Jari Maenpaa & Crowdfunding

[AngelCityOutlaw]

So if you follow news in the heavy metal scene at all, you might know that Jari Maenpaa/Wintersun caused a bit of a storm regarding a recent Facebook post of his about how his record label is holding him back from crowd funding his own studio to record Time II.

You can find the entire post on the Jari Maenpaa Wintersun Facebook page.

It's currently the most recent post on his page at the time of writing this. I'm curious to know the OCR community's thoughts on some of Jari's arguments as I feel that some of his points about making music are...debatable. Though I can understand his frustrations.

I'll start by quoting

I live in a small shitty apartment building and I have neighbors. It is very very hard to work like this. I can´t record vocals, I can´t practise my singing, I can´t record guitars, I can´t record guitars even with modelling amps, because the electricity is so bad in this shitty building so I get lots of interference, I even play and practise the electric guitar acoustically without an amp 99% of the time in my home, I can´t record drums or basically any acoustic instruments, I don´t have the room or cool space for a big computer farm which is a must for the orchestrations for the next album (the place is too small and hot even for the one computer I have), I can´t mix properly, ´cause the room is so bad and there´s always ambient noise in and outside the building.

Now, if the electricity is bad, I don't know what to tell you. However, I do know that composer

. I'm not sure if "apartment" is being used in a different context than Jari means, but Mick's music is pretty damn good if it's really been made in an environment at all similar to Jari's.

I'm curious to know, how many people here on OCR really do have this super ideal space to make music in? I don't, but I think I've still been able to make some decent tunes and mixes from here. I'm not arguing at all that if Jari had a better space (and to be fair we don't know the real specifics of his living conditions) that it would be much more ideal, but I question how necessary having your own custom-built location really is to produce quality work.

Another point he brings up is about having a "computer farm" for the orchestrations of the new album. I kind of doubt that he needs such an elaborate setup as he implies. My PC cost me less than a thousand bucks and it's got pretty much all the RAM and space most people would ever need for elaborate orchestral-metal productions. The computer also sits nice and comfy and well ventilated on a shelf. If you really needed to save some CPU or something, you could just render some of the tracks to audio and then import them back into the project that way. Maybe I really am under-estimating his computer requirements, but listening to Wintersun's (awesome) music...I doubt there are no ways around this computer issue.

Basically, while I can sympathize with Jari's grievances and I'm not against crowd funding a Wintersun studio, I question if that is really the solution here. It just sounds to me like he needs a better living space than a professional studio. It's also important to keep in mind that a lot of bands DON'T have an ideal space. They just use the advance money to record at a professional studio and get it mixed and mastered. Unfortunately, it seems that voicing his concerns hasn't achieved much beyond angering his record label. Regardless of what happens, I hope he finds a solution and can finish the next Wintersun album soon!

What do you all think?

P.S. Maybe this belongs more in Music Production forum? I don't know.

[Brandon Strader]

As much as I love Winterson and Jari, he sounds like a bitch in that quote. I have all the same situation, including neighbors houses 10 feet away from mine on both sides. I get power interference but I make it work. I think the record label or whoever realizes that he is just being a bitch and that is why they are blocking the Kickstarter idea

[Meteo Xavier]

Yeah, the thought going through my mind reading this is "if you live in such a shitty place, maybe crowdfunding an album is not your biggest priority?"

[Argle]

I live in an apartment, but i don't need to record live vocals and drums, and a guitar amp. I can see how his needs would be trickier to meet than mine. Without us being able to see his apartment bldg, we don't know how bad it really is. Maybe a move would be the best thing.

[Nabeel Ansari]

I live in a small shitty apartment building and I have neighbors.

I made my Apex remix in a dorm room.

I can´t practise my singing,

Go outside?

I even play and practise the electric guitar acoustically without an amp 99% of the time in my home, I can´t record drums or basically any acoustic instruments,

So you are asking for people to crowdfund you a new studio with the promise that eventually you'll be able to record a ton of instruments and make a deliverable out of it.

I don´t have the room or cool space for a big computer farm which is a must for the orchestrations for the next album (the place is too small and hot even for the one computer I have)

Computer farm? You can run orchestra libraries on any mid-range computer with a RAM upgrade these days.

I can´t mix properly, ´cause the room is so bad and there´s always ambient noise in and outside the building.

Why don't you just live somewhere else? Not enough income? Then like Meteo said, crowdfunding an album is not your priority.

I don't agree with crowdfunding which is essentially just "help me get some stuff I want and I'll give you something in return". The point of crowdfunding is putting money towards something you want to become reality because of the fees necessary which are otherwise very hard for an individual to cover (manufacturing, printing, licensing, etc.). This crowdfunding isn't really about paying for costs associated with making an album... it's about paying for a set-up that he's going to be able to indefinitely keep and not only that, he has to learn and master his equipment before he does anything meaningful with it. It's not like people will throw money at him, he buys it and all of the sudden his "5 albums" get released.

[djpretzel]

Frustratingly, I've got a pretty great setup... I'm just lacking that OTHER key ingredient: time.

Yeah, the line about the computer farm for orchestrations did kinda stick out...

[Brandon Strader]

Frustratingly, I've got a pretty great setup... I'm just lacking that OTHER key ingredient: time.

LOOOOL Oh you <3

Wait, was that intended as a joke?

People waited years and years for the second album called "Time" between like 2005 and 2012 or so, maybe it was 2013 I don't remember. But it took them forever to release part 1 and now it's going to take forever for part 2. So people always make time jokes because for whatever reason that's what they decided to name the album(s).

But yeah I don't like this, not one bit. I'd have figured Jari was smarter than that.

EDIT:

Just to add on to the thread, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I could make the Time I album with what I have at home, with the gear I've been collecting, and my remputer, etc. I only have 2.5ghz processor but 8gb of RAM. When I listen to Time I, I don't hear anything that is impossible for me to replicate, outside of guitar parts that take skill. I also don't think Jari is inexperienced with gear and software, so I really don't understand why it is taking him so long, and why he's looking to crowdfunding for this kind of thing. I also know for a fact that they use Cubase, and I also use Cubase. I don't know, either they are working super inefficient so their sessions are unmanageable from being such a mess, or there's something shady going on. Cause something is not adding up here.

EDIT 2:

"I practice the electric acoustically 99% of the time" I'm calling BS on this too. Cubase has amp sims that come with it. Come on man....

Edited August 1, 2014 by Brandon Strader

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Just to add on to the thread, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I could make the Time I album with what I have at home, with the gear I've been collecting, and my remputer, etc. I only have 2.5ghz processor but 8gb of RAM. When I listen to Time I, I don't hear anything that is impossible for me to replicate, outside of guitar parts that take skill. I also don't think Jari is inexperienced with gear and software

Just about every home musician can or does have the resources to make the Time album(s). At least, as far as the equipment used to make it goes.

What I really think he's doing here and why I don't like it, is he's preying on a lack of music production knowledge on the part of his fans, hoping that they'll join Wintersun's side and either rally against the label, crowd fund his dream studio or both.

He knows what he's doing. He's been at this for 17 years and made albums with not only Wintersun, but several more with Ensiferum back in the day and to my knowledge Ensiferum recorded at Sweet Silence in Denmark. This guy lives in Finland - metal lives in these parts of Europe and there is no shortage of studios that specialize in his genre. He's backed by the largest heavy metal record label out there - he can afford to record at a studio or use what he has now instead of asking for a handout to build his own.

[Brandon Strader]

That's true but I've heard awful things about Nuclear Blast for years... like, even that you should be on Century Media instead of Nuclear Blast because they're so awful -- and I don't think Century Media is cream of the crop either. I'd love to see Wintersun on Inside Out, but it sounds like at least some of the problem is that they're screwed by Nuclear Blast... But yeah.. it still doesn't add up.. not to mention they already got some of an upgrade in order to finish the first Time album..