Post Your Random Thoughts Thread!

[rickyarbino]

There is no difference between being a session musician and a ghost producer. And to some degree, sampling.

[Phigure]

By now we could write a book of quote collections called "Jesslem Says the Darndest Things"

Audiobook by Bill Cosby

[rickyarbino]

Humor me for a moment. Someone's literally being paid to perform musical favors. Really not that different to DJing or playing out either. Not really making it for yourself but exploiting someone's lack of knowledge to do so in order to get some money off that person. Even if it's just to play out/ put food on the table.

From the other side you, as the employer, are exploiting someone's interest in money to get musical favors.
Even under any compelling circumstances thereof.

Ideals, eh.

[Jizz]

But ultimately, the ghost producer is still someone who makes something whereas the session musician performs.

You could maybe say that the composer is really a ghost producer, who creates something for session musicians to perform. In which case, neither one is irrelevant but rather, just as important as each other

And m8, beg u leave sampling alone. Thats just silly now

[hubb]

It's not a good way to think tbh ricky, I mean to change the conditions (even just on a philosophical plane) of three distinguished concepts to make one distinction that is slightly shallow as a point - just because that point kind of could be made in an ultimate sence...

There's just not a lot there that point to a common nature or a principle within, and in a moralistic sence - it's too case specific to make any informed guess on why someone ends up on either side.

[ultraspatial]

session musicians get credited, unlike ghost producers

plus there's situations when you actually need session musicians. say your drummer quit the band and you already got the studio or w/e rented, can't find anybody to replace him in time, so you hire somebody you know can get the job done while you look for a new permanent one.
or say you wanna do the one-man band thing but you're shitty on a certain instrument, you hire somebody to record that and you do the rest.
or you're a producer but have absolutely 0 skills when it comes to actual instruments. you're not gonna spend a couple of years learning to play a few instruments, you're gonna hire somebody to do that for you - and again, they'll get credited for it. ghost producers don't - that the whole point of ghost producing.

hiring a session musician is not different than getting a new member every 2 months. line-ups are not permanent and nobody can play all fucking instruments out there

[rickyarbino]

But ultimately, the ghost producer is still someone who makes something whereas the session musician performs.

You could maybe say that the composer is really a ghost producer, who creates something for session musicians to perform. In which case, neither one is irrelevant but rather, just as important as each other

And m8, beg u leave sampling alone. Thats just silly now

And in order to make what they make, they must perform a series of musical tasks; favors (insofar as they are at the employer's request/parameters therein).

The thing is though, I don't get why this makes you react that way about sampling. I love sampling, I love listening to music, I love hearing good mixes, the way I see it I just learned about another good thing in the world. Maybe good isn't the best word, but something that isn't actually bad. I mean, ghost production went into this, and whoever's name winds up on it that's kinda cool imo. It shouldn't be viewed as a problem unless slave labor takes place imo. But that happens all the time with shit record labels tbh.

It's not a good way to think tbh ricky, I mean to change the conditions (even just on a philosophical plane) of three distinguished concepts to make one distinction that is slightly shallow as a point - just because that point kind of could be made in an ultimate sence...

There's just not a lot there that point to a common nature or a principle within, and in a moralistic sence - it's too case specific to make any informed guess on why someone ends up on either side.

I thought I did a pretty good job of weighing that up, morally speaking. I mean, it's a pretty economical way to look at it but when scarcity is what affects all of us then I think it's a fair ground upon which to treat morals. Assuming these things can be discussed ideally.
The reason someone ends up on either side is context. It's like if you kicked a football; do it outside and it rolls on the grass, do it inside and you've smashed mum's good china and you feel bad about it (assuming that if you don't she'll force you to ). She doesn't need to though, so there's that too.

session musicians get credited, unlike ghost producers

plus there's situations when you actually need session musicians. say your drummer quit the band and you already got the studio or w/e rented, can't find anybody to replace him in time, so you hire somebody you know can get the job done while you look for a new permanent one.
or say you wanna do the one-man band thing but you're shitty on a certain instrument, you hire somebody to record that and you do the rest.
or you're a producer but have absolutely 0 skills when it comes to actual instruments. you're not gonna spend a couple of years learning to play a few instruments, you're gonna hire somebody to do that for you - and again, they'll get credited for it. ghost producers don't - that the whole point of ghost producing.

hiring a session musician is not different than getting a new member every 2 months. line-ups are not permanent and nobody can play all fucking instruments out there

On the credit, if you don't want the credit why should you be forced to take it? They knew what was up when they went to the studio that day (or so I'd hope)...
When we discuss people who use names like "unknown" in a gimmicky way, is the issue not that they're pretending to be low-key people who're just in it for the music when they're just gassing people's anonymity reflexes? so to speak.

Moving onwards, in the situation you've described, the drummer needs to be replaced because nobody else can do what they can do. Likewise in the case of ghost production, the person hiring the producer doesn't know how to use it, maybe they need to learn. It stands to reason that the best way to learn to do what you want to do is to learn it from someone who is capable of doing it the way you want it to be done, I'm sure someone who's used these services is capable of learning how to make the stuff and I reckon that in some cases (at least) they will do so because they don't realistically want to be paying someone to make their stuff for them, whyever that may be, which you should say is fair enough in and of itself (not wanting to have a ghost in an ideal world).

Slightly different thing, but I think producers should want to learn how to do stuff themselves tbh, that includes playing instruments where need be, though maybe that's a view that's best for personal applications.

[DrGatineau]

I think you can draw a parallel between the role of session musicians and samples, but neither are the same as ghost producers.

with both session musicians and samples, you are expected to probably do some kind of processing, even if it's just eq / gain staging, but with a ghost producer, you do absolutely nothing.

and theoretically samples are also supposed to be credited unless they're royalty free, which is exactly like a session musician - they can be royalty free i suppose if they chose to be.

[rickyarbino]

Isn't saying something like "No, that part is too loud", or "Perhaps this progression needs re-thinking", or even doing some of the construction of a peice of music yourself, processing in some way? The fact we don't know what they know or how much they did doesn't give us authority to assume the worst of them. In most creative contexts we tend to do the opposite.

Samples are supposed to be credited if the original artist agrees to settle there. If you think about it, sampling results in a lot of slave labor. Peak innit, but that's art.


I just fully read the middle part, you know some people aren't just buying beats.
Interestingly though, William Shakespeare didn't right all of his plays, he was known to have bought the rights to plays written by others. I personally don't see that as a threat to the integrity of any works he did produce though.


And while we're talking about all of this, we haven't even touched on pirated software. There's another exploitation in there lol. Probably just going to spark more flames, but those can be useful.

[TheIntrospectionist]

Really think i need to go a tolerance break but i want to smoke tomorrow

[ultraspatial]

session musicians get credited, unlike ghost producers

plus there's situations when you actually need session musicians. say your drummer quit the band and you already got the studio or w/e rented, can't find anybody to replace him in time, so you hire somebody you know can get the job done while you look for a new permanent one.
or say you wanna do the one-man band thing but you're shitty on a certain instrument, you hire somebody to record that and you do the rest.
or you're a producer but have absolutely 0 skills when it comes to actual instruments. you're not gonna spend a couple of years learning to play a few instruments, you're gonna hire somebody to do that for you - and again, they'll get credited for it. ghost producers don't - that the whole point of ghost producing.

hiring a session musician is not different than getting a new member every 2 months. line-ups are not permanent and nobody can play all fucking instruments out there

On the credit, if you don't want the credit why should you be forced to take it? They knew what was up when they went to the studio that day (or so I'd hope)...
When we discuss people who use names like "unknown" in a gimmicky way, is the issue not that they're pretending to be low-key people who're just in it for the music when they're just gassing people's anonymity reflexes? so to speak.

Moving onwards, in the situation you've described, the drummer needs to be replaced because nobody else can do what they can do. Likewise in the case of ghost production, the person hiring the producer doesn't know how to use it, maybe they need to learn. It stands to reason that the best way to learn to do what you want to do is to learn it from someone who is capable of doing it the way you want it to be done, I'm sure someone who's used these services is capable of learning how to make the stuff and I reckon that in some cases (at least) they will do so because they don't realistically want to be paying someone to make their stuff for them, whyever that may be, which you should say is fair enough in and of itself (not wanting to have a ghost in an ideal world).

Slightly different thing, but I think producers should want to learn how to do stuff themselves tbh, that includes playing instruments where need be, though maybe that's a view that's best for personal applications.

people get credited so they don't sue (plus they contributed in a way so it's only fair). if someone doesn't want to be credited that's a different matter and has no relevance to this.
using a ghost producer = wanting to take credit for something you can't or don't want to do
using session musicians = working with other people

these two would only be similar if say a band records somebody else and pass it off their work. which i'm sure it happens but it probably backfires when playing live

[rickyarbino]

How is it a different matter though? A ghost producer is quite blatantly more interested in putting food on the table than credit, aren't they? Not everyone's compelled to be famous, some people just want to make cool sounding stuff.

[ultraspatial]

how does that have anything to do with what i said?

surely you see the difference in paying someone to do your shit for you and working with someone else as a band (albeit maybe not a permanent one)?

[rickyarbino]

Now I don't see how what you're describing relates to what I'm talking about lol

Paying someone to do something for you on a track doesn't equal working with them as a band. Who hires a session musician and expects them to compose original shit for it in the first place? That's slackery imo.

[sigbowls]

i havent watched anime in for ever but Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso i ill watch sometime, people say its good

[ultraspatial]

Now I don't see how what you're describing relates to what I'm talking about lol

Paying someone to do something for you on a track doesn't equal working with them as a band. Who hires a session musician and expects them to compose original shit for it in the first place? That's slackery imo.

lol it's usually one or two people who write all the music in any band. so using a session musician isn't different from that

[nousd]

in memorium of wbu's efforts
suggest ninjas get promised mixes into Raddles.
I'll listen for one.

[dickman69]

live in 2 minutes on http://cosmicsound.club

[exfox]

SeekSickSound show on Rinse FR is tonight! 7pm London Time (8pm French time), my set is at 8.20 (GMT). Two sick DJs playing before, Nuit doing a techno set, then Laroze playing house music! I'll be spinning various bassy stuff. Since it's the first show the idea is to showcase what we'll be playing, so I'll be playing some of the tracks I consider to be the best of the year, though there'll be some unreleased stuff as well - got a track from the incoming Bruce release on Hessle Audio to play for instance.
Really excited, don't hesitate to lock on

[Johnlenham]

Woi! Wondered where youve been!