I do understand your rant, I encounter lots of bad music myself.

Ok. Just to reiterate what I have already said in my original post, the rant wasn't about good or bad music. I was actually very specific. The rant was about the fact that the people without any background in music and no ear training don't think it's important to work on developing their ears, despite the fact that your ears are the most important tool you own in this production thing. That's all.

But no rant in the world will change a thing about this. If you think you can change the world into a place without bad music, well, you simply can't.

Actually that's not entirely true. I feel that if it's mentioned enough, people will become aware. Here's a good example:

There was a time, I don't know... probably 2/3 years ago when the reddit folk over at r/edmproduction were really big on the whole 'you gotta make your own samples to be a legit producer' crap. I remember a time when people were down voted because they said it wasn't that important to be able to design your own sounds and writing good music is way more important than all the other stuff. I was one of those people who got down voted repeatedly and relentlessly. However, I've seen an obvious change (for the better) over at r/edmproduction. These days, everyone agrees that the composition itself is more important than whether you made the sounds yourself.. sample packs are cool now. This is because more and more people were vocal about it, 'ranting' about it if you will. And after some time, more people became more aware, and then boom! It's widely accepted, acknowledged and taken into account for.

This forum is the perfect place to be saying the stuff I said in my rant. I find that people here are way more open minded and there are a lot more people on the same wavelength, in comparison to the people who frequent r/edmproduction. I feel that most of the people here really are here to learn and get better at production.. I mean, this is a production forum after all. I've found some fantastic mixing and mastering advice from the Mixing/Mastering section, some of this info was very detailed and stuff that I've never come across before, not even in r/edmproduction or anywhere else for that matter.

So your appeal to these people is useless because nobody thinks about themselves they belong to this category. I never met anyone who says 'Hey, I write clashing melodies'. They just are unaware. It's like doing an appeal to all 'dumb' people. Nobody thinks about him/herself as being stupid. So nobody thinks the appeal is addressed to them.

Ok, maybe it's just me, but if things were different and I wasn't ZAU and I had zero background on music theory and I had really shitty ears, I would read ZAU's post and ask myself, 'Hmm, do I have shitty ears? Maybe I do.. maybe I should work on it'. If the person/people who fall into this category care enough about music and loved it that much, they would probably read the post, get over themselves and actually get something out of the post. But again, maybe it's just me. And this is something I actually did/went through, but in the mixing game. I admitted to myself that I was really shitty in mixing. My mixes were laughed at before. I was hurt, but not that hurt.. I took all of that pain and threw it right back. I started at the very beginning and practiced and did as much as I could to get better, and I did. I'm no Dave Pensado, but at least I'm not the ZAU 'who couldn't mix at all'. I just suck a little less at mixing these days, and I continue to work on it and get better. Because I love music and production enough, and I've gotten over myself and my own ego a very long time ago.

Why is it that generally, people don't hesitate to throw mixing advice out there, that it's such a necessity to be good at it, and the minute someone talks about equally important stuff like ear training, suddenly it becomes a topic that only elitists talk about and not meant for beginners? I think I know the answer. Maybe it's because it's something relatively new that nobody really talks about and something that perhaps some people have not admitted to suck at. This is what I'm getting at. It needs to be addressed somehow, so that the people who are unaware become 'aware'.

Also, if I sounded angry in my original post, well, that's because I did preface the whole thing as being a 'rant'.

First off, read the post again, thoroughly.

I agree that ear training is important and everything but you can't just go tell everyone "hey stop what you're doing because you have shitty ears" Developing your ears is a long process that takes years of critical listening.

Actually what I said was, "hey stop what you're doing because you have shitty ears, so go and work on some ear training". You left out the most important part of what I was saying. I said that if you don't have good ears, you should be working on them, training your ears to be able to really 'hear' what exactly is happening in the music. Because one thing for the most part that I've noticed is that a lot of people tend to be caught up trying to master mixing and all that stuff, when in reality they can't even really hear the music they're making. Their priorities are at the wrong places. You can still work on other things simultaneously but ear training should be your priority if your ears are shitty.

Can you honestly say that you were born being able to hear harmonies, melodies, arpeggios, reverb, delay, compression, balance, stereo and all that right from the get go?

I mean I did mention several times, I called it Ear TRAINING. Not magically having these skills when you are born, or when I was born, or whatever. I never even remotely implied that.

It sounds to me like you're upset because of how little it takes with technology for someone to call themselves a producer

Nope again, not at all. Technology is doing a lot of great things for a lot of people, including myself. I'm not upset about that, but I do get upset when I hear people releasing music that tells me that the guy who produced it can't even hear that he has both major and minor key centers going off at the same time. You're a guitarist. You should know exactly what I'm talking about. 

It's because of the availability of music technology that people like Virtual Riot, Madeon, & Seven Lions were ever able to get as good as they are.

Madeon and Seven Lions are terrible examples of this because they actually learned how to play the piano/guitar, away from technology.

Maybe the reason why you never hear clashing notes in any of Andrew Bayers or Skrillex's music is because they've been doing this for at least a decade. -_-

Nope, actually the biggest reason why there aren't any clashing notes in Skrillex's music is because he started out playing the guitar (and drums), he was into rock music long and playing in bands before he got into electronic music. Skrillex has amazing ears, and you will know very early on if you're playing with 3 or 4 dudes and you are playing a clashing note, if you can't hear it yourself, I'm pretty sure the other dudes in the band will tell you.

(Although I would prefer dissonance as a substitute)

To me, dissonance can imply something that is pleasing to the ear. For example, a minor 9th interval (again, I'm sure you know what that is). I hear minor 9ths a lot in 20th century classical music, and it sounds cool. I also hear it in big band horn arrangements, but they only occur for very brief intervals, like 1/16th notes and 1/32nd notes. But when I hear a minor 9th interval in the context of electronic music and used in a sustained chord over the span of 4 measures, then that just sounds awful and 'clashing'.

Again, read the post thoroughly.

there are beginners out there who are just starting out

Yes, and I mentioned this too.. that they should make ear training their main priority.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying my guitar playing is exceptionally good (it definitely isn't

Dammit. I was really looking forward to hearing you play the blues like a blind homeless man, only because you said that you could.

I can't figure it out

For which sound(s)? The leads? The piano?
?

I know that Zedd uses a lot of Native Instruments stuff. I think some brass instrument, possibly Session Horns Pro was used during the 'drop'.

wow, awesome!

do.
do something.
do anything.

YES.
 

Loving this interview.

Cool. Because you have a long way to go.

That's a good interview

It's not an interview.