»  Article Archive  »  Blogs  »  Producing: Is Emotion Optional?
Article Archive

You are currently viewing the old system for RecordingReview.com articles. There are over 200 articles to improve the quality of your recordings in this archive, however, all new articles can be found in the new Recording Blog.

Brandon Drury
Owner of Echo Echo Studios, Brandon Drury, has recorded and mixed over 600 songs in his very busy home recording studio.  

View all blogs by Brandon Drury...
Producing: Is Emotion Optional?
By Brandon Drury | Published  10/18/2006
?It was mentioned on a forum that sometimes you get involved in crappy projects and there isn't much you can do to save them. Sometimes you just need to shut your mouth, tough out the project, put money in the back pocket, and move on to the next project. There is a lot of truth to that, but it's sometimes a real pain in the ass toughing out a project that you want no part of.


Last night, I was recording vocal tracks for friend's band. The band has lots of talent and creativity, but I feel that they spend way too much time trying to be weird or different instead of just writing songs that make me feel something. I'm a pop guy, though, so that's what I do. I want songs to be catchy.


Anyway, the singer has gotten much better over the years. I've worked with him multiple times. As I've progressed as a producer, I wanted to pull some magic out of him and get him singing better than he has ever sang before.


Basically, he wants to sound like a “pro” singer. Besides great pitch, I really don't know exactly what this means. To me, the best singers are the singers that make me feels something. I want to feel their pain, hatred, happiness, excitement, or whatever. Well, to this particular singer, there seams to be a balance between singing with conviction and sounding like a “good” singer. Personally, I think he couldn't be more confused. This is sad, too. He thinks that real singers on real recordings don't convey as much emotion.


We talked honestly and openly about it. He basically said, “I can see where you are going with this whole “emotion” thing, but I'm not sure if it's really us”. WHAT??? Hang on! Before it sounds like I came in like a militant producer trying to control the band, I'll tell you what I wanted. I asked the singer to really feel the track. I not only want to hear the words, I want to feel the words. His response was, “I'm not sure if my band will be into it”.


He acted like I was trying to change the style of the band. It was like I insisted on putting a 1989 reverb on his voice and wouldn't back off. It was like I was insisting the band uses electronic drums with a drum module from 1992. (OUCH!!) It was none of that.


One specific line that was repeated was “Don't Give In!!!”. It sounded about like “Honey, will you get the mail?”. I wanted to really feel like the singer was desperate and was begging his buddy who was about to jump off a cliff to “not give in!”.


At the moment, I realized that I had completely wasted my time with this project. I told myself that I woudn't “just engineer” a project again and I only wanted to produce. Well, here I am again in the same damn rut wasting my time on music that I don't get. DAMN IT!



 
Comments

  • Comment #1 (Posted by dach)

    There you go.... most of the musicians I know, even really really good ones still don't know how to listen. The ones that do and the ones that have learned to "feel" or "be inside" the music excel.

    I tell all singers I work with that if they embarass easily or they are reluctant to do what is asked of them that they should be able to get over it quickly or expect to be removed.... I put them through the range of emotions (vocally) - to excess - quite often until they can make me feel it. This usually opens them up quite a bit and they perform parts more convincingly... not to mention they are more comfortable with me after showing emotion they rarely show to even the closest of friends. some people can only go so far so learn their limits and don't over push. I get hammered occasionally and some eventually get the Diva complex but the majority do well and are thankful for the experience.
     
  • Comment #2 (Posted by James Gillice)

    It sounds like these guys are worried too much about some sort of "coolness" factor or emulating some specific band or sound, rather than just trying to make the best music possible. It's too bad really. They will get the sound they want, but who is gonna care about their music? Every classic piece of music, no matter what genre, has one thing in common...an emotional connection with the listenner. So what can you do about it? Not much...move on to a different band and let them drown in their own mediocrity.
     
  • Comment #3 (Posted by James Gillice)

    It sounds like these guys are worried too much about some sort of "coolness" factor or emulating some specific band or sound, rather than just trying to make the best music possible. It's too bad really. They will get the sound they want, but who is gonna care about their music? Every classic piece of music, no matter what genre, has one thing in common...an emotional connection with the listenner. So what can you do about it? Not much...move on to a different band and let them drown in their own mediocrity.
     
  • Comment #4 (Posted by Evil Dave)

    I am a singer/bassist/self producing band guy,

    I think it's more important to a singer/musician to be in touch with his own sound as opposed to listening to what a producer or what some average listener would be into. My personal belief is that it should sound good to the player, because they have to play it all of the time. My band is pretty strict on what we sound like and the lyrics and everything, by the time we hit tape we know what we want. If by the chance we wanted a producer and not just a recording engineer we would choose one between the whole band who we thought would best suit our purpose.

    Personally I like Steve Albini's approach to producing. Its up to the band how they sound, the engineer or producer just does a scientific recording of the sound. Look at the bands he has recorded and how well they have done... Nirvana, The Pixies for more popular examples. Any good band/musician should know exactly what they are going to do when they get into the studio.

    Being overly emotional depending on the context of the song can actually ruin a song in my book. It also may be possible that the artist was trying to approach the topic matter nonchalantly as opposed to some pour your heart out ballad or rage song. It also an aspect of music that is being so over done at the moment that as the average listener you get sick of "whine whine cry cry" in some tone that sound like the bitchyist bitch crying like bitch in bitchville. What make most of this EMO or emotional driven music so lame is the lyrics are about the most mundane girlfriendy crap on earth. If your going to cry make it worth crying over. Like I lost my arms and leggs and my wife and mom had sex mith my brother on top of my crippled nugget body.

    Maybe "don't give in" is in relating to don't eat that Twinkie off the floor or not giving into the primal urge to masturbate. Depending on the true underlying topic of the song the emotion should be considered. Maybe because they are trying to do something different they are approaching really emotional topics in a lack luster manner. It's really hard to determine these things unless you are writing the songs. The reason why there are so many interpretation to every song out there, Its art let them do what they want. If they don't "make it" then at least they are expressing themselves the way they want to and the music is a true representation of them.. Maybe try asking the whole band and not just one member too... People in bands are touchy about that kind of stuff.

    Now I do see the point that you would like to influence a sound to have some of your flavor. But remember who is paying for it and remember who has to back up that music after it all recorded and produced. As far as your friend is concerned he may not be a very good loud singer. Maybe he is just playing to his strengths and his band knows it.

    www.myspace.com/thelifeforms

    This was our live recording we did ourselves off of a the sound board of a club with a Rodes NT1000 pulling in the room. 2 Tracks. Not superb qualify but actually better than the stuff that was produced for us in a studio... the reason we are going back into the studio and we just have a recording engineer not a producer. A lot of the changes on our original wanted recording were made on their own by someone who thought they knew better than us what our music should sound like.

    Later,
    Dave
     
  • Comment #5 (Posted by Brandon)

    All of your comments are well noted. However, there is one problem with your entire post. You make the assumption that the band is producing the record. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Many bands produce or at least co-producer their own music.

    The problem arises when no one is producing it. This is what I typically find when I "scientifically engineer" a record. Actually that simply does not exist in my opinion. I think everything in music is creative. From the snare drum to the lyrics.

    Now it's totally possible that a producer is going to be wrong, but another thing that can't be overlooked is perspective. Few drummers can producer their own drum track. Few singers can get themself to the proper place they need to be on their own.

    This concept of over emotion is junk. It comes from people that are so afraid of a producer messing up their record that they make a watered down sterile record. It has nothing to do with the current EMO trend.
     
    • Submit Comment