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> People still rarely do this in music, as holding up industry secrets is deemed more important than fostering a community of personal growth. This is absolute

> People still rarely do this in music, as holding up industry secrets is deemed more important than fostering a community of personal growth. This is absolutely not the reason and it's surprising to read this opinion stated as a fact. First of all, not revealing multi-tracks doesn't prevent personal growth. Human ear is pretty good at discerning individual elements of a mix. It's all in the final product. If you can't learn from it or can't hear something, either it's an unimportant part of the mix, your ear is not good enough yet to distill any meaningful information from the balances of the mix in question, or it's just not a good mix. Secondly, multi-tracks are not the source code. Putting it in relevant terms, it's just the assets. What's important are processes and artistic decisions made while processing them and combining them in their final form. Not revealing stems/multi-tracks is not a matter of gatekeeping, it's a safety measure to prevent unauthorized use of individual composition elements and creation of "alternative" mixes which break artistic integrity of the piece. Music is art (at least a considerable portion of it), and and artist needs as much control over the final product as possible. Mixing is a part of it.

rschneid 3y ago
Gatekeeping isn't boolean, it falls on a spectrum. If your rationale about preventing un 'authorized' use is in fact true, the process must be effectively keeping some notional gate some kind of closed even if it's only from people you (or maybe even the original artist) consider to be acting 'unscrupulously.' If musicians' priorities were for the world to share in their musical indulgence not just in listening but also in like-minded creation, they would release as much of their mixing tools/backgrounds/stems/etc as possible. Since the capitalist framework is a foregone conclusion, they need to keep some secrets in their sauce to produce scarcity to justify a price for their labor so they can eat... Because the farmers and butchers all keep gates of their own kind, too :)
- Juliate 3y ago
  > If musicians' priorities were for the world to share in their musical indulgence not just in listening but also in like-minded creation, they would release as much of their mixing tools/backgrounds/stems/etc as possible. They do. For a price. When you know how to ask. The thing is, if you really want to « like-minded create », you do not need, not even want their stems (you can find most of them anyway online, if only for learning). If your thing is not « consumption » but creation, your own voice/process/way matters more (and is more fun) than starting from the studio separate tracks. As for the music _business_ side of things, attention (hence scarcity management) on and availability/capacity to provide are the two main levers you have if you want to live from it. As with any other business actually.
- ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago
  I don't really get the point you're arguing for. I disputed a specific mistaken proposition, that "holding up industry secrets is deemed more important than fostering a community of personal growth". It's a mistake on several levels: there's no dichotomy as it's presented in this sentence, and the reasons for not providing multi-tracks and project files are different. > If musicians' priorities were for the world to share in their musical indulgence not just in listening but also in like-minded creation So? They have other priorities so this is not what they do. Teaching is an industry that's only an adjacent and derivative activity to the cultural sphere of arts. It's of no concern for the artist, unless they choose to capitalize on their skills/knowledge/experience.
  - rschneid 3y ago
    I'm agreeing with you that there are many reasons why the music Industry doesn't share stems but also concluding that many among those could be rationally considered gatekeeping by various groups. I'm not disparaging the industry as a whole or the individuals who comprise it, but the reality is simply messy. Many signed artists I'm sure wish they could distribute their stems or more of their process, but are hindered/prevented from doing so by labels. Seems close to what gatekeeping means to me, but that's just like my opinion, man...

rschneid 3y ago

Gatekeeping isn't boolean, it falls on a spectrum. If your rationale about preventing un 'authorized' use is in fact true, the process must be effectively keeping some notional gate some kind of closed even if it's only from people you (or maybe even the original artist) consider to be acting 'unscrupulously.' If musicians' priorities were for the world to share in their musical indulgence not just in listening but also in like-minded creation, they would release as much of their mixing tools/backgrounds/stems/etc as possible. Since the capitalist framework is a foregone conclusion, they need to keep some secrets in their sauce to produce scarcity to justify a price for their labor so they can eat... Because the farmers and butchers all keep gates of their own kind, too :)

Juliate 3y ago
> If musicians' priorities were for the world to share in their musical indulgence not just in listening but also in like-minded creation, they would release as much of their mixing tools/backgrounds/stems/etc as possible. They do. For a price. When you know how to ask. The thing is, if you really want to « like-minded create », you do not need, not even want their stems (you can find most of them anyway online, if only for learning). If your thing is not « consumption » but creation, your own voice/process/way matters more (and is more fun) than starting from the studio separate tracks. As for the music _business_ side of things, attention (hence scarcity management) on and availability/capacity to provide are the two main levers you have if you want to live from it. As with any other business actually.
ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago
I don't really get the point you're arguing for. I disputed a specific mistaken proposition, that "holding up industry secrets is deemed more important than fostering a community of personal growth". It's a mistake on several levels: there's no dichotomy as it's presented in this sentence, and the reasons for not providing multi-tracks and project files are different. > If musicians' priorities were for the world to share in their musical indulgence not just in listening but also in like-minded creation So? They have other priorities so this is not what they do. Teaching is an industry that's only an adjacent and derivative activity to the cultural sphere of arts. It's of no concern for the artist, unless they choose to capitalize on their skills/knowledge/experience.
- rschneid 3y ago
  I'm agreeing with you that there are many reasons why the music Industry doesn't share stems but also concluding that many among those could be rationally considered gatekeeping by various groups. I'm not disparaging the industry as a whole or the individuals who comprise it, but the reality is simply messy. Many signed artists I'm sure wish they could distribute their stems or more of their process, but are hindered/prevented from doing so by labels. Seems close to what gatekeeping means to me, but that's just like my opinion, man...