Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

This type of discussion comes up every once in a while and there are always a couple points that circulate in the discussion:

1. "It's not the tools, it's the artist."

2. "But tools matter."

I would love it if we could skip rehashing the obvious stuff. Yes, obviously, tools matter. However, there are a lot of loud people online (and lout people you meet in person) who spend hours hashing out the pros and cons of different tools, why tool X is awful, why tool Y is underrated, why "pros" use tool Z, tool W is overpriced and outdated, and tool Q is missing features A and B which should really be considered "standard" nowadays.

These discussions are valuable because tools matter, but people will also lose sight of the fact that tools are only one part of the picture. Novices, especially, sometimes focus on getting better tools or working on their tools instead of working on their craft. It's nice to see examples of very successful projects made with simple tools on a low budget to remind us that we can work that way too, and remind us that our low-end tools aren't really holding us back--that much.

Some examples of films shot on small budgets:

- Blair Witch Project ($60k)

- Clerks ($28k) (B&W not because the film is cheaper, but so they don't have to get lighting equipment)

- Primer ($7k)

I'm just hoping we can skip the "tools don't matter" "yes they do" back-and-forth. Nobody really believes that tools don't matter at all, people just get caught up in arguing about how much tools matter, or what the right way to communicate that is.

Same thing also happens with photography. I recently saw a photography exhibit where all of the photos were shot on an iPhone. Same thing happens with music. Some famous artist recorded an album with a Telecaster and a Supro because they were cheap and sounded decent. Some of your favorite songs were recorded out of the back of a van.

As someone who worked for over a decade in post-production, I can tell you this was most likely edited on FCP 7 because it was considered the better tool and not because of cost considerations (FCP 7 was actually much more expensive than the newer version). When Apple released Final Cut Pro X, they re-worked the whole app (I think it was a complete re-write) and based it more on the iMovie interface, which a lot of editors considered less that professional. All the shortcuts and controls were completely changed as well, which made it hard for editors to transition over. A lot of people migrated to Avid or Adobe Premiere. Some just kept using FCP 7 because they considered a superior tool.

In any case it was most likely the offline edit that happened on FCP 7, which could have been done on any working editing station from the last 30 years or more as it just exports the metadata when it gets onlined and mastered.

Familiarity with a tool is also important. If you're comfortable using a 10 yo version of Final Cut Pro and it does everything you need it to do then you're going to be more effective with it than you might be trying to use a new version. (I have never used Final Cut Pro so I'm not sure how much the UI might have changed over the years, but extrapolating from other software that has changed a lot of the years)

>> If you're comfortable using a 10 yo version of Final Cut Pro and it does everything you need it to do then you're going to be more effective with it than you might be trying to use a new version.

This epitomizes the point, I believe.

There are high level hip hop producers who are still using, say; an MPC-2000 mk2 to produce top ten hits.

Let’s say Dr. Dre, or DJ Shadow, etc - with decades of experience with this tool, suddenly try to move to newer technology. Nothing can trump their experience with that. Dre is going to be better on a decades old piece of hardware than almost anyone, because he’s had all those years of phenomenal experience.

It took me forever to swap to Logic Pro X. For years and years I primarily used (and released my 2019 mixtape, with half a million listens on Spotify, produced with) Logic Pro 9 and an ancient version of Pro Tools, both of which I had legit licenses for. I have a quad core G5 with 16GB of RAM and 2 1TB SSD’s whose performance easily matches my 2016 15” MBP for producing.

I finally moved to Logic X during the pandemic. I still am not sure it’s the better tool; but having portability is so key for me.

Point is - you nailed it. Your experience with the tools you use is way - way - more relevant to how well you will do than the features of the tools.

Hand Van Halen a sitar. See how well he does. Hand him even the shittiest guitar ever and watch him fly.

One of the nice things about Logic Pro is that you could keep all your EXS24 instruments across, like, 20+ years of history. I still use Logic Pro with some outbound rack synths like Roland JV units--it's still a damn nice experience working with a Roland JV + a MIDI sequencer, even if it doesn't "sound modern".

With the popularity of synthwave and very 80’s sounding music, not ‘sounding modern’ is highly sought after!

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