This post focuses on creating engaging sound for music production by combining pretty sounds and ugly sounds for contrast.
Something that the most successful producers understand is the importance of both pristine, pretty sounds and awful ugly, sounds. There have been countless examples of moments where engineers, producers, and artists have strived for creating something that is only pristine. Generally these sorts of projects fall short of the intended quality. When everything sounds good, it does not sound good together. This is one of music production’s dirty secrets. When Rupert Neve abandoned his iron-laden transformer preamp designs to achieve low-distortion preamp results, they didn’t have the bulky sound that people relied upon from Neve components. When solid state guitar amps hit the market, people bought them but discovered they didn’t have the same pleasurable distortion as tube amps.
The best producers know how to make pretty sounds sound really pretty by pairing them with really lo-fi sounds. A master of this philosophy is Nine Inch Nail’s own Trent Reznor. Take a listen through The Fragile and you’ll hear some of the ugliest sounds you’ve ever heard contrasted with some of the prettiest sounds you’ve ever heard.
