SunkLo wrote:Simulant wrote:What would someone have to do to not be considered a noob copycat producer? Make their own sounds? Build their own synths? Write their own VSTs? Deadmau5 uses sampled piano's in his music, is he a copycat? The Prodigy made their career from sampling other people's music, perhaps you consider them copycats?
All music is derivative in one way or another.
Yeah any of the above. Just having creative input on the majority of your track. The thing about "well this guy used a piano, he didn't invent the piano, that's guys a copycat right?" is that when someone plays a piano on a track, they're usually playing some chords and melody they composed. In a genre where the 1 note bassline is king and sound design has replaced composition to a large degree, you can't then go and copy someone's sound design. If the junction where your creative input comes into play is sound design instead of composition, then
design your own fucking sounds! You can't be like "nah my music eschews in-depth composition in favor of textural and timbral experimentation" and then be using a preset some guy gave you! That's just ridiculous. I have no clue how someone could do that and not feel like a phoney.
Yes all music is derivative in one way or another. And a certain percentage of the air you breathe is other people's farts. You don't want it ALL to be other people's farts though, right?
I hardly think that one note basses come into it when we're talking about Skrillex presets!
At the end of the day, a good song is a good song. I don't care how they made it, how much of someone else's work influenced it etc. The end product is all that counts to me, as a listener. Sound design isn't everything, although I prefer to make my own sounds. But I know for a fact that plenty of successful producers use presets all over their tunes, and still make good music. After all, where does it end?
I made this tune using presets - noob!
I made my own sounds, but used a popular synth - noob!
I made my own synth, but used a high level programming language - noob!
I wrote my synth in assembly language from the ground up but used Intel CPUs - noob!
I designed and fabricated my own CPU using a state of the art manufacturing process, but I didn't source my own silicon - noob!
Using industry standard tools, I found my own supply of silicon - noob!
Seriously just make good music with any tools available, presets, samples, whatever. If the end product is awesome, well done.
