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Messages - wayfinder

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Inspiration/Creativity/Motivation / Re: Do you listen to your own music
« on: November 15, 2016, 07:51:12 am »
Having something to listen to is one of the main reasons I make music in the first place. So yeah, I listen to my music a lot.

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I think you have a very fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of creativity.

Any creative output is always a re-combination of input. There is no innate place from which a pure and untainted emotion flows just as long as we don't ruin it with outside knowledge.

There's nothing spoiled by learning how music works (which is notably different from "how music should work"!)

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R&A Graveyard / Re: "Finished Tracks" Section Sucks rn
« on: January 18, 2016, 07:57:28 am »

We've already established that there are more people posting music than feedback.
Have we, though? You've said it, but that's not the same thing. :)


- Is it really a problem if tracks have just one or two people's feedback? Why?

- Is it really a problem if someone with a low post count receives feedback on a track? Why? Why do you consider some people's tracks "spam"? What do you think they want out of the experience? Is it any different from what someone with a three-digit post count wants? Why do you think it's unfair that they receive feedback? Feedback is something for the person who leaves it to give, not something to which you're entitled (or not entitled!)

- If you enforce an amount of feedback given, you encourage the sort of useless alibi feedback posts you ostensibly decry (and you will discourage people from giving any feedback at all if you try to enforce quality standards for it, yes, even those whose feedback would meet them.) I believe your scheme would overall decrease the amount and quality of feedback given, except maybe from a handful of people—and by your rules only they would be allowed to ask for more feedback, so you'd be effectively closing off the section for most everyone else.

- The people who struggle to give meaningful feedback are the ones who need good feedback the most. You say that emotional feedback is "probably just as important as any technical feedback", well there you went and made your own feedback quality rules redundant, because "sick drop bro" is some valid-ass emotional feedback, even if you may prefer it in more flowery language. Also love the threatening note on which you end the quote: "As long as you're sincere and openly show that you're trying to give quality feedback, I don't think there should be a problem." What happens if there is a problem? Who determines that? You sure left the door open to make it a problem if you wanted to!

- That stasi shit about reporting people for infractions is hella creepy. What is this, some kind of police state? Relax! Maybe if a track didn't get a lot of feedback, that's feedback in itself.

You're trying to turn this into a job, and feedback into a kind of currency, when it's really something that can only be freely given.



Final note:

Provide an alternative and explain why it's better. You're not contributing by just saying "oh that wouldn't work" and leaving it at that.
That is a) wrong, b) an unreasonable demand to make, and c) certainly not yours to demand in the first place. People do contribute by pointing out faulty reasoning, even when they don't come up with a complete alternative plan. You're not the King of Posting Who Makes the Rules Around Here, and nobody is under compulsion to jump through the hoops you hold up.

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Mixing/Mastering / Re: Don't trust your ears!
« on: January 17, 2016, 12:50:09 am »
Perhaps I have misunderstood what your aim in making this thread was. It wouldn't surprise me, this is my third language and you've been excessively flowery and baroque at times. I keep alternating between thinking you're looking for super-overspecific advice and feeling like what you're looking for is so vague and broad as to be completely trivial. Pretty much anything else in between those two extremes can already be found in various states of discussion on these forums.

Nobody said you can't learn stuff from books and courses, they're super good to find techniques to try, habits to form, and so on; I say you cannot learn from them about the specific material you are working on, because there hasn't been anything quite like it yet. A solid education will give you solid defaults, but it will not give you a magic bullet. How do you think the people who write the books and courses have arrived at their knowledge? Education-directed trial and error is certainly quicker, but it's not qualitatively different from self-learning, and the absence of formal or otherwise outside-facilitated education doesn't preclude anyone from good results or knowledge in the field.

This mythical Heavenly Script in which "professionals" supposedly converse does not exist. Anyone who knows what a roux is and how to prepare it will certainly not think less of someone else's delicious sauce because they called it "thickening it up with flour and a lil' butter" and didn't use the magic word. Unless they're kind of a dick. Game recognize game, not "knowing the rulebook".

You appear to be chasing a ghost, and if that's what you want to do then do it. You'll be happy if that chase is what you're looking to get out the experience. But if you want to improve your skills, you're going to stay unhappy with this approach.

My final advice is, work music-centric: don't think of the tools of the trade as things to be perfected for their own sake. Think of them as tools to correct discrete, specific problems in actual material that you're working on.

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Mixing/Mastering / Re: Don't trust your ears!
« on: January 16, 2016, 10:59:52 pm »
Sorry mate, you're still treating this as if it were some kind of RPG where you can learn spells and level up, that's just not how it works. If you are having trouble dealing with ambiguity, I can respect that and deal with it; I have friends who are on the autism spectrum and face similar problems. What I cannot do is change reality so that it conforms to your expectations.

The approach that works consistently is

1. identify problem
2. solve problem and remember how you did it
3. if still not happy with it, identify another problem and goto 2.
4. call it finished

The types of problems and possible solutions are too plentiful to create a manual for every situation, and the problems themselves are so specific to the material that there can be no one-size-fits-all solution. I'm telling you that what you want to do is not possible. The best we can do is gain experience and find things to try, with which, look around you, these forums are already positively brimming. There's no difference between "pro" techniques that will take an amateur's efforts to release-ready levels on the one side, and "regular" techniques that can easily be found and performed by novices on the other. There's no platinum-level strategy and no way of talking about the mix that, if only you could be taught it, would make you a "top-level producer". It's only through persistence in identifying problems in your specific material and solving them in any way that works that your output will consistently improve.


edit: The concept of design patterns is useful in the context of programming, but perhaps less so in the field of music. The industry respected technique here is the one that results in the best sounding product. There are no extra points for doing it the "correct" way.

6
How do you remix someone and still manage to spell their name wrong?!

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Composition/Arrangement/Theory / Re: Spicy, interesting chords
« on: January 16, 2016, 10:13:48 am »
Suspended ;)

Adding the II to a major is the Good Morning Chord! I love that :)

8
You should be a little more specific than that! When I look at my archive of unused parts, I've labeled many of them with mood keywords, but I try to stay away from just calling them "emotional" because that's an empty label that says nothing about which emotion it actually is.

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Mixing/Mastering / Re: Don't trust your ears!
« on: January 16, 2016, 09:57:08 am »


To me, the take-away from this thread is that you should trust your ears, and I feel like it's not been made clear enough that there's really no clear line that separates "industry-standard", "top producers", "professional tracks" from the rest of the world, no sudden insights and industry secrets kept from novices. It's a lot more like adulthood instead, which (attention young people: spoilers!) we all kinda fake. An entire world is indeed winging it to a certain extent.

This fetishization of having fool proof methods to succeed and achieve "professional quality" is a detraction.


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Samples/Plugins/Software/Gear / Re: Does anyone use ZynAddSubFX?
« on: January 16, 2016, 09:39:16 am »
For what it's worth, I've had it crash on me quite often.

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You know, when you're not paying 100% attention, 'Korg Minilogue' looks a lot like 'Kylie Minogue' in the corner of your eye :P

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Mixing/Mastering / Re: Getting a mix sounding good in earbuds?
« on: January 15, 2016, 11:16:35 am »
Is it like that on any earbuds, or just that one pair? And do other tracks (ie not made by you) do the same thing?

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R&A Graveyard / Re: "Finished Tracks" Section Sucks rn
« on: January 15, 2016, 11:09:16 am »
Ok, give me a simpler solution.
Stop counting beans and worrying so much over who 'deserves' to get feedback. It's a court of popularity, and no amount of dictatorship will improve that.


edit: I did have a suggestion earlier in the thread though: http://theproducersforum.com/index.php?topic=1106.msg7644#msg7644

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R&A Graveyard / Re: "Finished Tracks" Section Sucks rn
« on: January 15, 2016, 08:23:56 am »
Guys, I really believe most of you are super overthinking this.

That's what I'm saying...

I meant you too :D

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