I like that chapter. I’ve not got much further through the book yet tho’.
I read “venue/space” to mean both “physical space” and “scene/social context”. The physical space suggests some physical constraints, as you describe. The social context includes “who’s paying for it?”, “who’s in the audience and what will they do with it”. The church music is etherial to evoke The Mysteries, as well as to avoid harmonic clashes. Court music is part of the court game. Pop from the 50s-90s is intertwined with radio, juke boxes and vinyl/tape/CDs which mingle “space” with “time”. Loads of modern music relies on social networking for both marketing but also consumption and community (I think Thundercat’s “Drunk” is, amongst other things, the sound of Twitter). The sounds, and emotional and conceptual content shifts with the “venue” too. The OPs Deadmau5 pick sounds like our fractured attention spans, to me.
Hard being jealous of a dude who’s very good at the technical aspects of music but has bought the freedom to pursue it by being a streamer and making the worst kind of elevator EDM possible.
It’s like, sure he’s got skills and a lot of toys but at what cost? Those positives would mean absolutely nothing to me if my life looked like Deadmouses.
Once this one dude, when my poor musical career came into discussion, asked me if I would join like Amorphis or some other shitty metal band instead of toiling in the underground for no money or recognition. He couldn’t believe it when I said absolutely not and wouldn’t drop it, just kept on about it. Why would anyone choose to make shitty music for no money when they could make music for a living and get recognition and so on.
Same answer for the question, would you choose the life & career of Deadmouse over making shitty noise tapes in your basement, I would absolutely say hell no.
Well to stay a bit on topic . There is actually a video online somewhere on the tube , where he explaines his mixing and mastering process , and it’s all pretty straight forward stuff…
I think you somehow nailed it here. Nothing against machine-learning assistance as I see it as an inevitable and useful tool like Photoshop is for people who can’t draw but yet has a good visual sense. Here Photoshop helps them to realize their visual idea despite technical shortcomings. But if you see the progress of ML in the visual—Midjourney, DALL-E, etc., you can see that, similarly, this is the kind of music that won’t be difficult for ML tools to emulate.
I listend to the first postet youtube video, where he did a track with MR Bill- its quiete experimental for a EDM pop track.
For me EDM made Techno accessible for the normal people - its always a bit sellout, the same happend to other generes as well (Metal /Punk -> Grunge etc.)
But i see that the hard techno /psytrance /dark techno /hitech is still its own crowd, and has its own people that favour this sound, i think it can coexist, and there is also a middleground.
one more vote for great mix / mastering (except for the horrible abuse of sidechain, do people actually like it?)
but if I was at a party with that music I’d be looking for the exist door real quick…
@Gino - can you describe what you like, or what impresses you about it?
I hear it’s “clear”, and there’s sections where there’s more or less bass and low mids, to make space for louder upper mids and highs… but apart from that it didn’t move me much (and I don’t like the kick-led side-chain pulling everything so far down for 1/16ths very much; it’s like missing a breath every few). Maybe I’m missing something? Context can change everything! Fill me in on the context?
What I have picked up from the interviews I’ve seen with Deadmaus is that he is more than willing to be lazy and also to be honest about it.
I saw an ad for his online course and he was basically saying something along the lines of “I have no idea what I’m doing here and I don’t want to make things too difficult for myself”
That’s exactly how his music sounds to me.
It completely lacks any kind of emotional depth.
He also said in an interview, that anybody could do his livesets with a few instructions. That he doesn’t do a lot on stage. Something along the lines at least.
Which I find actually pretty honest and sympathic.
And which I expect is the case for many electronic big stage artists, where mistakes on stage are not allowed. But performing electronic music is another difficult topic…
I‘m just guessing here, I don’t know…
It’s staged about, and i’m sure he does use it from time to time, but he’s very DAW-centric.
I don’t think he necessarily mixes and masters his own material though?
Anyway, I enjoy some of his tracks, he seems like a decent enough bloke, and the big-head shtick worked well enough for him. He’s got more going on than the sea of lesser mascot head acts that followed.
Evidence in point- Marshmello’s “live” Fortnite “concert”
Criticising peoples output vs the gear they own is a bit low. I think alot of people here have more than they need for the music they make. He started out with software, got success and money. Spent that money on awesome gear. Who here wouldnt do the same?
Im not a fan of his music, but i think its funny how much hate he gets from hobbyist producers.
I think that’s underestimating the skill and experience he’s picked up along the way - ignoring what it took to be able to do it easily. It probably feels that way to him because it does feel easy to him - because he’s learnt it all and has done it a million times.
It may not require the skill of a concert pianist but I think what he brings to a live performance is more complicated than he gives credit to himself for.
I remember hearing an interview with him on BBC radio in 2008 while I was driving to my girlfriends house at like 2am. I’m fairly sure I’m not mis-attributing a part of the conversation (but I might be…) where he described how random electronic music track names are - that they can’t have meaning because the songs don’t - at the time I didn’t think much of that but now I make electronic music myself I can’t really relate to it. But maybe that’s because his stuff
?
As a kicker I’m fairly positive the interview was with Tim Westwood
No, I’m sure everything is preprogrammed and it’s simply just pushing the right key at the right time. Anyone could do it, especially with that big hat on
The skill is in configuring something that is solid but allows for just enough potential for failure that it stays interesting.
I appreciate the humbleness, i appreciate some greater mystery groups but a little goes a long way there.
I don’t know, the worst for me is hearing people talk about their workflow with interviewers and lying about what they’re doing to “fuck with” the interviewers and audience. Cagey is fine, but these aren’t great secrets or a low level studio “artist statement” usually.
You could argue that the music I make is preprogrammed and just involves pressing the right buttons at the right time - but I don’t think I could pull someone in off the street, explain it to them and get them to perform it in front of 100,000 people without making a giant ass of themselves
Edit: I don’t think I could do it in front of 100,000 people without making an ass of myself
