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any reasonably serious musician Snobbish bullshit like this is a bigger threat to creativity than anything the iPad does or doesn't do.

by GHFigs 17y ago

VBprogrammer 17y ago
My apologizes if that came off wrongly. It was intended as my observation of musicians who do not produce music solely as a hobby. Obviously most of the people I know come from a fairly technical background, while plenty of people still produce amazing music on a bargain store 8 track, there are lots of people who will complain about sound quality differences that a normal person could not pick out if their life depended on it.
bitwize 17y ago
Haven't spent much time around musicians, have you? Any reasonably serious musician will have a no compromises, no excuses approach to sound quality, and that includes paying top dollar for the absolute highest quality gear you can get. Thousands -- or even tens of thousands -- of dollars is not an uncommon asking price for a single piece of kit, like a speaker or a mixing desk (knobs only; no GUI bullshit; mixing is about listening and feeling, not pointing and clicking). If it's top quality then there will be musicians and sound engineers clamoring to pay. You may pay twice the price for a 1% increase in sound quality, but a serious musician can hear that 1%, and it will drive him nuts. You may think it's snobbish, but that's reality in the pro music world.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  You don't understand. I'm not saying that musicians don't care about sound quality. What I am saying is that judging seriousness by the price of your gear is a giant pile of bullshit. More specifically, I'm saying I think doing so is a part of what keeps people out of making music--the idea that you have to be "serious" about it by spending a lot of money on recording gear or it somehow doesn't count. Far too often it's just the opposite: people just blow money on the gear because buying things is fun and they tell themselves they need it to make better music. And hey, maybe people will end up buying some iPads for that stupid reason, too. The point is that the cost of the gear and "seriousness" are not so directly related. I don't mean there is never a relation, only that you can't really draw this kind of generalized meritocratic conclusion about the art and artist from something so independent of their actual merit as the tools they use. You may think it's snobbish, but that's reality in the pro music world. Again, I wasn't saying that desiring the best sound quality is snobbish. What I think is snobbish is assuming that only professional musicians are serious, or that someone who involves an iPad in their musical process is somehow inherently less serious than one who doesn't.

any reasonably serious musician Snobbish bullshit like this is a bigger threat to creativity than anything the iPad does or doesn't do.

by GHFigs 17y ago

any reasonably serious musician Snobbish bullshit like this is a bigger threat to creativity than anything the iPad does or doesn't do.

VBprogrammer 17y ago

My apologizes if that came off wrongly. It was intended as my observation of musicians who do not produce music solely as a hobby. Obviously most of the people I know come from a fairly technical background, while plenty of people still produce amazing music on a bargain store 8 track, there are lots of people who will complain about sound quality differences that a normal person could not pick out if their life depended on it.

bitwize 17y ago

Haven't spent much time around musicians, have you? Any reasonably serious musician will have a no compromises, no excuses approach to sound quality, and that includes paying top dollar for the absolute highest quality gear you can get. Thousands -- or even tens of thousands -- of dollars is not an uncommon asking price for a single piece of kit, like a speaker or a mixing desk (knobs only; no GUI bullshit; mixing is about listening and feeling, not pointing and clicking). If it's top quality then there will be musicians and sound engineers clamoring to pay. You may pay twice the price for a 1% increase in sound quality, but a serious musician can hear that 1%, and it will drive him nuts. You may think it's snobbish, but that's reality in the pro music world.

GHFigs 17y ago
You don't understand. I'm not saying that musicians don't care about sound quality. What I am saying is that judging seriousness by the price of your gear is a giant pile of bullshit. More specifically, I'm saying I think doing so is a part of what keeps people out of making music--the idea that you have to be "serious" about it by spending a lot of money on recording gear or it somehow doesn't count. Far too often it's just the opposite: people just blow money on the gear because buying things is fun and they tell themselves they need it to make better music. And hey, maybe people will end up buying some iPads for that stupid reason, too. The point is that the cost of the gear and "seriousness" are not so directly related. I don't mean there is never a relation, only that you can't really draw this kind of generalized meritocratic conclusion about the art and artist from something so independent of their actual merit as the tools they use. You may think it's snobbish, but that's reality in the pro music world. Again, I wasn't saying that desiring the best sound quality is snobbish. What I think is snobbish is assuming that only professional musicians are serious, or that someone who involves an iPad in their musical process is somehow inherently less serious than one who doesn't.