The Internet and social networks have completely revolutionized the role and approach of each of us to the job market. As was to be expected, musicians and their world are also changing, to be able to keep up with the times in an extremely changing and dynamic landscape.
We talk about it with Vince Carpenters, for years one of the reference figures in the world of guitarists for his approach halfway between musician and entrepreneur. Vince welcomes us in his new 361st Guitar Lab, a structure designed by Alessandro Ricci and built around the profession of the guitarist in the age of social networks and liquid music.
A.Campeglia: Why 361 °?
V. Carpenters: 361 ° was born from a brainstorming with Alessandro, who designed and built the study. The idea was to find a name for a structure that is not a simple recording studio but a constantly evolving production pole.
AC: How has the profession of musician changed in recent years?
VC: Well, I remember that until a few years ago I was reading the exploits of the Jedi session-workers who in the golden days spent their days jumping from studio to studio to record the records of pop stars. A lot of work, a lot of money and not even a day off.
Although, even at the time, names like Steve lukather, Nathan East and another ten noblemen represented an exception, today as never before the profession of the musician, as it was understood in those days, is truly a utopia.
In this historical period we have to alternate between playing and producing video, graphics, photography, Inseparare, ask marketing but also interact with those who do business in the world of music, and do so in a context in which the quality of the contents and the competition grow at an exponential rate.
Let's say that, if in the past being a good musician was a sufficient condition for you to enter the world of professionals, today that is just a starting point. The skills to add to the mastery of the musical medium are many and often conceptually light years away from playing.
AC: Why did you prefer to invest in a hybrid studio rather than a typical recording studio?
VC: For years my working routine has ranged from recording guitar tracks to creating digital content for guitarists, designing Social marketing for me as an artist and for the products I make, but also to produce multimedia for the companies I collaborate with.
In this sense, I felt the need to have a structure that could move and evolve with the same speed with which my work and the world around me evolve.
Much of the work of us musicians makes use of social media and digital communication, which implies the production of a series of contents in formats that today seem standard, but which in a few years may be obsolete. From this point of view, a standard recording studio would have been too rigid a structure with respect to the evolutionary perspective of the work.
AC: Even from a strictly guitar point of view you have chosen a hybrid solution halfway between analog and digital: do you want to talk about it?
VC: Before anything else, this studio was born as a structure dedicated to guitar recording and, as such, it must offer the possibility of creating a quality product, with low costs and with the right speed. In recent years, it has become increasingly rare to have the resources and time to allow us to use complex setups. More and more frequently, partly for budgetary reasons, partly because guitars no longer play a leading role in the mainstream, producers are content with tracks recorded with profiler or with plug-in.
While I like these solutions, I find they hardly do justice to the response and timbre of the physical amplifiers and valves. On the other hand, I am very impressed by the quality of the profiling in terms of cones and microphones, the one that lets a real amplifier sound in its entirety by applying the "impulse response" only to the power signal.
In my opinion, this solution manages to accommodate both the needs of guitarists and those of producers, while maintaining a very high level of quality. At the moment, I can use all my tube amps and pedals without needing a dedicated space to play the cones at adequate volume and retaining the ability to “ream” the tracks at any time.
AC:- Alessandro, What would you recommend to young designers?
A. Ricci: - To answer in a few words is always difficult for me, despite the fact that the synthesis is my great friend. I would recommend changing the address of your goals first. Let me explain: if you are used to sticking post-its to remember the things you need to do, then that's where you need to make the first change. Goals can't focus on "things to do", "things to remember" and "problems to solve", because you will always find yourself back to back.
When you enter a space to create a professional environment, acting as a "solver" of problems leads to a path that is poor and full of competitors. Even if you're smart, you can be swappable with one click. There is therefore a difference between mitigating a problem and creating new opportunities.
Young designers, in any field, must focus on the opportunities that arise in these companies and discard solutions with a predictable result because, when it is too easy, it means that we are far from a growth process. The expert who stands out sells his off-programs, and does not focus on the problem, on the contrary he dissociates himself from the topic, considering it already solved.
AC:- So what do you write on your post-its?
AR: - In my metaphorical post-its I put myself on the side of the result we need. So I don't even put myself in the customer's mind but focus on the benefits that customers or even my customers' audience receive. It is the only way. If we wanted to listen to the clients' requests without analyzing them, we would all find ourselves at zero after a while. The design of a workspace, as well as theacoustic furniture, must multiply the potential of the professional who has entrusted himself to you. We must abandon the idea of reducing the problem and aim for high-performance systems that totally free the motorway from traffic, changing the scene in the thinking of those who live the work experience in that place.
I hope that no designer ever, having finished an acoustic work, should be told: “… now it's a little better, finally…”. Is not enough. In fact, it is not really a good goal to be told that it is better. Engineers and designers can / must leave an indelible mark after a job and lay the foundations for consistent development. They must imprint generative processes in the mind that grow over the long term. Other than reducing the rumble in the room a bit!
Solving problems in the field of acoustics is a beautiful job, but the specialists in the sector create opportunities, know each step of the processes by heart, and transfer them to the client in record time. And this is not only true for us designers, but for any profession that revolves around music. Vincenzo also embraces this path, and this is what allowed us to create his lair. Anyone who cares about the user experience, and the long-term repercussions, can call themselves a specialist.
AC: - How do you acquire this knowledge? What kind of studies would you recommend to young people?
AR.: I explain these concepts well in my latest publication, 160 pages dealing exclusively with acoustic perception in indoor spaces. It is a book aimed precisely at architects and engineers who want to clarify a very misunderstood topic. So my answer is "read it and reread it a hundred times!". Also in this case I put the full attention on the perception, not on the sources that generate the sound. We are chock full of scientists who need to be backed up by numbers, and by expensive brands of monitor audio, to represent one's thoughts, to exhibit yet another soup, yet another “internet article” that talks about acoustics. Nobody ever studies people.
My post-its (to close the question you asked me earlier) remind me that people are looking for reasons to grow and they forget about you in no time, if you aspire to goals that seek satisfaction in the short term. It is not enough for me to remind myself of it but I felt the need to teach it and toAcademy of Fine Arts I'm teaching a course totally dedicated to user perception and marketing, of course, as it completes any profession.
Soon it will be a training course for everyone.
