...anything music related you know you shouldn't listen to or do?

Me for example, I shamefuly like some Max Martin-ish pop. ...and it's nowadays variants. I'm kinda boyband resistant, which is pretty guilty for a guy.

...or while production itself, i like to try big looong epic pads with every track. Eventhough it doesn't fit it sometimes.

Yours?

EDIT: And what makes pleasures guilty anyway?

Ok, one thing I really battle with every single track is losing my judgement over whether the track is any good by over-listening to it.

It drove me crazy for few years. I've figured out that fresh set of ears might help, but sending the track to family or friends was no help, because their tastes were usually too different. That ment the usual response was: "Wow, cool. I wouldn't be able to do that." ...which is a nice compliment, but totally useless as an advice.

Like year ago though, I bumped on Facebook into really likeminded local guy with quite similar taste. ...also producing. We had quite a few really cool conversations about music. I found out this was the key as I could validate my ideas through his ears. ...and vice versa. We can exchange constructive criticism. I have a mean to find out if the stuff I'm working on isn't happening to be a total sh*t. But recently it feels to me like I might start to bother him a bit by those WIPs. It could be kinda tideous...

...so it got me thinking. Do you have friends that you can quickly bounce ideas of? If so, how do you keep them ... eh ... sane?

Here's a track to set the topic's mood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2H4l9RpkwM

We all have them. We all fight them. So let's start a little group therapy here:

I fight with several bad habits:
- I have a big fear that I might upload something that I like, but it's actually sh***y. Happened before, wasn't nice, thus the fear.
- I have this urge to make a prominent melody even when it's not needed, or when it's actually a bad idea.
- I forget about how important little details are.
- I press play and try to come up with next step when the song is playing. That makes over-listening comming really quick every time.
- I don't give up on projects that even kill me to listen to. Big one.
- I tend to do mix adjustments after the track was uploaded to soundcloud.
- I do prety drastic musical changes really late in production process. That makes re-sampling totally irelevant technique for me.
...and more.

What's yours?

(Caution, really nerdy topic comming...)

Ok few days back I was struggling with few mixdowns. It's like a circle, it always comes to part when I like the sound on it's own, but it's muddy in comparison with profi stuff. So I usually go back and cut more and more low midrange from different elements until it's a bit comparable.

...but recently, I was listening to some really old music and noticed pretty similar muddy sound. Such old recordings are often used as a proof of oldschool analogue mixing being superior to digital as it sounds less "digital" and more "warm". So the theory is: Isn't this difference caused just by different "styles" of mixing? Isn't this just a biproduct of today's loudness war forcing us to make low mids weaker and stuff over 2k louder?

Now you probably say: "Dude doesn't know what he's talking about. There's way more to analogue warmth than frequency response." And you're right, but is there really such a magical difference? If you AB straight digital and analog, you find combination of three differences. Effects you might say. Saturation, pitch inconsistency and altered frequency response. But more pricey the studio equipment was back then, less of these problems were there anyway . Also apply any tape-sim on a track and make a dip in low mids. Yup, you get some new harmonics making highend a bit richer, but you probably wouln't call it "warm" anymore.

How much you guys "praise" analog wamness? Isn't it possible that some of it might have been caused just by a mixing style back then?

Age old question. What's your approach?

I guess one of the ways is to force yourself to work quickly. ...there's even this thread on TPF about average time spent on a track. But in it, there's really cool TeeBee's post about spending at least 150+ hours on a track. His tracks are extremely complex, so it's still relatively quick I guess, but anyway... To all of the guys who just can't force themselfs to rush, how do you manage to not get tired of your own ideas?

Ok, guys, sorry If I turn the vibe down a bit, but ... I kinda can't hold it.

I think I might not be the only one here who felt in love with this hobby some years ago. It's awesome hobby, probably coolest there can be, but sometimes it has it's dark sides. (Vader jokes in 3...2..1... ) What I mean by that is, eventhough it's first and foremost about the music, about the emotions, you can't stop the world around you. Trust me, I've tried.

First two or three years it's so cool. You work on your new hobby. BTTF shit. You're life's completely unwritten. Who the hell knows what it might lead to? So liberating from the real world ... and cool at the same time.

The next three years, you start to doubt, if you just didn't find a right source of information to learn from, or if you're just useless. Especially as younger guys then you start to appear with songs you'd kill for to be able to make. (That one really hurts at the time.) ...the hobby's still really cool. But the lifes starts to throw some reality checks in your way. Colledge, uni, life plans, money... Everything somehow connects back to the hobby. You need time for it, place for it, some gear for it. Also your friends invest their life in different hobbies, doing well. But damn. That piano, that synth, it always works right? It gets you out of everything.

But then another two years pass and ... your friends still support you, but not becouse your hobby is cool anymore. It's becouse it's just you now. That unwritten life starts to define itself pretty clearly. You're that guy, who tries to produce for years, who's never satisfied with himself. That's just it. And what's worst, sometimes even that piano and synths don't cure it anymore. Believing in your own stuff becomes hard, becouse you know you're gonna listen to it few years later and cringe. You start to procrastinate from the hobby you've put a big chunk of your life into. ...and that sucks, becouse you know it can make you happy. It just isn't that frequent anymore...

If anybody's been through something like this ... what got you out of it? Becouse I feel like i need to find something ASAP.

...also, for the newbies: That saying: Keep your feet on the ground and eyes in the skies. Don't forget about the feet part. It might kinda hurt in the future.