Thought Process/Feelings as a Producer...

As a Producer for many years, I often wonder what drives other Producers to do what they do..What they hear as well as what they feel...

1. As a Producer..What makes your ears bleed? What sends you out of the blocks faster the Usain Bolt to stop the destruction of your precious ear drums?

2. As a Producer..What inspires you to produce? What makes you stop what you're doing and make a B Line for the studio?

Lastly..What do you feel, if anything, is missing from 21st century music production??

I know its a loaded question, yet it should provide great insight for all who participate. Please be 100% honest and genuine, for we could all stand to learn a bit from each other.

Peace & Blessings-Iron Sharpens Iron!!

Music seems to be needed by us all. It comes naturally to us. I think everyone wants to make music at some point in their life. Making it a profession in today's climate is a different matter.
I lived in New Orleans, Louisiana for a while in the late 90's. In that culture musicians are nurtured, and artists being around so many other great artists strive to excel in their craft. Making a career out of music can lead to a frustrating life, so it can never really be about the money, because the market can be so fickle.
As a producer of music I find I am driven by a desire to have a good time, to help others enjoy themselves, and the respectful competition with my peers. Inspiration is not so simple. It changes from time to time. Art is so much a part of me (painting, writing, piano, photography) that I find it is connected to my emotional state so inspiration can come from seeing a crack on the ground, or someone saying "you can't make a hit"
Music production is just fine there are some great producers around.
If you listen to different genres you will see that. The buying public is not the best arbiter of what is good music. The good stuff stands out.
I paraphrase the artist Bernard Collins Jr. ...art is everywhere even on wrapping paper, some times it is meant to be thrown out after Christmas.

cheers,
Ian

Patience is missing, and passion is missing... The way music tools are made and marketed screams about people wanting instant gratification, and it's no longer just sold to people with a genuine music interest... Any confused kid with a shallow dream of being a "star" can easily have a go and add to the flood of music with no heart, it used to be harder and you had to work just to have a chance and that sorted out the ones that were more or less fake or lacked passion.. Now it's more about image, about appearing to be good rather than the good coming from actually having spent the time needed to improve. People are less willing to make sacrifices in order to get that and seem to in general take a half arsed approach and get stuck in a loop of searching and waiting for the next new music tool to arrive and fix what essentially is a personal attitude issue..

^ both of those are great posts IMO...


what makes my ears bleed? cookie cutter beats and music. I have been on that website soundclick where it seems that many people have these beats for sale (often cheep priced at that) and often you hear the same beat page after page... with that same audio water mark. It's generic and boring.. though this isn't due to soundclick.... just noticed that on there.

also...
At one point I was real tired of the pitched up chipmunk voice sampled beats that you often heard when kanye west and that got popular (3 or 4 years ago) .. I got tired of the same old 808 beat time after time as well... now, I just haven't been listening to anything. Thank god I follow some original people on soundcloud. We need more ill green, upright, shank, es-k, arkyve, etc.. more of that!

what inspires me to produce? nothing... I just do it when I get a free moment that coincides with me being in the mood... lately I have not been on the computer/daw end of beat making at all due to a few things I have to take care of with my PC... so it's been nothing more than stacks of records and floppy disks. Once I sort out my project and sample database it will keep me quite busy.

what is missing from 21st century music production? well we dont seem to lack the tools.. we have all we used to have and we have all of the new stuff of today. I think we still have a lot of people out there putting in work but it's harder to wade through or shine through the over saturation of crap that results from the easy accessibility of music production. That is okay though, because music making is a great hobby and it's awesome how easy it is to get started these days... this is beneficial.

1. What makes my ears bleed... To be quite honest here, almost anything by anyone else besides myself. I have like the worst selective hearing so if it's not made by me, I probably won't like it as much as my own production. Haha, yes funny, but not really, because it's true to me now. It's kind of like a DJ putting songs in rotation for a radio broadcast, there really isn't a right or wrong answer, but you know you want to do something special. I feel I can't get in the groove if it's not my own music is all I'm saying.

2. Inspiration... Another difficult answer from me because I don't gather inspiration from other artists. My want/need to become better at my craft essentially is 90% of my inspiration to create new music. The other 10%, is because I like freestyling on microphones so I need me some beats, and in my area, it is virtually starving for attention in that aspect. I'm really the only producer in my area that I know, besides a few couple peeps. So for me, inspiration is what I make it, literally and physically.

3. What's missing from 21st century music production... Mostly in my eyes, are the logical MCees that can convey a good message. I believe that the production aspect of 21st century music production is fine, just needs more people to share an image from their own visions and expand that to the world. It's very difficult these days to even get your music heard, but to be viewed by the entire world, I would say is much more of what this century's music needs.

Peace, just sharing my feelings hope you can understand them