Music Technology Forum – Week 9: Genre Based Production

This week in Music Tech Forum, we looked at the production of a range of genres, including: Funk, Acid Jazz, Reggae, Blues, Jazz and Hard Rock. We listened to audio clips from these genres and pieced together different assumptions from the variety of songs.

Funk:
The genre ‘Funk’ is biggest in America. There are many factors that make up Funk. Firstly, Funk is not often song based; it’s more groove based. The beat is generally 4x4 with the guitars even on each speaker. The early days of Funk showed very dry sounds. The low budget produced a distorted production. In the 90’s, there was a huge movement of Funk and Acid Jazz. Acts such as Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Harry Connick Jnr produced clean funk, using reverb on the drums and room mics for recording.

Blues:
Blues, when recorded properly, can be a very clean sounding genre. The use of closed mic’s, upright pianos, and over driven vocal sounds are fundamental when it comes to Blues. The lyrics in Blues usually come from times of struggle, where people’s lives have turned for the worst. In a clip played by Stevie Ray Vaughn, I noticed very clean guitar with reverb + a very noticeable rim shot.

Jazz:
Jazz is recorded a lot different to Rock & Roll. There is no compression and no thumping kick drum to overdrive the song. In the 50’s, the recording quality of Jazz improved immensely. Clean trumpets and guitars we’re heard. With Jazz music, the solos during songs loved to be heard, so saxophone players will play at their limit to put on a great show.

Hard Rock:
In the early days of Hard Rock, the production had only a bit of brightness. Hard Rock sounded very ‘low’ and not enough bite. In the later days, Hard Rock started to use very big sounds. The use of the proximity effect on drums and bass, together with the endless guitar solos formed a huge sounding production. With Hard Rock, there are only three words you should remember: Size Does Matter!


Reference:
Steve Fieldhouse - Adelaide University (2007)