I actually see an ethical problem with this, even though in functional terms I think it's a good idea.

The ethical problem is as follows:

Music production requires a lot of sitting and staring a computer. This tends to weed out people who don't like that aspect of it, which means people on this forum are more into staring at computer screens than the average. This also means people on this forum are pre-disposed to internet addiction.

Part of why internet addiction is such a big problem is that basically everything on the internet is designed to provide instant gratification. Web- and software-designers, in so many words, are actually trained to provide this instant gratification (though we tend to sugar-coat it with terms like "good feedback" and "dynamic interaction").

Forums are nice because you don't get immediate gratification. You write your message, then you have to go away for a while and come back because you know nobody will respond instantly. Going away for a while makes it harder for you to get sucked in. Another positive side-effect of this is that people on forums write better, more thoughtful responses, because we all understand that there's this lag: you have more time to write, which also means more time to read.

A chatroom-type experience destroys that, because the response is immediate. Chatrooms also compound the "fear of being left out" problem that also feeds internet addiction.

I think the best thing this forum can do for its users is provide an efficient, concentrated way to exchange knowledge, coupled with natural limits that encourage people to go away and do something else for a while (like, hey, make music maybe?).

Just ignore him, he's a troll. Chatroom-type experiences are fine, and don't do any of the things he alleges they do nearly as much as he says they do. I spent most of my formative years hanging out on webforums and chat rooms, but not once did I ever feel like I was "missing out" on something. In fact, the only times I've ever felt like I was "missing out" on something because of social media in any form was when I was physically at an event like a show or a convention and decided to go leave the area of the event and/or go back to my hotel room to rest and checked my twitter feed or whatever.

It just goes back to the same sort of thing that has been brought up every time he tries to crap all over someone else's idea for a better way to interact with the website outside of your browser - if you're truly as incapable of shutting off the internet as he's claiming, just don't even sign onto this forum and only make music! Cancel your internet subscription, lock your phone in a box, and only connect to the outside world when you want to release content. Having the internet on can totally distract you from making music, but the KIND of stimulus is hardly relevant. You can get just as addicted to a webforum as you can to a chat room or your Facebook if there's enough people posting regularly (take Reddit, for example).

For those of us who have some self-control and a sense of personal responsibility, a chat room is just a great asset for communication, tech support, and even promoting content. The only people who would have a trouble with a dedicated chat room like IRC are going to be the people who would have found any excuse not to make music, because they're not really that committed to it. Trying to remove other people's ability to effectively communicate just because you are incapable of using it appropriately is just plain silly.

IRC is a nice idea. But as wayfinder pointed out, we could need someone in power here to manage the channel and at least be somewhat active. If someone is willing to do that then I'm all for this, otherwise I can't see it happening.

I agree with Galaxi, without someone to manage thwe channel I can kind of see the chat room to just be a 'general discussion' chat room instead of a committed producers talk chat room.

A discord channel might be a good idea.

Might need invitation only, but that's not so hard to set up with link shorten tools and what not

/r/trap uses discord it seems to work very well.

A chatbox / chat room could totally butcher this place as a forum whilst bringing us together as a community. Idk it's a tradeoff / a risk.

I disagree that it would butcher anything. IRC channels have existed since the start of the internet and they have never butchered message boards.

A few gentlemen have logged into Discord and some nice conversations were had, conversations that would have no place in a message board, but it's not like you're gonna search through chat logs to find useful information -- that's what the forum is for.

Whoever created that server needs to show up. We're headless right now. I offer myself as OP. I use Discord all the time.