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It's true that the costs for equipment and software are going down, and in some cases, such as electronic music, it's possible to get good recordings with very

It's true that the costs for equipment and software are going down, and in some cases, such as electronic music, it's possible to get good recordings with very cheap and accessible equipment. If you've got a band with drums and other acoustic instruments, however, that means isolation rooms, sound-proofing, and other measures needed to get good recordings, not to mention the software and skills needed to mix them; these are still relatively inaccessible and costly. My point is that regardless of the cost, if we don't reward artists for making recordings, despite their great value to us, why should they bother with the effort to make them?

shardling 14y ago
You might need all that for good quality, but you can get an acceptable recording cheaply. (Minimum viable recording quality?) That wasn't something trivial to do in ages past.
- WiseWeasel 14y ago
  I guess the question would then be how many of us are content to be listening to minimally viable recordings while the artists are largely unrewarded for their efforts. I'd rather demonstrate my support for their efforts in the hopes of getting good recordings.
tesseractive 14y ago
> My point is that regardless of the cost, if we don't reward artists for making recordings, despite their great value to us, why should they bother with the effort to make them? Lots of people have always started bands, and relatively few of them have made a living at it, never mind gotten rich. Sure some people pursue music because they want to be rich rock stars, but lots of people make music because they like making music. In earlier days, it was easy to play live (and not make much money), but expensive to record anything, much less get that recording out to people. Nowadays, it's very affordable to record things as well, and trivial to upload to YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. Of course, the chance that more than a vanishingly small number of people will listen to your recording is still extremely low, but the barrier is notoriety, not the means of production and publishing. And yeah, part of the rise of electronic music is because it has the lowest barrier to getting started and making your music -- just like the rise of guitar bands came partially because it was inexpensive to put together a small rock group relative to some other kinds of music, and the rise of hip hop came partially because even poor kids had access to two turntables and a microphone.

shardling 14y ago

You might need all that for good quality, but you can get an acceptable recording cheaply. (Minimum viable recording quality?) That wasn't something trivial to do in ages past.

WiseWeasel 14y ago
I guess the question would then be how many of us are content to be listening to minimally viable recordings while the artists are largely unrewarded for their efforts. I'd rather demonstrate my support for their efforts in the hopes of getting good recordings.

tesseractive 14y ago

> My point is that regardless of the cost, if we don't reward artists for making recordings, despite their great value to us, why should they bother with the effort to make them? Lots of people have always started bands, and relatively few of them have made a living at it, never mind gotten rich. Sure some people pursue music because they want to be rich rock stars, but lots of people make music because they like making music. In earlier days, it was easy to play live (and not make much money), but expensive to record anything, much less get that recording out to people. Nowadays, it's very affordable to record things as well, and trivial to upload to YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. Of course, the chance that more than a vanishingly small number of people will listen to your recording is still extremely low, but the barrier is notoriety, not the means of production and publishing. And yeah, part of the rise of electronic music is because it has the lowest barrier to getting started and making your music -- just like the rise of guitar bands came partially because it was inexpensive to put together a small rock group relative to some other kinds of music, and the rise of hip hop came partially because even poor kids had access to two turntables and a microphone.