Guitar Center Interview

[loser2d]

http://gc.guitarcenter.com/interview/billycorgan/

Nothing new really, but decent read.

Enjoy

[jimmy drevpile]

ta

[T&T]

nice.

[brillo998]

thats interesting what he said about flood. why dont they work with him again?

[skipgo]

because he would help them to make their songs sound really amazing, and that would be too EASY.

[commando]

Because he's also responsible for Machina

[apetulantfrenzy]

Chamberlin: The first night he mic’ed up the drum kit, he had 414s over the toms, literally over the toms about this close, about a half-inch away from the drum head, with cotton balls taped to the top so there wouldn’t be any cymbal bleeds from the top. Just mics everywhere, and literally, I played for about five minutes, and when I went to listen to it, it was the loudest thing I’d ever heard in my entire life.

Then why the fuck are your drums so soft in the mix? Goddamn.

[JRiordan]

He didn't say anything about Alan Moulder. Sounds like he's neglected, like Terry Date on Zeitgeist. It's all RTB, RTB, RTB

[Mablak]

Billy's stance on pro tools is pretty annoying. When you hear a song on an album, you don't get disappointed knowing that the band can't play the song that well live, if the purpose of an album was to accurately reflect how a band sounds live, why not just use live tracks? An album is supposed to be a work of art to be appreciated in itself, not for how it was made. If something helps the album sound better, or especially Corgan's vocals, then use it for god's sake.

[???]

Originally Posted by Mablak

Billy's stance on pro tools is pretty annoying. When you hear a song on an album, you don't get disappointed knowing that the band can't play the song that well live, if the purpose of an album was to accurately reflect how a band sounds live, why not just use live tracks? An album is supposed to be a work of art to be appreciated in itself, not for how it was made. If something helps the album sound better, or especially Corgan's vocals, then use it for god's sake.

its not so much that pro tools is a bad program per se, but what its come to represent is kindof negative. basically, pro tools comes with several features that allow the producers to synthetically fix imperfect performances to the point where they sound perfect- inhumanly perfect. if someone sings out of key, you can augment the notes they sang. if a drummer misses a beat or isn't quite in time, you can filter them through BeatDetective or whatever that feature is called and suddenly they're perfectly, robotically in time. also, since pro tools is probably the most comprehensive and multifaceted music editing program available, its become the first choice for virtually every big studio and commercial artist now, which is why its become a byword for the decline in production standards. another big problem is that almost all new commercial artists have their music "compressed" to make it sound louder and punchier on radio and mp3, because the people in the industry have this ridiculous idea that the louder a record is, the more likely it will have an impact and get popular, so basically everyone is now competing to have the loudest most sonically offensive record.

plus digital recording has a slightly poorer sound quality than analog or tape because the sampling and bit rate is different and can't be processed perfectly by digital mixers.

/etc

[Fritter]

I hate the way Billy goes on about using tape and not using pro-tools. Zeitgeist is one of the most inorganic and robotic rock albums i've ever heard.

[Ralf_Ball]

what a read!

[IWishIWasBlank]

Being in radio, I think the worst offense of editing software is the cut and paste maneuvers done on pop music nowadays. If you listen to an Avril Lavigne song, which I don't suggest, but I can't avoid at a pop radio station, you can literally hear this style of song creation.

Cut every part of the song fifteen times, and we'll take the best verses, best choruses, best bridges for everyone, and go from there.

When you don't here any differential (at all) between chorus one and chorus two, and only an addition of a few vocal harmonies on verse three + out, you know you're listening to absolute shit production work.

Even worse is when a band agrees to this.

In my opinion, you could just use "pro tools" as a slang term for all shitty production in this manner. Songs just shouldn't be cut this way. It's untrue to the band and the fans.

And as for creating something that you can't create on stage, you should put a limit on it. Sometimes it gets to the point where you wonder if the band members cut the tracks or the record company just hired sessions to crank out the parts quickly. Again, untrue to the band and fans.

Originally Posted by ???

its not so much that pro tools is a bad program per se, but what its come to represent is kindof negative. basically, pro tools comes with several features that allow the producers to synthetically fix imperfect performances to the point where they sound perfect- inhumanly perfect. if someone sings out of key, you can augment the notes they sang. if a drummer misses a beat or isn't quite in time, you can filter them through BeatDetective or whatever that feature is called and suddenly they're perfectly, robotically in time. also, since pro tools is probably the most comprehensive and multifaceted music editing program available, its become the first choice for virtually every big studio and commercial artist now, which is why its become a byword for the decline in production standards. another big problem is that almost all new commercial artists have their music "compressed" to make it sound louder and punchier on radio and mp3, because the people in the industry have this ridiculous idea that the louder a record is, the more likely it will have an impact and get popular, so basically everyone is now competing to have the loudest most sonically offensive record.

plus digital recording has a slightly poorer sound quality than analog or tape because the sampling and bit rate is different and can't be processed perfectly by digital mixers.

/etc

[pumpkinxyu]

Originally Posted by Mablak

Billy's stance on pro tools is pretty annoying. When you hear a song on an album, you don't get disappointed knowing that the band can't play the song that well live, if the purpose of an album was to accurately reflect how a band sounds live, why not just use live tracks? An album is supposed to be a work of art to be appreciated in itself, not for how it was made. If something helps the album sound better, or especially Corgan's vocals, then use it for god's sake.

i'm not going to get into the pro fools debate right now, but...i think billy's answers were interesting here in that they reflected the change the band made from an album like siamese dream (which, even without pro tools, was less about the sound of the band and more about the massive/perfect wall of sound) to an album like mellon collie (or "Melancholy," for you Guitar Center research enthusiasts) that captures the sound and energy of the band. jimmy has also spoken about butch vig's perfectionism vs. flood's enthusiasm for emotional takes, and his preference for the latter. i asked jimmy about working with flood once, and he said, "flood makes you a better musician." so, whether you agree or not, the pumpkins stance as long as you've got BC/JC involved is one that puts performance and songwriting at the forefront. and i think the beatles example holds true time and time again. although obviously george martin and geoff emerick (and ken scott...better known for his bowie work) pretty much wrote the book on rock production with the beatles catalogue from 1966 forward, it's always obvious that it's the song and the performance that comes through. production should be a nice hairdo around the pretty face, not makeup caked over the ugly face to make it look pretty. songwriting is your face. that analogy is terrible, but some good insight from this interview. and flood is my hero.

[IWishIWasBlank]

Originally Posted by pumpkinxyu

it's always obvious that it's the song and the performance that comes through. production should be a nice hairdo around the pretty face, not makeup caked over the ugly face to make it look pretty. songwriting is your face. that analogy is terrible, but some good insight from this interview. and flood is my hero.

Good analogy, even if it isn't aesthetically pleasing.

[Caine Walker]

when i read things like this, i suddenly feel more inspired to make and write music again.

[Phoenix Down]

Originally Posted by Mablak

Billy's stance on pro tools is pretty annoying. When you hear a song on an album, you don't get disappointed knowing that the band can't play the song that well live, if the purpose of an album was to accurately reflect how a band sounds live, why not just use live tracks? An album is supposed to be a work of art to be appreciated in itself, not for how it was made. If something helps the album sound better, or especially Corgan's vocals, then use it for god's sake.

I agree. And Billy used to agree, too: "When you are faced with making a permanent recorded representation of a song, why not endow it with the grandest possible vision?"

[pumpkinxyu]

Originally Posted by Phoenix Down

I agree. And Billy used to agree, too: "When you are faced with making a permanent recorded representation of a song, why not endow it with the grandest possible vision?"

i think he would still agree with that...his approach to achieving the grandest possible vision has shifted, possibly, but i don't think too many people would attack Billy's post-1993 recordings for being UNDER-produced.

[Phoenix Down]

Originally Posted by pumpkinxyu

i think he would still agree with that...his approach to achieving the grandest possible vision has shifted, possibly, but i don't think too many people would attack Billy's post-1993 recordings for being UNDER-produced.

agreed. it's just odd, because when they started out people were saying using guitar overdubs is cheating and the pumpkins used them nonetheless....excessively. Now ProTools is the big enemy and billy acts conservative. Don't damn the fucking technology, it's really what you make of it.

[skipgo]

Originally Posted by Phoenix Down

agreed. it's just odd, because when they started out people were saying using guitar overdubs is cheating and the pumpkins used them nonetheless....excessively. Now ProTools is the big enemy and billy acts conservative. Don't damn the fucking technology, it's really what you make of it.

yep.

[pumpkinxyu]

Originally Posted by Phoenix Down

agreed. it's just odd, because when they started out people were saying using guitar overdubs is cheating and the pumpkins used them nonetheless....excessively. Now ProTools is the big enemy and billy acts conservative. Don't damn the fucking technology, it's really what you make of it.

it is what you make of the technology. but the reason billy made the point in this interview is because of what most producers make with the technology, which is the equivalent of photoshopping magazine images to make sure there's no warts and wrinkles and everybody looks the same. pro tools has so successfully become a means to achieving a slick, corporate, easily digestible sound to the point that it's become not only acceptable in mainstream rock but essential for lesser known bands who even want a shot at competing on a larger level.

billy (and flood) have both openly embraced some of the capabilities of pro tools in the past, primarily in terms of its use for creative editing. billy talked about his willingness to embrace the technology extensively around adore's release. but the pro tools editing billy and jimmy are talking about that has people on this board strangely up-in-arms is about fixing up shitty performances to make them sound correct rather than delivering emotional performances that exceed the capabilities of a piece of software. the human element, if you will.

and from listening to Zeitgeist/Mary Star/Machina, i'd say billy's still pretty happy to lay down more than his fair share of guitar overdubs. throw together a couple 24-track tape machines and you're covered. no pro tools required, if you can play the part rather than having the engineer make up for your lack of practice.