often the MPC is touted as the best thing to hit music since the turntable, however, i'd like to place a little bit of shine on a very unknown piece of gear.
"All of that talk does require a bit of technical finesse and honestly is a bit exclusionary at its core."
There is nothing inherently exclusionary in these conversations except in the fact that, in order to really hear the differences between different machines, sometimes it takes years and years of critical listening that many people have yet to do. It's not just listening, its listening in a very particular way to very particular aspects of the sound. This is what the core of audio engineering is about. It's very tempting for people who the lack ability to discern certain things to say that the people who do, are "obsessing" or "getting lost in details that don't matter". The exclusion happens naturally, not by design. It's like a sommelier vs. someone who casually drinks wine at dinner. The casual wine drinker might think that the sommelier is "obsessing" about the flavor, the aroma, the aftertaste, the bloom, etc... when in reality, they are just inadvertently displaying a deeper level of expertise and appreciation for wine. Converters (especially in vintage samplers) make a HUGE difference. The sound of an SP 1200 (and SP12) is absolutely recognizable compared to an MPC3000, for instance. Instantly recognizable / night and day difference. Whether one is better is completely subjective and depends on the desired outcome and style of music being produced. To your point, will a cheap bottle of wine get you drunk? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that there are not people out there who are looking for a deeper, more nuanced experience.
The exclusionary nature stems from the 'gear culture' surrounding certain producers.
The mindset of "y'all ain't got this" or "people don't know about this because I have it " is ludicrous. Countless producers, successful or not, have spouted this type of rhetoric, while producers like 9th Wonder and J Dilla have produced entire sonic labyrinths inside DAWs that rival what people argue is the sound only the SP-1200 or MPC3000 could deliver.
this is what I mean in this paragraph : "During the late '70s to the early 2000s, there was a culture among certain artists to have access to the most modern and up-to-date equipment to achieve a particular sound. This led to a preference for working with producers who possessed the 'cool gear' necessary to create that sound. However, Grandmaster Flash, a pioneer in the hip-hop genre, created his unique sound on a relatively obscure piece of equipment"
reading down a bit further you'll see that Im again specifically referring to the "gatekeeping gear exclusivity" of yesteryear. and how "These guys proclaim that the gear isn’t the same, the musician the same, and whoever is using the ‘new’ isn’t staying true and shouldn’t be trusted. However, countless musicians like Grandmaster Flash have shown and proved that that is utter nonsense."
While your argument is valid, i think you're also missing the point entirely.
I do get the point. What im trying to express is that, there are people who might sound just like the people you're talking about, but who are NOT gatekeeping and NOT trying to be exclusionary. There is a certain level of expertise that is only reached after a very long time, and only by those with a certain hearing acuity. Much like vision, the ability to hear is not evenly dispersed to all humans in the same way. Its much more obvious with vision, and its corrected with various intensity glasses, but people do not hear the same, at all. Some people have a much more sensitive hearing apparatus than others, but unless tested in a specialized way (beyond the grade school "listen for the tone" tests we were given to rule out obvious hearing problems), you'd never know. And, its very easy for people with less sensitive hearing to come to the conclusion that those who are interested in various "converters" as you say, are wasting their time. For audio professionals and sound designers, these kinds of conversations are completely valid. And its not just converters... the problem with DAWs in general, are that, when it comes to midi timing and control of external samplers and such, there is a very real and measurable timing problem known as "jitter". Because modern computers are multitasking handling various operating system instructions, wifi, etc... and because audio takes precedence (you'd instantly hear a drop out if the CPU didn't prioritize audio over everything else), midi timing often takes a back seat. The reason why J Dilla (who notoriously used the MPC 3000 btw, not a DAW) swore by his hardware, was because the timing is rock solid. Its a single purpose built machine (its not receiving emails, etc as you're trying to program it). And it wasnt about elitism, or gatekeeping, but it was about something the average person (keyword- average person) couldnt hear... jitter free, rock solid, sample playback. My point is that, just because you cant hear the difference (assuming that you cant, i might be wrong) doesnt mean there is not a difference. You can google "inherent DAW midi jitter" and you'll see what i mean. And yes, of course, you can work around it, but when professionals are working at a certain level, sometimes they just wanna take the path of least resistance to a particular end.
Just so you know, I was talking about someone specific in the article that I wouldn't mention, not for fear or lack of respect but I dont want to promo that person or seem Im trying to use their name to build my platform.
But I totally agree with what you're saying, and the whoel point of the article was about using what you could get your hands on to make something dope, not listening to people who say you need 'this or that' to make music. Just like J Dilla wasnt always at his MP, he could still make protools sing like one.
"All of that talk does require a bit of technical finesse and honestly is a bit exclusionary at its core."
There is nothing inherently exclusionary in these conversations except in the fact that, in order to really hear the differences between different machines, sometimes it takes years and years of critical listening that many people have yet to do. It's not just listening, its listening in a very particular way to very particular aspects of the sound. This is what the core of audio engineering is about. It's very tempting for people who the lack ability to discern certain things to say that the people who do, are "obsessing" or "getting lost in details that don't matter". The exclusion happens naturally, not by design. It's like a sommelier vs. someone who casually drinks wine at dinner. The casual wine drinker might think that the sommelier is "obsessing" about the flavor, the aroma, the aftertaste, the bloom, etc... when in reality, they are just inadvertently displaying a deeper level of expertise and appreciation for wine. Converters (especially in vintage samplers) make a HUGE difference. The sound of an SP 1200 (and SP12) is absolutely recognizable compared to an MPC3000, for instance. Instantly recognizable / night and day difference. Whether one is better is completely subjective and depends on the desired outcome and style of music being produced. To your point, will a cheap bottle of wine get you drunk? Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that there are not people out there who are looking for a deeper, more nuanced experience.
The exclusionary nature stems from the 'gear culture' surrounding certain producers.
The mindset of "y'all ain't got this" or "people don't know about this because I have it " is ludicrous. Countless producers, successful or not, have spouted this type of rhetoric, while producers like 9th Wonder and J Dilla have produced entire sonic labyrinths inside DAWs that rival what people argue is the sound only the SP-1200 or MPC3000 could deliver.
this is what I mean in this paragraph : "During the late '70s to the early 2000s, there was a culture among certain artists to have access to the most modern and up-to-date equipment to achieve a particular sound. This led to a preference for working with producers who possessed the 'cool gear' necessary to create that sound. However, Grandmaster Flash, a pioneer in the hip-hop genre, created his unique sound on a relatively obscure piece of equipment"
reading down a bit further you'll see that Im again specifically referring to the "gatekeeping gear exclusivity" of yesteryear. and how "These guys proclaim that the gear isn’t the same, the musician the same, and whoever is using the ‘new’ isn’t staying true and shouldn’t be trusted. However, countless musicians like Grandmaster Flash have shown and proved that that is utter nonsense."
While your argument is valid, i think you're also missing the point entirely.
I do get the point. What im trying to express is that, there are people who might sound just like the people you're talking about, but who are NOT gatekeeping and NOT trying to be exclusionary. There is a certain level of expertise that is only reached after a very long time, and only by those with a certain hearing acuity. Much like vision, the ability to hear is not evenly dispersed to all humans in the same way. Its much more obvious with vision, and its corrected with various intensity glasses, but people do not hear the same, at all. Some people have a much more sensitive hearing apparatus than others, but unless tested in a specialized way (beyond the grade school "listen for the tone" tests we were given to rule out obvious hearing problems), you'd never know. And, its very easy for people with less sensitive hearing to come to the conclusion that those who are interested in various "converters" as you say, are wasting their time. For audio professionals and sound designers, these kinds of conversations are completely valid. And its not just converters... the problem with DAWs in general, are that, when it comes to midi timing and control of external samplers and such, there is a very real and measurable timing problem known as "jitter". Because modern computers are multitasking handling various operating system instructions, wifi, etc... and because audio takes precedence (you'd instantly hear a drop out if the CPU didn't prioritize audio over everything else), midi timing often takes a back seat. The reason why J Dilla (who notoriously used the MPC 3000 btw, not a DAW) swore by his hardware, was because the timing is rock solid. Its a single purpose built machine (its not receiving emails, etc as you're trying to program it). And it wasnt about elitism, or gatekeeping, but it was about something the average person (keyword- average person) couldnt hear... jitter free, rock solid, sample playback. My point is that, just because you cant hear the difference (assuming that you cant, i might be wrong) doesnt mean there is not a difference. You can google "inherent DAW midi jitter" and you'll see what i mean. And yes, of course, you can work around it, but when professionals are working at a certain level, sometimes they just wanna take the path of least resistance to a particular end.
Just so you know, I was talking about someone specific in the article that I wouldn't mention, not for fear or lack of respect but I dont want to promo that person or seem Im trying to use their name to build my platform.
But I totally agree with what you're saying, and the whoel point of the article was about using what you could get your hands on to make something dope, not listening to people who say you need 'this or that' to make music. Just like J Dilla wasnt always at his MP, he could still make protools sing like one.