,000 investment in computer equipment and software, $500 to sound-dampen the garage, and $500 for a decent microphone and mic preamp, plus one of these, you can rock pretty hard these days, and sound very good while you're at it.
I'm sure millions of people have posted this, but there are several DAWs that have crossed the line to full production environment. Digital Performer, for instance, has all the hardware and software that DigiDesign has. MOTU (the maker of Performer) has a whole line of 96k/192K HD interfaces (using the same conversion chips, so don't even bother posting about how they don't sound as good as the ProTools converters). There are many options for MIDI, and quite a few control surfaces.
The only things I see that ProTools has over DP, Sonar, Logic, or Nuendo is the huge control surfaces and a wide install base. Digital Performer is much better at MIDI sequencing/notation, surround mixing, looping/sequencing, you name it. The hardware is cheaper, and has all the pro-level I/O.
Frankly, the $495 intro price for ProTools is a myth. That particular package, the M-Box, has gotten horrible reviews. They really skimped on the quality of components: noisy inputs, poor stability, etc. I personally know people that exchanged those intefaces within days for an M-Audio or MOTU device. The fact that ProTools (non-free, supported versions) only runs on DigiDesign hardware is also pretty crummy. Back in the day they had the best interrfaces, but that was some time ago. The main studio I work in is shifting completely to MOTU.
No, I don't work for MOTU, I'm just a very happy switcher.
Are savings from increased productivity using Ant and JUnit being passed on to the consumer?
I'm guessing you're not seeing the cost savings because the 4 out of 5 CDs being done with ProTools are all being done by unknown bands in small markets running off small numbers of CDs.
At least that's what I see happening where I live.
You can spend thousands of dollars on building a home studio or even producing a single album, with or without ProTools. The core of your product is still the artist.
Tape Op has published book comprised of many interviews with ultra-low-budget musicians and producers, many of whom released albums recorded on cheap Tascam cassette mixers. While many people laud digital technology's potential for "perfection," Tape Op has always celebrated artists' will to record onto anything they can get their hands on.
Didn't any one read the article on pricing about two months ago? No one but us suckers (customers) think prices should be related to costs. Charge what the market will bare.
It's only been "the standard" amongst bigoted ProTools owners who use nothing else. Kinda like Apple claiming that the Mac is "the standard" computer.
The real "standard" if there really exists such, has got to more along the lines of Sonar or Cubase/Nuendo, just because of the sheer numbers of actual system deployments.
I'm a Sonar user myself, and it's quite good both as a midi sequencing production tool, and as a multitrack recorder DAW.
Lower costs passed passed on to consumers?!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Boy, that's a good one.
the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. - Chaucer
heh, my coworker just met The Who last night at a bar in Minnetonka, MN. Apparently they're going on tour in the fall for 18 mos. She didn't get into how they recorded their music though...I'll have to ask her to bring that up if she ever runs into them again :)
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Rhetoric aside, Pro Tools replaces one key component in the traditional recording studio: tape. Big consoles, microphones, cabling, maintenance, acoustically treated spaces, reference monitor speakers, and signal processors are still pretty much a mainstay in high-end recording studios.
Instead of having to align and clean tape heads, recording engineers have become software gurus, yet they still need a good knowledge of signal routing, electronics theory, and all their gear.
Besides, we all know that in the case of enormous, triple-platinum records, the actual creation of the recording has little or nothing to do with the sticker price. Yes it's sad, but CD's are priced right at the point where they can sell the most and also make the most profit.
Protux moved to http://www.nongnu.org/protux/.
Give life
Check the digidesign website for protools free
I used it under mac os 9, it was very helpful for making some tracks. It's quite stable too. There is a windows version of it as well.
www.quikphix.org is my netlabel, free electronic music, all made on computers
oh and that article felt like it was written by some music newbie. People have been using computers for making music for at least the past 10 years. Stuff like protools has existed for at least 5 years. whee.
Because the music industry still has a "standard" contract that makes the shmuck at the bottom (the "artist") cover costs that were irrelevant years ago.
Even U2 is still paying for the cost of LP sleeves, jukebox promotion, and 78's that break in transit.
People who argue about how cheap or expensive it is to produce music, how much a CD "really" costs, etc. just don't get it. These guys are the Mafia--in some cases literally. Look up the story of MCA (now Universal) for a start. There are more than a few broken legs there.
It's a bit funny that they've consolidated into five companies..."families" if you will. Ever see The Godfather?
As the cost of technology drops, it makes it more available to the average Joe.
When desktop publishing changed the printing industry in the 80's, did we see the price of newspapers/magazines/books drop? NO.
When non-linear editing changed video production, did we see the price of movies drop? NO.
Hard disk recorders (like ProTools) have been around for a long time. Now that the price is at a point most people can afford, will we see the price of music drop? I don't think so.
Pro Tools is a great program and they have a free version that lets you only record 8 tracks.
Look, if you want to realize cost savings, you are going to have to look for your music in place other than Walmart/the mall/Tower, etc.
Recording records has continually become cheaper and more effective over the past.. well 100 years or so. But its the last 10 that have really made the difference. Digital recorders are incredibly cheap, decent mixers and mastering tools and software all are affordable. What this means is that there are more people than ever producing music.
This is both good and bad. There is lots of music out now that would otherwise have never gotten heard if not for home production (think pretty much ALL techno). But there is also A LOT of crapflood now as well, as everyone who produces music obviously thinks they produce good music. Guess what? They shouldn't try to be the judge of that.
As a result, sites like mp3.com and the like started up and eventually filled with spamming, self-promoting shitty artists, along with the few obligatory gems.
The individual, or unsigned artist cannot realistically get a record contract any more. They can however, record cheaply, and even produce short run cd's realatively cheaply (less than $1 / cd). Sure, that's more expensive than a major label can do it for, but its still cheap.
What we need are companies that will handle the actual cd production, warehouse the cd's, and ship them direct to customers. If you like a band, you'd go to their website, click to order the cd, and have it shipped to you. The cost of warehousing the cd's and shipping them would be included in the cd production costs the band would foot.
The idea is pretty simple actually; if you are a band, record a cd, get made 1000 made and try to sell those. No distribution needed, no major labels. However, for this to work, people have to actively seek out new music off the beaten path of ClearChannel/MTV. No band can afford to get a video on MTV or the payola to get in the rotation on ClearChannel without a major label. But if people don't pay attention to these outlets, independent bands start to level the playing field.
Granted, the alternative media outlets for finding and identifying new music are scattered. Eventually, these outlets will become more prevalent in the music-lovers search for new tunes. Reviewers will stop caring about the newest Virgin records releases and start surfing for that unknown, great band.
Here's a perhaps rash prediction: in 15 years all 6 of the major record labels will be either defunct or defanged. 95% of all music will be distributed directly via the web, either in the form of mp3s or online cd purchases. The number of platnium albums per year will plummet. Billboard magizine and SoundScan will cease to exist. Internet radio will become predominate as wireless technology allows people to listen in their cars.
The market conditions today are such that the major record labels grasp on the price of cd's is only maintained by the public's willingness to accept and wholeheartedly shallow the seminal fluid called pop.
I'm an avid home studio type. I've got a 24-track studio (based around a Mackie MDR24 - disk-based recorder) and I have the Mackie 32-channel 8-bus console and a nice modest collection of outboard stuff and mic-pre's... which is to say that I generally prefer to record using a separate machine and relying more on performance rather than editing capabilities of the engineer in order to record good music (which means I rarely record anything "good" -- but its fun trying).
I do, however, believe there is a place for ProTools (and Ardour -- the open source PT). I'm slowly warming up to the whole "PC" based recording, but more for the editing flexibility you are provided with. In the past, "editing" was just simply cutting out blatant mistakes, but now with the tools and capabilities with PC-based recording programs... editing, for me, now is part of the creative process (and not just clean-up).
As for the "over-compression" discussion earlier, yes most modern MAINSTREAM music suffers from over use of compression. My philosophy is that music should breathe. When I hear stuff today, I just notice myself repeating over and over "just let it breathe!!" Compression is a useful tool for taiming a wild snare hit or shaping a guitar track, but it should ALWAYS be considered completely TRANSPARENT.
Oh well, what do I know.
sad robot making broken music
The ignorance shown by OneInEveryCrowd finally ends the debate
Record company execs have been crying about lost profits for years now, due to prolific use of CD-Rs, Nappster, KazaA, etc. I suppose they'd feel that lowering recording and production costs while maintaining MSRP is one way to balance the financial karma. (Not that I agree!)
I'm looking forward to learning to work with Cubase SX this year, myself.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Well, the over-compression issued mentioned by grand-parent is seriously encouraged by ProTools... ProTools does not do logarhythmic metering - it does linear metering. As a result, 3 dB down from full amplitude (which is 1/2 the power) is 1/2 of the range in the edit window for a track. Down 6 dB is 1/4. Down 9 dB is 1/8. Down 12 dB is 1/16th of the window - and that's the average volume you SHOULD be at (for pop... SMPTE standard is to go down to -18 dB FS for 0 VU). However, do that, and it barely looks like you've recorded anything. As a result, ProTools users are encouraged to record too hot, with too much compression/limiting.
That's just ONE of the flaws of ProTools (can we say clicks and pops due to not finding zero crossings or doing automatic crossfades? yeah...)
-T
the mixerman chronicles:
m .p hp
http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/mm/week1/m
This has by far been the most read and loved diary of an engineer on a major label project. It might take you a few days, but you will be entertained!
Plus you will learn that one workflow improvement for one cog in this machine doesn't amount to a hill of beans as far as what it take to get the whole project firing on all cylinders.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
The result is an album that feels wonderfully alive, is unbelievably re-listenable, and has really good dynamics. Recording using old analog equipment captures their groove far better than any high-tech digital whiz-bang system could even dream of.
Thank goodness not every band is falling into the trap of "perfect pitch" and metronome steady beats. Just play your songs and record them. If you can't sound good that way, then, well, you're not really a worthwhile band, are you?
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Look at it two ways:
o rg
1. People who never could afford to record before now can.
2. You can get lots and lots and lots of LEGAL music for free, because of those lowered costs.
If I had to pay for a studio every time I wanted to record something... well I wouldn't.
http://www.somesongs.com
http://www.songfight.
Free music by real people.
However, check out Audacity for a good, free, cross-platform product.
-T
Hey... thanks for using the proper term. Today, all the S/W-only n00bs all think it is vocoRder just because the plugin makers didn't use the proper vernacular. The original effect was produced by what was called a vocoder. It should be noted that the obvious pitch-shifting was the *desired* effect. Similar in some respects to how one used the "talk box" to turn the shape of the oral cavity into a parametric EQ sweep for the output of a guitar amp, then fed into a vocal mic. Nice to know someone out there remembers the good ol' days.
Can I bum a sig? I left mine at the office.
I just happened to be in the studio (and have one more trip there on Saturday) and we recorded with ProTools. Now I'm not an expert on audio recording, and much of the credit for the recording quality goes to the engineer (and my band), but ProTools seems like an amazingly capable program. Not only could the engineer apply get a rich, warm sound in all the right places, but he could do this quickly!
We were sitting in the engineering room, listening to a recording and thinking aloud what doesn't sound quite right, and the engineer kept up with our train of thought. By the time the song was done, he had applied most of our ideas to the song and we listened to it a second time, with everything as it should be.
I suppose I should provide a link to the song, even though I'm not sure if I'm pimping or backing up my opinion: Flipside - it's where your secrets went to hide!
If a tool like this can make such a great sound, the super-high-end systems may be answering a question nobody has asked in ten years.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Aaargh! My eyes! I've been blinded by a flash of the obvious!
Oh, I'm sorry...was that a rhetorical question or a joke?
This is a market where competition is skewed -- the goods aren't fungible. In fact, the very popularity of a good in this market increases its value, exactly at the same time as reducing its per unit cost to produce (longer production runs), market (amortized over more units), etc.
So, I would not expect lower production costs to change prices from major labels. What this DOES do, though, is to enable micro-producers to actually become economical. I.e., you can buy good music from small artists at lower cost.
I use a program called Buzz for composing and recording electronic music. It and a ton of plugins are available for free download. (Windows only, no Linux or Mac ports...yet) Also check out this site.
You can also find lots of free plugins and other apps at Database Audio.
Wait, except for the fact that it doesn't actually replace the 2" in most cases. Even when major recordings use PT, they usually record to analog tape FIRST, then dump to PT to edit. (This seems to be slowly changing, as the resolution gets better - 24 bit has made a major difference
In some cases with majors, I will bet that the cost of having the engineer edit the crap takes they got into something useable far outwieghed the gear savings, and may well have cost more than the former industry standard - send the guy that can't play on vacation for a week, and have a session guy do it..)
In my mind, the major contribution of PT (and similar digital recording products, none so much as the humble ADAT) have allowed is for the quality of non-major label recordings to go up by giving project studios the ability to produce decent-sounding product without driving themselves bankrupt.
For good audio recording conversation at all levels - including Mixerman's hilarious Bitch Slap story that explains a lot of why some recordings cost a ridiculous amount of money, try The Recpit.
Pro Tools allows lazy incompetent musicians to make a polished track. Lazy incompetent musician make lazy incompetent music. Garbage in garbage out. How many consumers today are complaining of poor quality product when they buy a CD?
No longer do you have to play a whole song from start to finish to get "that take". In the past it would take a polished band less than a half hour to get a good take from two or three replays, and they'd have a complete album in days. Now you can perfect a botched take with the digital scissors in PT which means you're tied to the computer for hours fixing one song. Multiply that one song by 18 tracks to make a finished CD and the studio costs aren't cheap. Today the convention of excellence has been replaced with perfection, and the temptation to perfect each song with digital scissors is too great.
I'm from the old school. I'm a player. I practice my parts and when I'm ready then I hit record and get that take after a one, two, three tries. I use MIDI and analog multitrack, no digital audio. I get more compliments on the final product than I do about my playing, and that pleases me the most.
The industry joke going around a couple of years ago about Pro Tools involves a recording engineer just having finished a take: "Well that sucked. Come on in!"
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Pro-tools has been around for a long time, it's not that cheap, no one that I know of is doing any analog editing anymore. Pro-tools TDM systems can cost anywhere between $5k-$20k, thats not cheap.
You can get Emagic's Logic Platinum 5.x for $250, that requires no additional hardware (you do need some audio hw if you want more than 1 stereo i/o)
and does everything pro-tools can do, and is just as solid.
Because of the above mentioned, ProTools doesn't help studios cut costs, but it does make high quality recording equipment and techniques available to small record cos and individual bands. Which is a good thing, right?
Lots of indie music is recorded with the most basic equiment imaginable. Granted it's not mainstream, but that's not to say that it's not available. What about bands that play all of their own music? Have you heard of the White Stripes, or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or even Pete Galub? I'm not saying anything about their motives as far as money goes -- but all of their music has been recorded on vintage analog gear and sounds great. From what I hear, they're selling pretty well too.
seriouslyexcited.net
I can't believe that we have the opening comment be so crass. ProTools is a tool. It doesn't force anyone to use loads of compression; it doesn't force anyone to autotune vocals; it doesn't force anyone to make endless edits and nit-pick the soul out of a performance. A pro-level PT system might just be the best thing ever for recording live music. Low noise, great headroom, and the ability to do some very useful EQ and gain adjustments in the mix and master phase. The Problem: The music industry dictates that if you want people to buy a million units of their latest pap then it has to be of a certain style. That is why you hear the same crappy production values on Korn albums as you hear on Dixie Chicks albums. Sweeet, Sweeeet pap, and loads of it. Music doesn't suck any worse now than it did before digital recording, it is just that us Old-Timers (30+) have a new villain to blame it on. The question was about why the benefit hasn't come across to the consumer in the form of lower prices. Well, the cost of everything has come down, with the exception of management and procuder salaries. They have skyrocketed. CD's cost pennies to manufacture, distribution is cheaper than ever, recording equipment has dropped in price against inflation, and still the artists don't expect to make any money from their CD. I've seen four interviews (on MTV, VH1, A&E, etc...)with artists from varying genres where they have said that despite selling a million CD's they only make money from touring. Speaking of the Dixie Chicks, I saw the interview where one of them is almost intears when the interviewer does the math of CD sales * shelf price. She bluntly relates that Sony remodeled their entire Nashville offices and studios on their sales reciepts. Amazing considering that RIAA is using the artists as poster children for their jihad against music sharing. What PT *is* doing is making high-quality recording equipment available to more independent musicians. Not just inexpensive PT systems, but inexpensive analog systems dumped by studios who went to PT! I can get 24-track analog (tape, remember tape?) time for a tenth of what it would have cost 10 years ago. Have you seen any other technology service drop from $3k/day to $300/day since 1993? Plus, I can put together a really nice home digital system for under $3k using either PTLE or any of a gaggle of DAW solutions. PT could be considered to be like Starbucks, while there is one on every corner there is also a competitor on every other corner.
I think you'll find that the record company charges the band for the studio time. That cost comes out of their royalty checks.
Sorry this is a complete troll post and definitely not anything to do with RIAA/DMCA/MPAA issues so feel free to mod me into the ground...but RUSH???? OMFG That band stinks. Cher might even be better... hell Springsteen might even be better.
I went to battle MC Escher but drew a blank
Production of a record is a minor expense, whether it's 15,000 or 750,000. The big money is spent in the marketing of the record. Product placement, touring, radio play, and massive marketing budgets make up the lion's share of the cost of goods sold. Record companies use a shotgun approach. You throw money at 100 records and maybe 1 hits. The margins on the one that hits need to be huge in order to pay for the loss on the 99 that don't. Better question: How can a band sell 75,000 records and be considered a failure? Check out Some of Your Friends are Already This Fucked by Steve Albini on the financial machinations of a record label.
laugh hard, it's a long way to the bank
My band was able to record our first EP for 500$, an amazingly low cost for a week of recording because the studio's cost was so cheap. Before we entered the studio I was a little worried about fully digital recording, but after working with Pro Tools I feel like the intensity and feel of the music exists perfectly intact on the recording. You can check out 2 tracks here: Digital recordings. I think the proof is in the pudding.
These packages allow artists to do what they want at a much more reasonable cost, its up to the artist to destroy it with too many tracks, cut and paste chorus's, etc.. but these are all things you can still do with analog recordings.
There's an argument running through this discussion which on the surface is coherent, yet in practice doesn't reflect reality. It goes like this:
"there is no alternative to brand X, and only one company sells brand X, so there is no viable competition. Therefore, the company can set pretty much any price it wants."
Yep, in a very basic, Econ 101 way of thinking, this is entirely true - up to a point, of course (i.e., where price exceeds consumer desire to purchase). If you have no viable competition you're in a monopoly position (corporate oligarchy, for the RIAA) and you can price fix all you like. So long as you don't raise the price beyond what the consumer will bear you can rake in the profit every time production costs decline.
What folks are missing is that competition isn't limited to these simplistic factors. As price approaches the limit that the consumer will bear, alternate methods of distribution will be developed to satisfy the desires of consumers who wish to purchase the product, but not at the price set by the monopoly. These are known as 'black markets' because they distribute the product without the sanction of the monopoly (and in contravention to law) and at a lower price than the monopoly itself (for goods that *can* be distributed at all - obviously, SAMs and the like will cost more just because distribution exists at all).
The more 'unjust' the price of a product is gauged to be, the larger and more developed a black market becomes. That is, each time you jack up the price of the product (or refuse to lower the price, when production costs decline), more and more of your consumers pass the point where the price is something they're willing to bear - whether or not they can afford the price. If percentage A of consumers find a CD ridiculously overpriced at $15 a pop, this percentage will turn to the black market for its needs. If percentage B of consumers find the price of the CD too much at $16, now percentage A + percentage B turns to the black market, and so on, minus those who simply stop purchasing in any form whatsoever.
(Note: there will also be a certain subset of consumers who find the only acceptable price to be 0. But unlike what many slashdotters seem to believe, in practice this subset is always tiny and has no observable effect on the market for that product. This isn't speculation, it's fact - do some research if you need it spelled out for you. People aren't by nature thieves, and an enormous amount of economic and psychological evidence bears this out; if you think otherwise, this isn't a statement about the character of the human race, but your character.)
The higher the price goes, and the more unjust that price seems to be, the more your consumers turn to the black market instead of buying from the monopoly. This has nothing to do with ethics or morals regardless of what ranting slashdotter decides to scream 'theft!' in response to this post. The fact is, increasing consumer use of the black market is an economic indicator that the product is overpriced and needs to be reduced in cost to the consumer. It's the economic form of 'civil disobedience'; when the powers that be don't listen to your complaints, you take action that hits them where it counts to drive your point home. Even if you yourself are unaware of the results of your actions (you just want cheaper CDs and don't care about the ramifications), from an economic point of view the group that turns to the black market is making a very clear statement about the price of the product provided by the monopoly, whether or not the individuals of that group care a whit one way or another about anything beyond buying the CD for less than the list price.
Unfortunately for the RIAA, there exists a 'black market' in the form of file sharing that makes turning to an alternative distribution source easier than ever before in history. While short-sighted twerps post on slashdot, going on and on about 'stealing' and 'piracy' and whatnot, this
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I've long said that if the major labels had offered a good online experience with no copy protection and songs at $1 a pop I would gladly pay... should I finally return to financing these crooks because after they lost the war they decided to do the right thing?
Of course not! A Slashdoter would never actually purchase something. No, a true Slashdoter would say "I sure would be willing to pay for (Goods/Services) if they would only (Criteria to be met)," then change those criteria once met so that they still feel they should not pay for said goods or services.
Sorry, this rant isn't directed at you in particular, but I've seen it alot on here recently, esp. with the advent of Apple's Music Store:
"I'll buy music online when you don't have to buy the whole crappy album."
"$0.99 a song? What a rip off! The whole CD would cost more than it would in the stores."
"Oh, only $9.99 for a whole album? Too bad I only have a Windows box"
"Oh, the Windows client is coming out at the end of the year? (Pause) WELL THEY DON'T SUPPORT OGG, SO THEY'LL NEVER GET MY MONEY!!!"
Droplifting: Go to Record store with your 5 CD's place in slot walk away. Free marketing distribution. add a "demo" version of ProTools Professional + EasyCD Creator and you have Production fees also covered.
I went to battle MC Escher but drew a blank
The price of something isn't determined by what it costs to produce it, but by what a willing buyer is willing to pay to get it. That's why profit margins vary so much from industry to industry. (Profit margins and prices also shrink when there's more competition, but that's another discussion.)
If it costs me $100 to produce an item, but a willing buyer is only willing to fork out $80 for it, it won't reach the market until I add enough value to increase what the customer will pay OR I figure out how to get my costs below $80. On the other hand, if I produce something for $1 that happens to be worth $100 to a customer, I'll make a huge profit and the customer is happy, too. (Of course, under most circumstances, other producers will figure out how to make the same product and begin competition, reducing prices for everyone. That's part of what happens with electronic devices, although increasing volumes also play a role.)
Looking at cost really should only matter to the producer of an item. The consumer should look at value, not price or cost. If an item has enough value to pay what the producer asks, both parties can be happy. If there's NOT enough value, the producer is driven from business or he has to reduce costs (possibly by changing his business model or production processes, etc.).
The record companies are in trouble partly because of free music downloads. They're right about that. That's because many consumers have decided they'd rather steal (which they euphemistically call "share") rather than pay money for music that they can then keep. That makes the price charged for CDs less attractive, of course, because it lowers the perceived value to the customer. But the difference in how customers view CD prices now has NOTHING to do with what it costs to produce an album.
David
The reason why bands do this is that it almost always sounds better. It's very rare that you get a live album where the band sounds better than they did in the studio. But I really respect the bands that do...
The trick to getting your sblive to work is using the EMU10k drivers. You probably can insmod them if you're using the Mandrake kernel (it has all the modules compiled) or you can *gasp* rebuild your kernel with one from kernel.org...
.: 2+2 = PI SQRT(1+N)
Something that should be mentioned is that the closest competition to Pro Tools, Logic Audio, was acquired by Apple last year.
...who completely bypass computer audio processing.
And it shows. Their songs sound like nothing else on the radio today. Raw, unique, original.
On one hand, it's obnoxious because you probably have to go through great trouble nowadays in recording an album just to say "no computers were used!", but on the other hand, who can argue with results?
The benefits aren't passed on because the Music and Film industry are run by a bunch of greedy bastards.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
It says "a division of Avid" right next to the DigiDesign logo at the top left of their website.
The bigger studios do go ahaead and pay the big bucks to buy ProTools, but it's so overly complicated and cumbersome to operate that the operators tell their customers they're going to do this/that/the_other on a recording with ProTools, then when the customer leaves the premises, the operator actually loads up the tune into good old cheap CoolEdit Pro instead, so he can get some productive work done in a reasonable amount of time, then lies and tells the customer he used ProTools so he can charge him more.
I'm not going to argue about the cost of CD's - I personlly don't buy RIAA backed music anyway. However, as with many products, the largetst cost is the human cost. You are not buying the 20cent CD, the production, or the marketing. You are paying for the creative talent of the artist, producers, and engineers. No matter how cheap a paintbrush is, a good painting is still worth it's value as art.
The revolution of "cheap studio's" really makes it possible for people without the means that the RIAA has to produce and distribute incredible music. But for large budjet studio's, the overall savings is marginal compared to the per-CD revenue generated. Even if savings were directly passed down, we'd probably be talking about a few pennies on the dollar.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Man, it's never enough for some people is it? Let's say just for the sake of argument that Pro Tools cuts down production costs significantly. That means there's more profit margin, right?
So people start complaining that that cost in savings should be passed on to the consumer.
These are the same people who complain about the RIAA's not giving the artists enough money or compensation for their efforts. Now we might have a way to make the profit margins higher so there's more money that can be passed on to the artist, right?
Yeah I know we all assume that this profit will in fact not be passed on to the artist, but that's not what people decried first. These same people who complain that the artist doesn't get paid enough look at this savings in cost and instead want that for themselves.
It's just never enough, is it?
Schnapple
Fostex MR-8 Digital Recorder
Old crappy computer
Goldwave software
No, what's funny is that you mentioned Linkin Park. If you knew anything about the band, I think you'd be a little surprised to learn that a few of them are artists who met at ART SCHOOL while studying illustration. In fact, all the artwork for their albums was done by them. According to the American Music Awards Bio:
"Linkin Park saw its beginnings in emcee/vocalist Mike Shinoda's small bedroom studio, where he and Delson recorded the band's first material in 1996. The two had attended high school together, where they met the band's drummer, Rob Bourdon. Shinoda hooked up with DJ Joseph Hahn while studying illustration at Art Center College in Pasadena. Meanwhile, attending UCLA, Delson shared an apartment with bassist Phoenix, who left the band after college and returned a year later. The final piece of the puzzle was singer Chester Bennington, a transplanted Arizona native who started making records when he was 16."
So just because you don't like their music does not mean they are not artists... IMHO, an artists is someone who writes their own music, plays their own instruments, and loves performing live. Linkin Park write their own music, play their own instruments, perform their own music, and even do the artwork and packaging for their albums. Sounds like a group of artists to me. Now if you were talking about a boy band or some American Idol winner, that'd be a different story.
Has anyone tried Cool Edit? It's a great program, and inexpensive. The Jew-controlled music industry is now obsolete!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I built a several thousand dollar high-end DAW with a Motu 2408 Mk III for my buddy who owns a recording studio, and even though he has Nuendo, Sonar, and other packages, he mostly uses CEP because it is so much more user-friendly to work with.
Take a listen, it sounds like crap. Now the production might be top notch, but the lyrics, the writing, the singing are pretty awful. The song itself blows.
Recording technology is just a tool. It's a good tool, but give it to an amateur hack and it won't enable them to produce masterpieces. Pretty good, average or above average music, but if they can't sing or write a decent lyric or a melody, Pro Tools won't help them.
Okay, so there are plug ins that will help bend your vocal lines into shape and slap a bunch of reverb on them, and enable you to edit to the nano second and splice together all your imperfect tracks to make one perfect one, but get someone who can actually sing and they can bang out a track like that in one take.
What Pro-Tools has no capabality of which is the most important element of a song is still the vocal element. You can synthesize instruments up the wazoo but I have yet to meet a plug-in that could write a song, write a melody, write a lyric and imitate the human voice. Maybe that's the next step.
Whatever buddy, keep believing that tripe if you want to. You take someone who owns something "potentially" worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that someone who has also never made much more than minimum wage their entire life.
Now promise them the world, toss a few thousand dollars to them in exchance for the copyright to a product worth orders of magnitude more. They'll sign, because they're young and still believe that people are fair, until Universal Music sends them the bill for the tour promotion they did for them, and now they're in the hole, own no copyrights and don't get shite.
Bollocks yourself. If you think that record companies are fair, you are a fool.
"Rolling Stone reports that four out of five new albums are now produced by a program called Pro Tools (or similar packages) that costs $495 for the home version or $15,000 for the pro version. "
Wow, I laughed out loud when I first saw the Rolling Stone's article...and I did again when Slashdot finally posted it. Pro Tools is overpriced and underperforming. Its a grandfathered-in studio standard. Newer programs like Logic Audio Platinum and CubaseSX provide a much better set of features.
Rolling Stone's article read like an advertisement for ProTools. ProTools is basically an audio sequencer, and even that isn't very well done, since it can't even use VST or DX plugin effects, and you're limited in all midi-style options.
Obviously, and for at least a decade, the tools to make a professional recording have been available to a home market. And programs like Reason, Logic, Cubase, deserve much more credit for innovation and bringing music production to the masses than some antiquated audio sequencer that studios use because they used it yesterday, not because its actually the best tool.
It may not all end up in the hands of a few people, but like most of hollywood, record company executives are not good businesspeople, and they waste shedloads of money. Why can BMG afford to lay off 1400 people? Because they probably have thousands of people who just lay around like slugs collecting a salary. They waste money like it's saltwater in the Pacific...they have a monopoly, why bother cutting costs to protect a marketshare that never changes?
Take the record labels out of the equation for a second:
Any top end studio still costs hundereds of dollars an hour to record. Plus hundereds of dollars an hour for a producer. Then hundereds of dollars an hour to mix. Then hundereds of dollars an hour to master. Then thousands of dollars to have CD's mass-produced, and even more to have them distributed. Toss in some publicity if you're lucky. Not to mention the thousands of dollars spent on equipment beyond Pro Tools (microphones, amps, etc... in the studio) and the small fortune it costs for quality instruments.
And that's just the cost of an album...
Who doesn't like free music?
I realize that a talented producer can cost a lot of money and some bands drink a lot of beer, but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
Obviously, you don't understand the problem.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
The price of something is not only given by the supply (presumably going up because of cheaper production costs) but also by the demand for it.
People who keep complaining about the price of music CD's are just upset that their personal demand for CD's is too high.
Yeah, $500 for "a professional recording studio that used to cost tens to hundreds of thousands" is major cost reduction. Unfortunately, the above quote (I made it up) is basically, like nearly every software program's hype, full of omissions.
Like what you have to buy to get the program to work. Let's start with a computer, in the interest of brevity.
Any old computer? Nope. How about my brand-new multigahertz PC wonder? Probably not. You have to run it on a ProTools approved system. One reason why a whole bunch of audio is still done with Macs; once it's all said and done, Macs and PCs for audio (at this level) cost the same, maybe even less.
Like all the other stuff you have to buy. Including ProTools hardware; a bunch of extra software, and the rest of the stuff that makes a recording studio what it is. Singers are blowing through microphones that cost thousands of dollars and explode if you look at them funny (well, maybe not that easy; singing too close, or dropping them even once, maybe a hard bump, that will do it. Spend $5K).
Wages, wages, wages. Heat, rent, electricity. A cable inventory that's worth more than your car. You know, the usual stuff. When it comes right down to it, you could get the software for free* and it still wouldn't make much difference in the bill.
Now, many musicians are on the edge and do some great things with (only) many thousands of dollars invensted. Don't expect to see their efforts in a major label release though; if they get signed the record company is going to send them back to do it again, with the big buck guys. And yes, you can hear the difference.
As to the question why the product hasn't gone down in price, the answer is it has. I used to pay $10-16 for LP records. According to this inflation calculator, that translates as $33.73 to $53.96 (1975-2000, US). I won't go into about how the music industry has been trying to get us to pay $25 since the early 80's, suffice to say consumer resistance has tended to curb their periodic attempts to raise the retail price.
* Get ProTools Free direct from Digidesign here (Win98/Me & MacOS9): Digidesign It will run on less critical hardware, and is a functional but somewhat limited version of the paid programs. Don't expect your next CD to cost $0 to finish.
Read the System Requirements here:
Windows XP
For those of you who would rather not click the link here's an example (there's a lot of requirements, but whatever):
The only fully approved CPU's are Compaq EVO W2000, an IBM Intellistation M Pro model 6850 or Intellistation Z Pro model 6221, and a Turnkey solution from a company called Carillion. Don't be expecting to run Quake and MS Office on this box either, it will probably break the audio hardware functionality. You can run it with any G4/AGP/OSX Mac though (although that's not all you'll need, on either platform).
"but why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?"
In free markets, prices are mostly determined by supply and demand. The cheaper production costs do not affect either of those.
Usually a decrease in production costs leads to an increase in supply, which in turn leads to a decrease in prices, assuming other factors remain constant.
In the music industry, it's easy to see how decreasing production costs would not lead to an increase in supply for the majority of mass-market music. The leading bands make so much money per albm that they aren't limiting the number of albums they cut do to production costs. So lower production costs will not lead them to cut more albums, and will not increase supply.
If many smaller, low budget bands held a larger collective percentage of total market share, then this shift in production costs would lead to a decrease in prices.
This does not exclude some roll of the RIAA and industry collusion in price fixing, but that conclusion is not mandated by the evidence.
Listen to alternative music! (not the genre, the music.)
-Fat Tony
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
$15k for what?! Just the software and a few DSP farms.
Let's talk about a console: ~$150k
Let's talk about the outboard gear: ~$250k
Let's talk about the microphones: ~$100k
Let's talk about the recording space:
-Initial building: ~$1.5m
-Initial fitting with rooms: ~$50k
Let's talk about the engineers: ~$85k/person/year
Let's talk about the advertising: ~$25k/year
And there's more... instruments, specialists, A&R,...
It's not f()ck1ng che@p ya'll! Anyone who tells you it is, is LYING.
ProTools is terrible, well at least the free version is. 5 seconds into recording it crashes every single time. I have tried the 8 track and 32 track version and they both crash repeatedly although at different times. And why do they only run in win 98 thats probably half the problem there. Anyone else have this problem and then solve it?
Checking out my form of escapism.
Mod parent up! By using a ProTools Digi001 at my house, my band was able to record a pretty decent demo (check it out here if you're interested) for well under $2K. We were able to take the time we needed to experiment with arrangements and parts (and yes, overdubs, it happens in any recording situation), and really get things right.
/.ers, ProTools, or something similar, is unquestionably the way to go.
If we had spent the equivalent amount of money in a studio, we might have gotten 4 or 5 days total production time. We would have had to rush things, so there would be much less time to get good takes, and there would be virtually no time left to mix. I've been down that road before, and I have to say, being in the rare position of knowing more about the subject at hand than most
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
artists who met at ART SCHOOL while studying illustration. Fucking illustration. You got to be kidding me. Now Jim Morrison studied Theatre at the University of California. And Thom York went to Exeter University where he studied English and art. At least they have some sort of sophistication to their language. What 'bout fricking Linkin' Park? What have they ever said that's so insightful?
At least you could have picked a highly regarded school and program as an example. Still, the fact that they went to some "art school" doesn't mean that their any good. *Especially* when it's a shit school, even more so when they went for something else than what they do! Hell, how does visual art connect to their performance? I frankly don't give a shit if they package their barf themselves. If you want to see good album art, check out some of Stanley Donwood's work at http://www.saunalahti.fi/hoge/artwork.htm .
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. -- Walt Whitman
I use ProTools HD everyday. The system cost in excess of $35000 when you factor in I/O, disk subsystems and plugins (some costing $1500 EACH). But it's just a fancy tape recorder. I need my $25K+ of Class A mic pres, and my large collection of expensive mics to make records that sound good. I have an mbox, too. It is a fun toy, but nowhere near suitable for the level of work I aspire to produce. My improvements to the building I house my studios in cost $200K, a steal, even in my market. My average album budget lives in the $5K-$10K range, and the studio only charges $20-40/hr. They're just tools, folks. ProTools is actually 3 tools, but by no means ALL the tools necessary for modern album production. I love the new PT HD, it sounds like analog to me and all my clients.
It is not evil, but I would compare it to a butter knife:
Useful for the intended purpose for 90% of us,
evil for the 10% who are Hannibal Lechter and will use that butter knife to filet your spleen.
"The CDs in the 99 cent bin bear the same costs as the $18 Brittany disc, but demand makes Brittany cost more than "Jack Relif sings the hymns of 1873". Demand makes a CD cost more, not production costs."
Also to "not nitpick" but the $18 CD is bearing something that the 99 cent CD isn't. The failure of the 99 cent CD to bear it's porportion of the same cost that the $18 CD has to bear.
In other words. Failure cost.
Audacity has come a looong way in the last year -- I believe they're finally supporting professional-grade digital audio and not just CD-quality (not that I can tell the difference, or anything...).
So do you expect coders to get paid less the next time a free, quick open source language is made.
No. Of course not. Just because inexpensive methods are availiable doesn't mean that studio engineers will be paid less. Even now getting a Pro Tools operator will cost you just as much as renting a studio for a day.
The music industry is working on old bu$ine$$ models and their less than willing attitude toward changing has done nothing but piss their customers off. Until they change their own practices, no one is happy.
BTW, getting a real Pro Tools rig will cost you WELL over $15,000. Double that and you're getting close...
Have fun,
Seth
...why aren't the benefits of lower production costs being passed on to the consumer?
dude, ever hear of inflation?
I have a whole bunch of "horrible mashups" sitting on my hard drive back at home. And actually I had a hell of a lot of fun making them.
I don't think any of them are worth releasing, and would probably prove to be embarrassing if they indeed got out. However, ACID is fun to play with and allows music to be an interactive experience even if you are not a musician. Call it "musical Legos" and you sum up the whole experience.
Now, if only some cool Open Source person could reverse engineer it, like was done with the similar programs Sonar and Ableton Live, so that I can have this kind of fun without booting into Windows...:P
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
2) Major Label Greed
Finally just an FYI. Artists don't make squat on sales anymore. Most make money on touring & merch sales (t-shirts cost 80cents to make in Mexico and have a 4000% margin!!!)
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
First off, unless you've noticed, "Metallica" has a monopoly on selling "Metallica" music, so anything else would be substitutes and not real cost competition. And so, standard monopoly profit maximization:
p=price, c=cost, q=quantity
Profit(p) = (p-c)*q(p)
Solve for Profit'(p) = 0
If you do that for two levels of c, you'll see that first they rake in all the profits of the cost reduction, then they see if they can make even more by setting a new price point (that is, lower price, higher sales, and greater total profit than by the cost reduction alone).
The only way any of this reduction would pass down to the consumer is if there were real percieved substitues, and bands would steal market shares from eachother through price. However, it's not happening. Independent bands aren't seen as real substitutes by the common consumer (if they even hear of them), and the RIAA certainly won't compete with themselves, as shown by the price fixing.
So, in short, unless you can make it into a "$3 pop album vs $10 pop album" instead of "$3 nobodies vs $10 Beatles superstars", you won't see a dime of those savings.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Interesting rant, but you're forgetting one very important thing in the big picture. The exclusiveness (and hence the size) of the market that Apple's targeting. The retail and other channels outsize the Apple channel by a big margin.
Also while it may seem to be precedent setting. Apple benefits all the more by keeping this offering exclusive (kind of like their OS).
And finally in case it slipped your mind DRM hasn't gone away, and must be factored into any musical utopia you may be hoping for.
Whenever this comes up on slashdot, it just makes me cringe. It's so typical - a bunch of nerds sitting around thinking that technology alone can make a good recording. There is a hardcore difference between making a major label record and making an indie label record. Studios that the majors record in cost anywhere from a thousand to several thousand dollars a day, and recording can take from a week to a month. Once the recording is done, then mixing and mastering need to be done, usually at specials studios that are leveraged just for these tasks. Equipment involved in the recording process doesn't even begin to just include a software package and a karaoke mic - microphones and sound insulated environments costs thousands as do all the assorted compressors, noise gates, effects, etc. that need to be in the signal chain. We haven't even talked about the cost of renting/buying quality equipment (which most bands who are doing their first record don't have) and a producer and engineers. So lets all calm down and remember that music is complex and expensive to record at a professional level.
$45 per U Colocation Special
here and here
So it becomes fairly obvious that indie artists will be onboard soon, and we will have the rare juxtaposition of big-name and no-name right next to each other for the same price (or maybe competetively priced?). If that's not leading the way, what is? What is it that you want to see? Allow me to dream for a second...
[dream]
Pretty soon, publicity is no longer needed. Your friend simply says, "Hey, check out ____" and you listen to some 30-second samples, buy a few songs, and repeat the cycle by telling a few of your own friends.
Eventually everyone interested in the music scene knows about the indie artist because they don't even have to leave their seat to listen to them.
Soon thereafter when iTunes becomes the defacto music distribution channel (maybe two years from now) well-known artists will begin to leave their labels entirely and go indie because they no longer need what their labels provide.
[/dream]
If senility was a race, I would win.
i was actually reading the lyrics to some linkin park songs today @ school. ( a freind had just gotten meteora) ...now im not a fan of linkin park; but their lyrics are pretty good; and the tunes have feeling. i'd say that they are more artists than 90% of that recycled crap out there.
so rather than bashing linkin park; a group which IS making thoughtful, enjoyable music... why dont you go find some of that other aforementioned crap out there. trust me, you shouldnt have a problem finding any.
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
the White Stripes? I did a (very) small amount of work on their latest video a few weeks ago, which cost - according to the guy from their record company - £140000 to make. Apparently they recorded the WHOLE ALBUM for about £15000.
That was classic intercourse!
Now promise them the world, toss a few thousand dollars to them in exchance for the copyright to a product worth orders of magnitude more. They'll sign, because they're young and still believe that people are fair, until Universal Music sends them the bill for the tour promotion they did for them, and now they're in the hole, own no copyrights and don't get shite.
Bollocks yourself. If you think that record companies are fair, you are a fool.
I never said they were fair. I said copyright was not to blame. (The post claimed the artists were "enslaved" using copyright, which is complete crap. They may perhaps be "enslaved" by a crap record contract, but that's another matter entirely.)
Incidentally, there is no "few thousand dollars": it's a hell of a lot more than that, and even if the record is the worst flop in history, they don't owe the record label any money. They just take the advance, minus whatever they spent, and go back to flipping burgers. They're richer, the label is poorer, and another crap record sits on the shelves for a while. There are lots of figures out there claiming the "poor artist" gets screwed, notably Courtney Love's; if you look closely at her figures, you'll see each of her four group members ended up getting $90k, minus tax. She claims this is less than they'd make in a 7-11; if it's true, please show me to a 7-11 paying that kind of money! Also note they never had to repay the advance: you are never given a bill, as you claim. It's just deducted from any royalties you've earned.
Yes, there have been high profile artists going bankrupt. (Elton John, for example.) This is not because he earns nothing - he earned a small fortune, but spent a large one. Result: huge debts.
Music sales don't depend on variable costs. If record 'A' costs less than record 'B', there is no modification in the wholesale pricing of record 'A'.
The distribution companies will charge what the average teenager is willing to spend per album, whether it be via electronic distribution or otherwise. Remember when CDs first came out, and the music industry said 'the price will drop as these things get less expensive to make'? Last I checked the discs were less than a quarter each, and the price per unit keeps rising.
For another model, please see Starbucks Coffee. Wholesale coffee bean prices dropped last year to a 20-year low (less than half of what it had been per pound the year before), and not a single store dropped the price of their coffee-based drinks a penny. They have found out that people will pay their prices because they don't think anything else is possible, so what incentive do they have to change?
The answer is stop supporting companies who behave without ethical considerations, who keep their accounting methods so secret that not even the musicians can get an clear picture of where their money is going, who scream 'foul' every time somebody wants to even attempt to question their pricing models, etc. If a musician sells 5 million albums, and are still unable to clear a penny, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Oh a side note: just because recording software is relatively inexpensive doesn't mean that a wave of incredible music will sweep forth from every spare bedroom and cottage in the land. Skill at songwriting and musicianship are still not available at the Apple Store, or through Sweetwater. OTOH, we still seem to have Ms. Spears and her ilk being hurled at us from every radio station in the country, so who knows? Perhaps we're just numb, and can't recognize good music when we hear it any longer.
After perusing your oh-so-illustrious post history, I can say with confidence that if you hate our music, we surely must be doing something right.
Good day.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
mod parent up! there's been a lot of talk amongst audio software companies about putting together a unified api spec to unify the web of incompatibilities and system-dependentness of audio app + plugin programming. Guess who's NOT talking/cooperating? DIGIDESIGN (nice slashvertisement, btw). music doesn't need protools to be good.
especially for someone looking to do something cheaply but with good quality, look into some of the lower end m-audio cards, audacity, and a couple decent mics--it'll run on your current decent PC and cost less. digidesign pretty much 0wns commercial audio/visual through avid + protools, and it doesn't have to be this way in the future.
what people consider "professional" is really less about the sound and more about the presentation. think about it--mainstream music is always meat+potatoes w/ lots of promotion/advertising. That's what makes it 'professional'. Creating the same music with alternative methods IS np-complete, btw, and your experimentation might come up with some interesting and new sounds in the meantime...
riaa abhors new sound unless they own, package, and control it. go nashville!!!!
mod me down, i don't care
i'd say that they are more artists than 90% of that recycled crap out there--and you'd probably be right.
so rather than bashing linkin park--I only mentioned them because the post that I responded to metioned them. It'd be pretty odd to bring up some unrelated band.
a group which IS making thoughtful, enjoyable music... How is only better than 90% of the recycled crap thoughtful?
Now, the *point* of my post was the fact that they went to some crappy art school in Pasadena for illustration doesn't make them musicians.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. -- Walt Whitman
Actually, it seems to me the benefits of Protools' lower costs are passed on to the consumer, just not necessarily in lower CD prices.
It seems like the availability of music has increased in the Protools era - by that I mean its cheaper and easier for artists to produce the music. And its also easier, though not due to Protools as directly, to distribute small quantities of that music through low quantity CD runs and MP3 distribution services like MP3.com or IUMA. That seems like a benefit to those of us who like to venture beyond the mainstream.
But Protools does nothing to help with the kind of large market distribution that the big labels are good at, even as they use their leverage to maximize profits at the artists' expense.
And price of most of the music people buy is based on the value consumers have placed on the final product more than the costs of producing and marketing it.
I also disagree with the previous post, for the equation is much simpler. They use all the tools at their disposal to get my money, and I will do my best to get their music. So, go ahead and call it stealing. I'd probably rob them too, if there weren't any consequences...
Am I a bad person...sure if stealing from thieves can be considered immoral...fuck them... They have the money to pay the legislators and put the law on their side, and I have the Internet to put their music on my hard drive...we'll see who wins...
Take it to the limit - zero production cost and zero distribution cost. There's still the marketing job getting the talent above the noise. And those in control of the media will always set the price of the content based not on operating costs but simply on their ability to exercise control. If the content is freely distributed the control is lost. That's why the record cartel is suing to keep its control. If it loses control of the record medium, it will fall back to the radio, TV, big screen, magazines and live performance. The cartel will seek to grow or preserve all the control it can because control itself is the real asset in the game. Print/TV/radio won't go away so they'll always have that. And if the cost of those media went to zero the prices would still be set based on control - if the cartel has full control, it charges whatever it can razzle dazzle the consumer into paying. If the cartel is broken up, then competitive pressure might force the price down. If the print/TV/radio went away, which they won't, then the cartel would control only the live performances and charge whatever it can razzle dazzle up, but still would have no relation to the actual performance costs. If the artists get smart, they will take control away from the cartel, and force the government to reorganize the industry to supply marketing services, keeping each artist's content under the artist's control, to be released into the public domain on the artist's death. Then, we can finally see the costs related to the effort required. This is assuming the government prevent s the artists from forming a cartel and committing collusion against consumers, and prevents the marketeers from forming a cartel and committing collusion against the artists. Current dogma allows collusion but refuses to admit it because it thinks the current scheme maximizes economic output which it thinks maximizes human progress & contentment, which is true only as long as the public is kept un-enlightened. Current dogma figures this is safest cuz they want to preserve the general concept of power structures - afraid of anarchy, probably.
I never said copyright was to blame. Copyright is only the tool that record companies use to steal from artists, enslave them, if you will. When an artist gets a return of less than a dollar on a $15 CD, I call it theft.
I seem to recall Love's figures claiming $50K minus tax, which still isn't 7-11 money, but let's not mince words here. $90K, hell, anything less than 20% of $5 million worth of sales is out and out theft. Record companies (and let's be clear that I mean the big 5) do it via creative bookkeeping, mismanagement and by lying to bands.
I'm blaming the record companies for the cost of $15-20 CD's and using the fact that artists get paid shite to show that record companies are a bunch of immoral assholes.
They are middlemen who have extended their posistion, using copyright to do so, beyond what the market requires. They've monopolized distribution channels in order to keep the smaller competitors out of the market. They use their market position to steal the works of artists, their copyrights. They lie, they cheat, they steal. And I'd love to see them subpoena me for libel, because I'd subpoena their books and prove it to you.
I'm personally hoping for an "anti-pro tools movement" that may bring genuinely *good* music back into the mainstream.
There's nothing inherently bad about digital processing, really. It's about not knowing what you're doing.
Look at Windows vs Unix. Unix admins have a barrier of entry, and thus typically learn about security and what-not. With Windows, anyone can point-and-click a web server, without having to consider security issues. Thus, it's easy to screw up.
Same with audio. With things like Pro-Tools (crazily over-priced, but very powerful software and in many cases worth every penny) it's easy for someone to become a "producer". The thing is, a producer who really knows what they are doing -- who can set a (hardware) compressor and EQ correctly, who can max out an FM broadcast without sounding like crap -- can do wonderful things with Pro-Tools and the like. But any joe-average can point and click a horrible recording.
I would say that some of the best (and worst) recordings come from Pro-Tools.
Pop music is unlistenable because:
1) They have this idea that "louder" == "better". So they compress the hell out of the program.
Sevendust's first CD is pretty good, done in a smaller studio (I don't recall where). Their second disc sounds like utter crap -- it's compressed way too hard. Every time the bass drum kicks, the entire program drops out.
2) Most recordings are targetting car stereos. In a typical car, you have odd frequency characteristics (notice most radio stations drastically reduce the 200-300 Hz band) and lots of noise (road, engine, etc). Compress the hell out of it, and your quiet passages can be heard over road noise.
3) People simply do not care about audio quality. They *think* they do, but they really don't. The same person who buys the overly-compressed Britney Spears CD will go re-purchase it in SACD format because it's "higher quality". Even though you could zero-out the lower 8-bits on the 16-bit CD and the person wouldn't notice the difference.
Look at the popularity of the 8-track. Possibly the worst quality medium ever sold to the general public, but for a long time it was what the average person was happy with.
So, these studios are giving the people what they want (eg, what they will purchase), not what the people *think* they want (high quality -- they simply get the illusion of high quality), and not what the more intelligent want, because we're in the minority.
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
...I think you too could have a decent home studio:
Melody Assistant - the best software deal on the planet for $15. Multitrack recording and mixing, full feature MIDI sampler, sheet music editing and production, effects and many formats supported. See http://www.myriad-online.com
Goldwave - for editing and processing stereo audio. $40. Not as full featured as CoolEdit but it is only $40. Goto http://www.goldwave.com
I have nothing to do with these companies except for being a very satisfied customer. And both companys ask that you download a demo and try before you buy!
Look... im all for cd's being cheaper and more affordable... but lets get one thing straight..
.
having protools is not the only expense when creating music. I am a systems admin who plays around making professional music and running a studio on the side. I will tell you that protools is about the equivelant to a fancy DLT drive.. yes its great for storage/manipulation of the music. But your forgetting all the other pieces that fit into a high quality album --> effect units, processing units, amplifiers, mix desks, and lets not forget the instruments. Then add studio time (if in a nice place) and the knowlegde to use all these things and work them together to produce professional sounding material. Now also there is alot of software (plugins & effects) that are added.. and then of course there is the mastering/ pressing and distrobution of music.. all of which is monopolized by the record companies.. that area is THE ONLY area where the might of the record companies is being abused. Blaming studios and artists is a waste of time.. you have to go after the lawyers and the executive fools at the top out of touch with technology and the general public ie. the listners.
Anyways.. who listens to that TOP 40 crap anyways.. its over produced.. engineered to sound like the designated genres and IMHO sound is almost totally destroyed once its digitally on a cdrom and missing the higher frequencies which we enjoy at live concerts and venues.
well thats hopefully educatde a few geeks as to why its not the studio/artists problems.. and for starters.. who has $15,000 just for a fancy tape recorder (which is what it is effectivly) go an add the rest of ther gear up and for a decent system its easily $100,000 US
l8r.
Analog is worth it if you've got the money and somebody who can set up the tape correctly and use the equipment.
Why is this?
Consider the following: you have a loud sound, for example a bass drum. When the computer interprets this, it goes higher than what the computer can record, so it clips the top and bottom of the sound wave.
Analog magnetic tape will absorb these sounds, creating smoother and better sounding waves.
These second run pressing companies pay resonable and fixed royalties to both the musician and the production company of $1 per album each (if track list is sold unchanged) or $.25/song otherwise (to each, not split).
You left out the songwriter. They currently get $.08/song. I can't imagine that performers make much more than that
Check this out for an anyalisis of the $$ side of the industry:e mwithmusic. html
:).
http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/probl
Big-corp bashing aside (I am an independent musician, so outside their system anyway), music is hell-of expensive to create.
Example, I studied some sonology stuff at the Queensland Conservatorium of music and thier studios where among the best in Austrlia.
We used a Pro-Tools setup with a dedicated Mac hard-disk recording system. Total Cost around $100,000 for hardware and software. To get the most out of Pro-Tools you really need the hardware to back it up. There is all sorts of great home-user tools out there, but they really start falling flat when you get into high-level production.
The mixing desk was worth abuot $500,000
Microphones (and you need heaps) ranged from $1000 to about $25,000 for the best vocal mikes.
Effects units, samplers and synthesisers cost a mint, like several thousand each. Most pro studios will have an unholy number of these things.
Amps and speakers cost so much money you will want to cry. For pro level monitors expect $$$$.
Oh, and the whole studio was three rooms in a seperate wing of the building with floating walls and floors (to isolate from external vibrations and noise).
In my band:
We have a bunch of guitars (one is a Fender strat and worth about $1000).
We have a Marshall base amp and a Fender guitar amp so that's another $3000. A Boss effects unit worth about $1200.
My drunk kit is worth about $5,000 and it really isn't stuido production quality.
We have one mike, cause that's all I could afford right now at $500. Pretty crap one too.
And I have a $500 soundcard in my computer for recording.
This is a terribly amateur setup and worth about $10,000. We are going to record some stuff soon and the studio time alone is going to cost us about $2000 plus an engineer, mastering and replication.
All this is in AUD, so divide by a large number to find your local currency
technoshamanic resistance within hyper-transgressive ontology
I've been waiting for a Linux port for two years. Oskari's never going to port it[1], and there are about a billion "Linux Buzz" projects on SourceForge without a single line of code committed.
Anyone wanna recommend a good tracker for Linux?
-Eamon
1: That's his prerogative, and as a casual user of his product, I do appreciate the hard work he's done.
I disagree with you in general, but I gotta admit that it's tough to argue with your logic.
Plus, you made me laugh.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I think, rather, its because NO GOOD MUSIC is being put out these days. You have to go back to the 70's to find most of the good stuff. Today's music is shallow and lyrics are entirely thoughtless.
Listen to any of the crap that is being put out these days- it all sounds the same.
You were arguing that ALL current music being 'put out' these days is crap. Were you just trolling, then?
And what an amazing area you must live in, with apparently the only musical talent left in the world being located near you.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
The advent of lower cost technology has had no particular impact on the mass music market. It only impacts musicians outside the system and the people (hopefuly, that's us who knows how to find them, and of course, that's the core of the RIAA's attacks on alternative methods for music distribution.
Until the virtual monopoly infrastructure breaks down, there isn't any way that it can.
The only question is how long before the owners of these record labels stop accepting PIRACY!!! as an excuse for their declining revenue performance, and when this happens, we can look forward to a flood of both good (and bad) new music and old music, because the smart investors who will buy the record label catalogs and contracts at 10 cents on the dollar (what else do they have to offer that's worth buying?) will know how to make everything available for sale, not just what'll fit the shelves of a record store.
The keys to profit in the future major label record market are:
Tech Public Policy stuff
Yes, and that's the bit I was objecting to. Copyright is how the record companies make money from the music, a small portion of which goes to the artist. It doesn't enslave anybody: without the copyright fees, the artist would get a large share of the 0 each copy would make for the copyright owner. Remove copyright, and you remove the income it generates.
When an artist gets a return of less than a dollar on a $15 CD, I call it theft.
For the label, it isn't a $15 anything. If it's a $15 CD on the store shelves, it's a $7.50 CD from the distributor, for which the label might get $3 or so. (Rough figures; someone from a record label posted accurate figures on Slashdot a while ago for his own label.) From that $3, they then have to cover the manufacturing costs of the CDs, cases, cover art (more royalty payments), shipping, promotion, overheads - and the biggest cost of all, the payments to failed artists. Whether their album generates any sales or not, they still get paid: the label has to cover that out of sales of successful albums.
If the labels are screwing the artists so successfully, why have their profit margins dropped by 75%, and why are they laying off thousands of staff? The biggest chunk of the $15-$20 CD price goes straight into the retailer's account - the "greedy" label only gets a small fraction compared to the other commercial players. For a label, there is no $15 CD, only $3 CDs someone else retails for $15!
It isn't copyright they used to get their current position, either. True, without copyright they wouldn't get any money from CD sales - but nor would the artist! Not an improvement IMHO. As I said, what has given the "Big 5" control is payola - nothing whatsoever to do with copyright.
I have just spent the better part of an hour reading all the posts and the RS article and I've got a few things to say.
First - I feel that Pro tools is nothing more than a crutch. A band should be PREPARED when they walk into the studio. Rehearse with a click track. Rehearsals without vocal guidance. Vocal rehearsals without the music. Preparing to record a record should take time! In the RS article Vig seems to have a plug-in to change things. Well - if you're in a band with real musicians and if you're prepared - you shouldn't need to change tempos, etc. Go in - cut the basic tracks - if someone messes up - retake. Get the basic tracks (drums and bass tracks). Most importantly - make sure the drums are right. Touch up (punch in) where necessary. Do guitars/keys/etc.. then vocals. The bottom line - be prepared to record.
Second - analog tape sounds WAY better - I'm not going to go into a debate on this - it's my opinion.
Third - who cares if PT has an "undo" feature! What's the use? If you punch in and hit a clam - rewind the tape and punch it back in! If you can't hit the note again - you shouldn't be in a studio! Same for pitch shifting/correcting tools. Crap!
Fourth - it's important to have good gear. For guitars and bass - nothing sounds better than tube amplification - take all those Line 6 "PODS" and amp modelers and throw 'em away. I've yet to hear one of those "vintage amp settings" actually sound like the real deal.
Fifth - record in a good studio - with a good engineer. A good engineer is important for mic placement - board mixing and settings, etc... if you don't have an engineer with good mics, who knows what he's doing - you might as well sit around a tape recorder and hit record. A good studio with good rooms, amps, mics, etc. helps too.
NOTE: this is for rock music - I would imagine PT would be great for hip-hop/boy bands/etc...
Want to hear something? go to http://www.cdbaby/andersoncouncil
We recorded 10 songs on 24 track 2" tape - NO PRO TOOLS, and had our recordings mastered by Alan Douches (who has mastered for Aerosmith, Ben Folds, Sting, and many other "top names") - and we pressed the initial 1000 CD's - all this for under $5,000. And the recording was good enough for Little Steven to spin us more than once on his "Underground Garage" syndicated radio program.
So stuff that in your pro-tools and it's plug-in's!
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Unfortunately, most of the profits that could have been passed on to consumers were negated when consumers started napsterizing catalogs of copyrighted music. But, I would bet someone has already pointed that out in reply to this.
Only one label sells Britney Spears CDs and they can charge whatever they want becaue nobody else is going to compete directly against them.
No company, not even a pure monopoly, can charge "whatever they want." If the price of a Britney CD was set at $10 billion, no one, probably not even Bill Gates, would buy one, and the label would realize $0 profit. To increase their profit above $0, they would have to lower the price.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
The biggest chunk of the $15-$20 CD price goes straight into the retailer's account - the "greedy" label only gets a small fraction compared to the other commercial players. For a label, there is no $15 CD, only $3 CDs someone else retails for $15!
Dood: that is nonsense. I worked in numerous retail chains across Canada, and dealt with numerous US retailers. They make next to nothing on a CD. Sure, if they sell a back catalog item at typically full retail price (which is way more than $17 still) then yeah they make a profit on that title. Those titles represent 2% of all retail sales on average.
Copyright is to blame. An artist gets: on average 3 - 5% of sales *after* they have recouped. That's based on mechanical royalties, which is a form of copyright. That whole system is bulls**t in my opinion, and the opinion of most artists. Labels love it. They get the "everything else" that is left over after manufacturing, distribution, marketing and promotional costs are taken into account. And the guy is right: it's still millions. After only gold sales! (500,000 in the US.)
The average good musician *could* survive on 20,000 copies sold in the US at current prices, and make a decent profit if they don't go to a record label to do so. That's a fact. Very few artists do this or know this. They've been brought up on a steady diet of rockstar lifestyle record deals. That's what they want. It's sad and I expect it will not last.
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Michael, the real reason that music isn't getting cheaper is that Pro Tools is not an all-in-one production tool. It is simply a fancy digital tape deck with a GUI editor. This is the short answer.
The long answer? Very few studio owners buy a Pro Tools production system and then throw out everything else they have because Pro Tools isn't good enough. The sound quality of Pro Tools isn't good enough for them.
As a tape recorder, most pro-studios still record to a super-expensive digital tape deck (as in costs more than a BMW M5) and instead use Pro Tools as a way to edit the audio on the tape recorder (i.e. transfer it to Pro Tools from the tape recorder, edit it, and then transfer it back to the tape recorder). As a mixer, most pro-studios still use a large audio console. All final mixing is still done through Sony, SSL, Neve and other brand audio consoles that cost more than a BMW Z8.
If the sound quality was actually good enough studio owners could throw out everything else and replace it with just a Pro Tools system like DigiDesign (the company that makes Pro Tools) would like them to do. The reality though is that Pro Tools has simply become a $30k digital tape editor. (Most pro-studios drop at least $30k on a system - $15k only gets you in the door. And then there's upgrades to new versions which are worse than Microsoft; the recording industry actually has slang for it - it's called getting "Digi-raped".)
And here's the real truth: Vig's $15k system is capable of doing demos and rough cuts that eventually might make it into the final album but his recording studio, Smart Studios, still uses expensive professional tape decks and expensive professional audio consoles. Just look at the pictures of Studio A and B (can't give direct URL due to website being completely Flash-based). You'll see big expensive audio consoles with huge oven-sized tape recorders in the background along with a 17-inch computer monitor and a keyboard and mouse (presumably to control the Pro Tools system).
So, why does the article claim that $15k gets you a professional recording studio? Probably cause the article was iniated by DigiDesign's marketing department which is one of the best at establishing brand-name recognition. Notice how there's a complete lack of mention of any other name-brand digital recording system? Not necessarily the most non-biased article I've seen - but then again neither is Rolling Stone.
Pro Tools is one of the best tools out there for editing music and I've used it quite a bit in various recording studios. Just remember that this article is from the /. get-what-you-pay-for dept. and in reality, you still can't setup a professional recording studio based around a $15k system and a PowerMac.
Fuck it. You're putting words into my mouth. I never said copyright should go away. I said that copyright is the tool that record companies use to enslave artists, and it's true. They write ridiculous contracts, signing the copyright for the music over to the record company with some pittance of a royalty schedule.
The labels profit margins have dropped by 75% because they're a bunch of greedy shites and think they can get me to pay $19 for a back catalog album. They can blow me.
They're laying off thousands of staff because they employ thousands of unnecessary people. The record labels are unnecessary in themselves. They are a middleman for a product that doesn't need a middleman. Certainly not one who takes as big a piece of the pie that they do.
Also, below, the Dood is right. Retailers generally don't make dick off selling CD's. Best Buy uses them as a loss leader...not that they take a loss, but they aren't selling them to make money.
Payola is an enormous problem, and people who are involved in it ought to be in jail getting ass-raped, but that doesn't excuse the record companies from using bad contracts to steal the copyrights from artists.
Again, I never said copyright is to blame, or that it should be removed. Record companies, though, ARE using copyright to steal nearly 100% of the value of any album they produce. That is a crime. I hope they and their slimy selves go bankrupt.
are you a guy named Vivian? First time I ever see that.. it also reminds me to call that Vivian chick - I gotta ask her out.
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss
You are correct, I forgot about failure cost.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq