I'm new to music production and I'm getting pretty overwhelmed. I read about people having some gear or some kind of plugin that I don't have. Massive, Sylenth, Reaktor, etc. Now I know I don't need all of the newest plugins or all the newest gear. I'm someone that has a passion for music.

You said it yourself right here.

Lemme tell you a story: I started when warez was a "cool thing to do". As time went by, I bought all my plugins. One by one. After that, I got a proper job (= kinda stable income), so I didn't stop there and bought (with some expansive exceptions) every damn new plugin i liked. Right now I have: 31 synths alone, then some samplers, effects ... kinda hell lot of stuff. Did it help me? Naah. I'm still usually not satisfied with what I create, even with so much gear. Except one bright moment I had no "real world" success even with so much gear. ...and guys much younger do much cooler music with Sylenth and FL studio then I'm able to make even with so much gear.

So at the end, if you're geeky enough and you're willing to buy it all, go ahead. But if you can't or don't want to, definitely don't feel obliged to by any mean. It's nice nerdy stuff to have, but it doesn't make you a better producer.

Quote from: FarleyCZ on February 23, 2016, 09:32:59 pm

I like to have there as little stuff as possible. The mud lives there. ...but also "warmness", so I take most "warm" instrument I have there and let it be possibly the ony one speaking to that range. ...or one of very few.

The mud I've found exists mainly in the 200z region. It's hard for me to intentionally leave it with as little instruments as possible because that's where I tend to place all my harmonic and melodic content.

Imho the trick to this are shallow filters, but higher in frequency than you'd actually give them otherwise. It doesn't break frequency ballance of the instrument too much as steep cut at 200hz would, but it pushes the low mid-end back quite nicely. You essentially don't get rid of that mud, but push it back, so "brighter" parts can shine a bit more.

Oh man, I'm getting old. People don't know Enigma anymore.
He probably ment this producer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_sAHh9s08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1wUVExfkkM

Seems nice. I like big volume buttons.

Aaand here goes the "most stupid alias/nickname" dishonor.

I liked this (by today standards pretty silly) movie when I was a kid. There was an extremely clumbsy character named "Lawerence Farley". I was, and still am, extremely clumbsy too, so I chosed his surname as a nickname on various internet forums. ...and there was a lot of them.
The catch is, I didn't realize two things:
1. Chris Farley, the comedian, existed. ...which makes that alias virtually "ungooglable".
2. Choosing surname as alias is pretty stupid idea as there might be other people who acually have that surename trying producing too.
...and that happened. So, quite uncreativelly, I added few letters. Trainwreck.

I thought about changing it, but as my only kind of a "real world" success was a remix competition, resulting in a collab that has this sh*tty alias on it, I think I might keep it. Or naah? Dunno.

I like to think that stuff I make is that kind of music you get back to when the party is over. Electronic, still cool a little, but with a story and feelings behind it. If I succeed in that goal, that's for you to judge.

Also doubts. In both ways, bad and good. I've been on the internet way too long, seen way too many advices, seen some guys becoming really good at this. It left me with some feelings about which advices are acually valuable and which ones are total bullcrap. And this one is actually one of them. ...and more people worry about it, more bullcrap it gets.
Here's the logic: People who run labels and all the promoters are still people. They all have a taste. Some broad, some narrow, but they have it. It's their role/job to have it. They recieve more and more stuff over time. They can't release a same percentage of it all the time, so they make their selection narrower, but by the same taste they have. So it doesn't actually matter if you're most inovative artist on the planet, or most percise moombathon producer on the planet, unless that particular guy doesn't like your particular track, it makes no difference. So at the end, doing whatever the fu*k you like and hope for the best is probably the best option.

I know this is subjective, and Steve Duda is highly skeptical of people criticizing its "warmth" based on unquantifiable data...but it's just my opinion.)

I'm with him on thisone. ...it usually means the filter does something extra like saturation. His goal was to make ultra clean synth. This might be a biproduct of it. Those filters are AFAIK Andrew Simper's ones. He made the Glue and The Drop. I think he knows his way around a filter.

Back to topic:
I have kinda lot of ideas about new plugins. I even forced myself to learn a bit of Reaktor so I could try to patch few of them right away. (Caution, it EEEAAATTTSSS time.) Here's my life plan: Where i'm like 40, after a mid-life crysis and all that stuff, I'll dive into DSP programming! One idea I think about a lot is to make a convolution synth. It would have just a simple (may be just sine?) OSC, and you'd generate harmonics by thowing it through one or more impulse responses from provided library. Those IR's would be wierd. Recorded by running impulse through wierd unusuall stuff. Like a guitar body, or metal tube, or surface of a table, a string ... you get the idea. (If some DSP programmer sees this, go ahead, make it. I want to use it ASAP. ...and let me know so i can watch it beaing made! )

^ This is a good one.