George Martin has died - Sir George - Beatles, etc. Not "Games of Thrones" George RR - by bjack
bjack on 20/3/2016 at 22:19
Using loops of tape hand held with pencils? Martin's idea. Lennon would come up with some outlandish request and have zero idea how to do it. Martin would make it happen. Imagine "Yesterday" with no stings? I have bootleg cuts of "I Am the Walrus" without any effects, nor punch ins. It sort of sucks. Martin "made" that song. Same with "Strawberry Fields". The good news is the recording industry knows how much he contributed. Too bad so few understand what this man accomplished. Maybe he will be remembered 100 years later - sort of like Tesla. Some new recording technique will arrive and it will be called the Martin Technique. Maybe... More likely he will be confused with the guitars instead.
fett on 21/3/2016 at 15:57
I don't want to get into the whole Kanye thing again because this applies a hundred times over to most people doing music production today. When you compare the innovation and imagination of people like Martin, or even Brendan O'Brien or Bob Rock to most other people since about the mid-90's, the gulf is huge. Modern producers certainly turn out better sounding products, and some of that can be attributed to the technology available (Kanye, Jay-Z, Jimmy Jam, and a few others have turned out some amazing sounding stuff for the last few decades), but in terms of pioneering techniques that have never been used, or thinking unconventionally to get certain sounds, Martin and some of those who followed during the early phase of psychedelia were truly pushing the boundaries every time they set about mixing a song. There are still some surprises left today (Kanye's stuff especially can catch you off-guard at times), but to do what those guys in the 60's did with a 4-track? They were the Einstein's and the Tesla's upon whose work most other production is built - in pretty much any genre you want to name.
