What do we make of Danny Sapko?

[Cato]

My first thought when I saw the clip was that , if true,  he's certainly not the first musician who's been unable to reproduce a song or parts of a song exactly like the recording live.

 

Although in the examples in the Sapko clip it's not  clear if the recording vs live examples are even supposed to be the same piece, so  it doesn't really prove anything.

 

[tegs07]

Before basschat I had never heard of the guy. Now I have and I have watched his channel and Youtube just keeps feeding me more. He has obviously found a winning formula. If he is making a living from it then good luck to him. Is the content any good? Personally this TikTok style, short clip, grab my attention and move quickly onto something new and shiny does my head in. It’s just so completely inane and ridiculous. I suspect my parents thought the same about whatever rubbish I was watching in the ‘80s.

Edited 9 hours ago by tegs07

[BigRedX]

In the studio stitch together my guitar, bass and keyboard parts all the time. 

 

Live it doesn't matter if I play some bum notes or the timing and/or pitch of a few notes is too loose, it's all over in the next instant, never to be heard again, and besides the energy of the gig normally overshadows any errors.

 

If it's being recorded for people to listen to over and over again I want it to be without mistakes. That doesn't mean quantised and autotuned to "perfection". I simply want what is committed to tape or DAW to match what I hear in my head when I'm playing it so that I, and other people, can enjoy listening to the song without noticing any errors. If that means dropping in to correct dodgy phrases or individual notes so be it.

 

I recently discovered when recording an 8 bar riff for a song that my timing was a lot better for the last 2 to 3 bars of the riff than it was for the first few. Therefore I played each bar 16 times in succession and used the best 3-4 bars from each take, usually from the second half) to assemble enough instances of the riff to use throughout the song, so that each time to riff come in it has the correct feel but each instance is subtly different. For me it's all about getting the right sounding end result. Getting there in a single take is not even remotely important to me.

[TimR]

2 hours ago, Cato said:

All seems a bit more tenuous than the Giacomo plagiarism stuff to me but 'calling people out' seems to be a popular genre on social media these days.

 

He does cover that aspect in the SBL podcast. He seemed genuinely concerned about exposing someone wrongly, whether he was doing the right thing, and checking and double checking the facts over several days. 

[TimR]

23 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

In the studio stitch together my guitar, bass and keyboard parts all the time. 

 

Live it doesn't matter if I play some bum notes or the timing and/or pitch of a few notes is too loose, it's all over in the next instant, never to be heard again, and besides the energy of the gig normally overshadows any errors.

 

If it's being recorded for people to listen to over and over again I want it to be without mistakes. That doesn't mean quantised and autotuned to "perfection". I simply want what is committed to tape or DAW to match what I hear in my head when I'm playing it so that I, and other people, can enjoy listening to the song without noticing any errors. If that means dropping in to correct dodgy phrases or individual notes so be it.

 

I recently discovered when recording an 8 bar riff for a song that my timing was a lot better for the last 2 to 3 bars of the riff than it was for the first few. Therefore I played each bar 16 times in succession and used the best 3-4 bars from each take, usually from the second half) to assemble enough instances of the riff to use throughout the song, so that each time to riff come in it has the correct feel but each instance is subtly different. For me it's all about getting the right sounding end result. Getting there in a single take is not even remotely important to me.

 

That gets very expensive very quickly. Fine if it's your own money, but the record companies aren't going to live with that if it's taking months to record an album. 

[Woodinblack]

53 minutes ago, TimR said:

 

That gets very expensive very quickly. Fine if it's your own money, but the record companies aren't going to live with that if it's taking months to record an album. 

 

An album lasts generally less than an hour - who was the last group to do their recording in an hour? 

[Steve Browning]

2 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

This is an interesting one. I’ve worked with several producers of big bands who’ve told me stories of musicians whose tracks are all composites of takes because they literally can’t play it all the way through. In the 60s they’d smuggle studio musicians in to redo parts etc.

 

Stitching together takes isn’t the same as plagiarism.

 

Danny is making cash and we’re all contributing to it, so he’s currently winning. 

Having worked with David Gilmour, I can tell you that he does 5 passes of a solo and creates the final version from those 5.

 

All 5 are amazing of course. 

[Burns-bass]

26 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Having worked with David Gilmour, I can tell you that he does 5 passes of a solo and creates the final version from those 5.

 

All 5 are amazing of course. 

I’ve heard this before so good to have it confirmed. If it’s good enough for one of the greatest guitarists in the world, it’s probably ok.

 

I’d also point people to videos of all the greats. I’ve seen enough Jaco clips to see he’s not always super smooth and there are mistakes in his live playing, same as all of us.

[wateroftyne]

9 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

I’ve heard this before so good to have it confirmed. If it’s good enough for one of the greatest guitarists in the world, it’s probably ok.

Just for clarity I doubt DG is comping 5 solos because of mistakes, or any shred of sloppiness. He'll be playing a different thing each time and comping the best bits.

[SimonK]

...but I suspect with David Gilmour it is about the music. With some of these youtube creators currently being "outed" the intention seems more to be getting the acclaim (clicks & subscribes!) of coming across as being a virtuoso, when they are clearly not. As has been said this then makes life much harder for the real virtuosos to make a living, along with the normal mortals who suddenly can no longer compete. It is also the source of rather a lot of embarrassment when they are pulled up on to a real stage.

Edited 6 hours ago by SimonK

[Woodinblack]

28 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

Just for clarity I doubt DG is comping 5 solos because of mistakes, or any shred of sloppiness. 

 

Why? He is human and messes things up and sometimes it doesn't work. 

[wateroftyne]

7 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Why? He is human and messes things up and sometimes it doesn't work. 

Because I've listened to interviews with Bob Ezrin etc.

[Burns-bass]

1 hour ago, wateroftyne said:

Just for clarity I doubt DG is comping 5 solos because of mistakes, or any shred of sloppiness. He'll be playing a different thing each time and comping the best bits.

I know. Appreciate the clarification.

[SimonK]

Meanwhile Danny in Bradford is contributing this to the music industry (they may just be miming...):

 

 

[SteveXFR]

2 hours ago, SimonK said:

Meanwhile Danny in Bradford is contributing this to the music industry (they may just be miming...):

 

 

 

I quite like that. Good band name as well.

[TimR]

It's similar to auto tune on vocals. Used on every recording - then when you see a real singer they don't meet expectations.

 

I think we may already have covered bass players who can play several complex tunes at home in the bedroom along to the recordings, but can't play at a simple blues jam.

[Machines]

Initially I found him intolerable and typically clickbaity as is typical with modern social media.

 

However after listening to him a bit and some back story, he seems very humble, and a working class lad with no pretentiousness, also he says what he thinks without any brown nosing. I'd happily have a beer with him.

[Woodinblack]

41 minutes ago, TimR said:

It's similar to auto tune on vocals. Used on every recording - then when you see a real singer they don't meet expectations.

 

Not used on all recordings. And frankly you don't need the same thing live as you do on a recording.

 

 

41 minutes ago, TimR said:

I think we may already have covered bass players who can play several complex tunes at home in the bedroom along to the recordings, but can't play at a simple blues jam.

 

I don't there are many people who couldn't play at a blues jam, but maybe quite a few who wouldn't want to!

[Jackroadkill]

My first experience of playing live was at a blues jam, and it damn near put me off for life.

[Steve Browning]

Rather an unfortunate attitude, if I may be so bold. Everyone starts somewhere (you even state you first played live at a blues jam, maybe you put other people off?).

 

They can be a challenge when you have achieved a certain level, but it's good to play with novice players and help bring them along.

[Jackroadkill]

2 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Rather an unfortunate attitude, if I may be so bold. Everyone starts somewhere (you even state you first played live at a blues jam, maybe you put other people off?).

 

They can be a challenge when you have achieved a certain level, but it's good to play with novice players and help bring them along.

 

Steve, perhaps I should have given more context.  I had a very unwelcoming and even humiliating experience as a young man.  It was really grim; I was 18, had no live experience and only very basic chops.  I didn't realise it at the time but it was basically an excuse for one or two flash bastards on the local scene to polish their egos and belittle other players.  I was thoroughly belittled, to the point of being told that I couldn't play for toffee and should give up and stop wasting everyone's time.  I'm certainly not going to tar all blues jams with that brush, and have subsequently been involved with plenty that have been great, but that first experience nearly saw me giving up before I'd started.

 

 

[peteb]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

I don't there are many people who couldn't play at a blues jam, but maybe quite a few who wouldn't want to!

 

Having been in the house band for many blues jams, I beg to differ! 

 

[TimR]

I suggest some people maybe taking some comments too literally. 😀