I can second this too, but from the other side. I don't go to the gym, I definitely should and as a result of that I feel like shit, which definitely mirrors in the music production sometimes.

It is all about expectations. We get bombarded by news only about successful people. The industry is giving an impression that once you choose to be a producer, there is like 50%, 30% or at least a 15% cahnce you'll become the new young rising star. That forces everyone to hope for the best as the chances appear to be worth the pain.

Problem is that what we don't see is amount of aspiring producers. The number is much greater than number of those who made it. Also we don't see number of hours that even those quickest rising guys had to put in to get where they are.

...so if you add 1+1 together, being an aspiring producer can mean to put all your life in, all your time and money in and have only slight chance of achieving what you'd like to achieve. ...unless you set your expectations reasonably lower.

Yep. If you make music just at home, buy a desktop PC. Just for the the upgradability alone.

If you are on the go, I'd go for regular laptop with active cooling. (Meaning a fan and a heatpipe.)

Those really slim laptops / tablet-laptop hybrids tend to have really small fan, or are even passive cooled. (Meaning the heatpipe is not cooled by fan, but by being connected to casing of the device.) What can happen is that eventhough you have i7 in there, it get's so hot inside that the processor reduces it's working frequency (thus power) in order to cool itself down, so it doesn'd damage itself. That's called throttling. Computing realtime multitrack audio with bunch of virtual sound sources is a quite demanding task, so you don't want throttling to be present too much. I didn't have the honor to use those Surfaces, but I'd be really careful while thinking about them for this job.

So if I were you and there was no option to go for desktop PC, I'd buy laptop that is not built so sleek, but has proper cooling inside. Gaming laptops are kind of cool for this, actually, as they are designed for heavier load, but don't cost you money of a proffesional workstation. ...they tend to be plastic-ish and bulky, though. But then it comes down to your priorities.

EDIT: To end it on positive note though, if you already have the Suface Pro, just test if it doesn't overheat under your usual load. (load some finished project and play it) Then if the CPU power is enough for you, you're good to go as you are.

I recently recovered HDD with some old tracks of mine from like 6-8 years ago. Dunno if something changed, but judging from those tracks, i pretty much WAS a failure back then. I'm really sorry to anyone I've send any of those at any time. ...also I'm kind of surprised I still have any friends.

But you know what's funny about that? I remembered those tracks being much cooler then they actually were. In comparison with my recent work (or with any kind of music what so ever ), they actually suck really bad. Though my newer stuff is still far from perfect, there is a proof that some progress happened. ...and it wouldn't have happened If I concluded that I'm not mentally strong enough back then.

But yeah, it sure isn't an easy ride. Bertie South is absolutely right about your expectations. Set them quite low actually, because that's the only way you're not gonna be hurt when guys younger then you get to live your long time dream. ...whatever the dream might be.

Quote from: FarleyCZ on February 02, 2016, 06:42:54 pm

Quote from: Xan on February 02, 2016, 12:21:46 pm

I told my lil' supersaw to drink a glass of milk everyday so he would grow of big.

Worked for me.

Do you sport with it? Because I showel a bottle of milk down my supersaw's throat every single day and it doesn't get bigger. It gets fatter, lazier, depressed about bass being more strong and punchy, but it just won't get bigger.

Get his fat ass to the gym then.

Problem is that gym is full of young guys. Growly basses, vocal chops, granular pads. They laugh at an old supersaw. Calling it names like "JP-f**k-thousand", "ScooterLead", "CascadaLover" ... it always cries and runs to it's firends for help. I mean yeah, it's cool it has some friends, but oldschool reese and donk bass? Dunno...

It's been ages since I tried FL, but isn't there a plain simple freeze function somewhere?

I'm surprised to see so many redditers. Seems like it really is the forefront of the internet nowadays.

For me kick, bass and snare in the center, the rest I try to pan all over the place, so there is some nice diversity in the stereo field. More important thing, more in center it goes. So vocal or lead might be also in center, or like +-5. (Ableton's units.) ...and less important instruments/layers can be further away. (+- 10/17/30/40 ... depending on context). More you pan though, more important is to balance each panned element by another one on the other side. (I like when those two are different from each other.)

Duplicating elements and hard-panning them is nonsense. You still provide moreless the same sound to both ears, so even when stereoscope might show some nice pictures (due to random OSC phases), it's still pretty much mono.

This idea comes from rock and roll world, where they often have the guitarist play the backing powerchord track twice and then they hard-pan the recordings against each other. Difference is, that he's a human, so he made tiny mistakes on different places during both performances. Those differences assure different information for each ear, thus it sounds huge. So if you really need stupidly crazy big supersaw/lead/stab/whatever, you have to make sure they are different enough for each ear. So make different modulations, detune settings, even sime differences in note timing can help. ...but also, out of a listener perspective, please don't bother. These huge in your face sounds are kind of boring. Delicate diversified ballanced stereo field is imho much nicer to listen to.