Hey guys so I've been thinking. Which one do you think results in a more productive work ethic? Do you think it's more productive to focus on results. (Today I'm gonna finish the arrangement) or the amount of hours producing? (Today I'll produce for 8 hours).

I quit my full time job a month ago (My business supports me) and one thing that I kind of got used to was the the 8 hour shift. If I could dedicate 40 hours a week working at some shitty job then I figured I can do the same with music. The only thing is that sometimes those 8 hours aren't always the most productive.

The other day I just made it my goal to focus on specific aspect of the new song I was working on. (By the end of the day I want to have "this" done.) Within 2 hours I found that I was more productive than when I spent 8 hours on something. I still feel like a halfass though if I don't spend at least 8 hours working because I've gotten used to the working at that old (shitty) job.

Which one do you guys think is more productive? Focusing on results or time? Also, how long do you think one can spend producing before they start seeing diminishing returns?

Those are all really nice feels

1:57 of this track takes me to a pretty beautiful place.


4:51 of this track made me WTF so hard 2 years ago back before I even produced. Just really intense.


This one makes me feel peace.


I can name soon many more but I'ma keep it simple. :)

Looking forward to seeing this debate unfold - I find this question hard to answer, quantitatively at least... Producing music and playing tangible instruments both involve an insane amount of passion, process, dedication, & refined technique, all of which are required for true artistic mastery in any field.

At the time of writing, I've been playing piano for around 12-13 years and I found it hard to start producing at first. It's a totally different monster with a totally different set of rules, like any extremely complicated instrument you could pick up and mess around with. Anyone can play the piano, anyone can produce music. When the argument is brought up that "anyone can make music on a computer", I bring up the argument that "anyone can make bad music on a computer", just like "anyone" can play something terrible on a piano. In both cases, the dedication to the craft makes all the difference.

So this being said, I think the only right way to measure and compare both is to take into account the time and work involved in mastering the two, which, imo, is the same for both.

Wow that's a long time playing piano! 

I agree that it's easy to produce or play an instrument badly. I found that there were a lot of similarities between both producing and playing an instrument though.

In the same way that getting stuck while producing can be frustrating I've also gone through the same feeling when trying to play something on an instrument that was beyond my capabilities to do so.

In the same way that some people open too many projects and never finish producing tracks there are a lot of instrumentalists who can play 8 bars of a song but aren't able to play the entire thing.

In the same way that you have to listen to something thousands of times while producing you have to listen to the music your learning thousands of times if you're learning it on an instrument via repetition.

In the same way that you sound like crap on an instrument for a long time you go through the same thing with producing. (Although in my experience the producing curve is much more steep)

So many similarities. I think I'm still going to have to say that producing is harder though. Only because of there being so many more elements involved. (Mixing, Arranging, Composition, Creativity Etc...)

Now the answer to your question is seriously difficult to arrive to, since there are a few stages of learning an instrument.. The first stage for me is learning enough to play something that sounds at least pleasant, for me that's chords I guess. The second stage IMO is to be able to spice it up a little (7ths, suspended chords etc.) and improvise. The third stage is being able to convey an emotion in what you play. If you were to add a fourth it'd be to just build on everything and become more impressive lol.

Now, to use that to answer the question, drums was really easy to be able to get something going. Piano took a little longer to learn all the chords + a basic knowledge of progressions and stuff. Guitar I learnt basics and chords very quickly, probably since I already had a chordal knowledge. Second stage on drums took longer than it did on piano, and longer than guitar. Then I hit a brick wall with drums. I reached a point where I found it insanely hard to progress - and it's not because I was really good, I'm still pretty crap. Piano on the other hand, progress skyrocketed. Guitar? Not so much (but maybe if I give it a bit more time).

At the moment I'd say guitar is difficult (to play well enough to impress people), but that's probably just cause I'm a pianist. You get me?

I definitely see where you're coming from. All the instruments have different learning curves. When it comes to producing though I feel like that learning curve is just so much more steep. I feel like it takes a longer time to get good at producing than it does to get good at an instrument.

I don't think soundcloud followers is an accurate measurement of whether you're making progress or not. Listen to the first track you made and then listen to the last track you made within those 10 months of producing and then you'll be able to be honest about whether you've been making progress.

You're music contains a sense of harmony and melody that I enjoy. I haven't listened to anything in detail but I'll just voice my opinion that your music isn't bad. It's not at a point where I'd consider it good enough to put in my iPod but I can tell that it's music.

Keep grinding my friend.

Hey guys so I just bought this omnidirectional mic. It's the Behringer ECM8000. I bought it because I heard that omnidirectional mics were needed to test room acoustic frequencies.

Here's what I did. I got a sine wave sweep and recorded the peaks in waves h-eq. This is what it looked like.



After I did that I recorded the same signal through my room using the ECM8000. I held it up in the same position that I use when listening to my monitors.

Here's what I got.



If these graphs are correct then as you can see my room adds a huge amount of coloration to the 100hz region. It also contains practically no sub bass and another pretty decent dip at the 1k region.

My question is... did I carry out this procedure accurately? When I listened to the sinewave sweep using my ears I was clearly able to hear the dips in my room.

Is there anything else I need to do to test out my room acoustics and now that I'm aware of the characteristics of my room what should I do about it?

I feel much more inspiration after reading/watching/doing something totally unrelated to music.

Yeah when I find myself getting too frustrated over something I find that doing other things help. The only problem with that is if you begin to use those other things as a tool for procrastination.

What motivates you to produce music?

Desire feat ayana is my favorite. Whats your vocal processing like?