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I started this as a comment in bla's blog about doing shit the hard, stupid way, but decided to expand the idea to its own rant/blog/whine.
Every time I've listened to cbit,ml,delta,implexgrace,lowlifi,nq,adjective,albatrocity or, really just alot of you who create these sounds and tracks I just cannot figure out, I think I MUST be doing shit the hard, stupid way, and even if I weren't, it would still take more time and devotion to finish one track than I have to spare. I usually spend the four to six hours I can alot per week just getting a melody or wrestling with the technology, and lose the spark and give up. I have about 3 hours of recorded melody and bassline ideas saved as impromptu clips from just the last year, since I posted that gearpron blog. I also have a few saved sequences going back 8 years that are all between 20 seconds and a minute, and they each took days to get to that point.
Some of you peeps here should hold classes for money on how to do this stuff right, with a curriculum, demos, assignments and so forth. By the end, I would be able to use the tools in the class to make compositions without once getting lost or stuck. There could probably be one style per course. I'd pay for that, seriously. If you were worried about giving up trade secrets, consider it a motivator to come up with new sounds and teach the old, standard stuff.
It reminds me of learning Linux or Unix: There's often only one way to get the shell to do what you want in a certain situation, and you could spend years learning the OS and never get enough of it down to make it work for you completely, whereas you can find your way around windows or OSX in one sitting. Just to get one command to work, sometimes you have to read and read and read and read and read and read and read and you finally find that what you needed ends up being a difference of three characters from what you origianlly typed.
If someone had been standing over your shoulder and you'd asked one simple question, hours or even days would not be lost.
This whole music thing is just like that for me, mostly in terms of technique for generating timbres I hear in music posted here, but also to a great degree on sequencing and producing non-repetitive drums that sound good. If someone stood behind me and said "You start with this drum loop, easily found online, and run it through this chain of free plugins to get this specific sound, then use this magic thingy to chop it up" then I could apply it and better focus on how to creatively arrange it into a track. Maybe it would change later, but it's part of the process, and impedes progress until the task is done.
I spend copious amounts of time either trying to get something simple that doesn't sound like ass or trying and often failing just to get the software to cooperate. It isn't fair that you spend all this money and the software crashes or doesn't work like expected, yet it's overwhelming with all the possibilities and directions to go when it works.
Timing is a big, big problem for me, even with some jittery plugins, and especially when trying to sync two apps together when both vendors were too arrogant or incompetent to allow their product to be a Rewire slave. Most importantly, Midi jitter and latency from the external devices can make life miserable, and you start to imagine timing problems that aren't even there.
I can see how those of you who only possess a PC and a controller, and use one main sequencing application, with an arsenal of plugins, can get so much done. But even then, I constantly hear things posted here that sound like if I tried to do them, they would take two lifetimes to finish. So many notes, so many events, and how much of it was done by hand versus not? And "I know that that sound there resembles a snare, but how did it get that way?", and on and on. I just get angry that I don't understand how it was done, and possibly because I know I would never have the time to do it right. I start trying to reverse-engineer little tidbits from all the different posts into my own ideas, and just get frustrated. This has been going on since I first noticed em411 in June 2003.
It's clear there is a new breed of virtuoso, as evidenced by RDJ,Tom Jenkinson,etc. whose proficiency lies in manipulating software to compose and produce, and in comparison, maybe I'm the chimpanzee with my typewriter. But I can't help thinking there are just some key techniques and ideas that no one mentions because they take them for granted, yet I've never even thought to try them, despite reading posts here regularly for five years. I've asked people on this forum how they did this or that before, and usually people either don't remember, or it's too complex to explain. But I have to wonder how many of those people ever read books, took classes or the like. More than likely, this modern method of composition and production is mostly self-taught for nearly everyone who tries it and succeeds.
I know, I know. Just get in there and do it with no expectations right? If it sounds like ass, then at least you had fun, right? I've made piles of infantile,amateur tripe for 11 years now, and nearly all of it is incomplete. I want to do something I can actually publish and be proud of. Not for once: For good. | |
Comments
06/07/08
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dach
how about the sequencing, are you individually moving around hundreds of tiny tiny sound pieces? happy accidents or careful planning?
06/07/08
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cbit
dach said: "are you individually moving around hundreds of tiny tiny sound pieces?"
Yes. But focusing on one bar at a time, one sound at a time, it's manageable, ad not overwhelming. And even in tracks like gang gene etc, there's lots of sonic repetition. Rather than starting from scratch for every 1/16 sliver of sound, it's more like you've copy pasted something, then you're going to change it somehow.
dach said: "happy accidents or careful planning?"
Happy accidents are subjected to careful editing, carefully arrangement and if they're particularly happy ones, they're carefully left alone ;)
re. Planning in general: I can only think a couple of 'moves' ahead, like a lousy chess player. Ppl with real musical chops like assdroid are the people to talk to about planning.
06/07/08
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deltasleep
Personally, I'd recommend that you either collaborate with someone or start remixing. Thats the kind of work that took my focus away from sounds and into songs. I plotted out like 3.5 minutes in my sequencer, and that helped me arrange my pacing so that I kept intensity high and didn't waste time.
And if you ever want to know how to do anything you've heard from me, just ask.
I'd give you some long winded explanation of my creative process, but it's not going to do you any good cause it's not yours.
06/08/08
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daswesen
I really like fredo's advice. I've been stuck on doing sounds like other people did them, but i think my progress and own satisfaction was the biggest when i got down with the one piece of gear i have, and tried to learn it inside out. I discovered a lot of stuff doing that, and the cool thing is that it all feels "my own" now, and there is no frustration in the process. I often put some track I like, listen to it for a few secs, and then dive back in into what I was doing. It never sounds the same at all, but the small listening segments help me to not get stuck. Also, often when fooling around you discover some stuff and you go all "AHA, so that's how they do that sound" and it takes all the magic of it 
06/08/08
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zfigz
don't be hard on yourself and realize quality takes time.
06/08/08
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monkvolcano
this is a great thread..
cbit thanks for all the technical advice. You are very humble to share your secrets.
here's my advice:
1. learn as much technical stuff as possible from all the smart people around here
2. google "beginners mind"
06/08/08
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lematt
well... it's an infinite discussion !
my advice is that i hate the "track" format. too short.
i also think that the tunes that come out quickly are oftn the bests. also: the one that make you laugh during the composition are good
06/08/08
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lematt
also: it's good sometimes to shamelessly don't do anything. that's the best part of being an "artist".
06/08/08
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implexgrace
i appreciate the mention, but i gotta tell you.. what i do is completely uncomplicated in practice. it is the whole philosophy behind it that makes it even worth anything because i think about timbre and resonance and space and time and i think of words that i would want my music to be described as and i turn the words into sound.. sometimes quite litteraly (using voices)
however, i really like monkvolcano's idea to google "beginner's mind"
that shit is very zen and very much resonates with mer personally and what i try to do
good call there
additionally, expanding your ability to think abstractly is seriously HUGE. currently, i am re-reading 'zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance' and it is seriously a fucking great book. i also like really weird new age texts... like 'the urantia book' i read a lot. and interperated. and process.
god is dsp is mind is god is dsp is..
06/09/08
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RogerRoger
A grand response indeed!
I haven't been able to respond to people individually yet, as I'm making preparations for the closing on my house. A 2000 square ft home will be mine in two days, and will be my first, ending 17 years of residence in either military dorms, apartments or with the folks. But I wanted to express my thanks to all the responses. I'm touched really, as I'm usually ignored in forums unless helping someone directly, which I don't mind, but this blog was obviously a cry for help.
In the next few days, I'll respond individually to some of the posts. You have my deepest gratitude. Thanks, all.
06/09/08
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prugelknaben
interesting post, i am looking forward to read the whole thread. just want to give my response to your post, although all the good peoples around here have probably said it all already. and, who am i to give advise and all that.
i think an important clue is to find your own sound. and by that i dont mean necessarily the sound that is in your head, but the sound that is a result of your choices and your taste. if i was to create the music i hear in my head i would never ever complete anything. if i was a classical composer, yes, because you know what an orchestra sounds like. but the way we work, we make the sounds as well, and that makes it so different.
i experiment, fiddle around, try funny stuff with plugins and software. if i get a sound i like i keep it, i dont care if its the-one-sound-i-always-wanted-to-create. there is never one way to solve a problem. there is never one right sound. you can try to make the sound you want to have, or you can keep one you like. to me, its no difference. its still me making it.
so that would be my advise. search for new sounds that works rather than recreating sounds that you already heard somewhere else.
06/10/08
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daswesen
I reread the whole thread, and I think for me the most important step was really to zone in on one device, one thought, and to explore that one in and out kungfu style. It helped that it was a hardware device, cause it made it easier to focus my attention and restrict myself. I documented most of my process as well in my blogs. I was also quite a bit into meditation at the time, I let that slip and haven't made much music either, so maybe that is connected too? But even though I was "copying" stuff by Richie Hawtin, most things I discovered are now my own, my own sounds, my own patterns, my own pattern evolution, etc... I think I will try to do exactly that zoning in ninja-style for something that eludes me completely: harmonies, chords, harmonic development. I think the key to that over the top complexity like aphex or cbit or squarepusher or astroid is knowing the little things well. The rest then just comes out of hard work and method.
06/10/08
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applaud
time - take time. If you think that you can create a decent track in an hour then all too often you end up ith tracks that sound like they were created in an hour.
listen. Listen to the greats from the past. There's a reason why they're great. Don't limit yourself to just the people who made stuff like you make. You make minimal techo? Listen to Bach organ music and delta blues. Have ears like a sponge.
Restrict yourself. What you leave out is far more important than what you include.
06/10/08
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dach
Lets have some lessons then? link
06/10/08
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license
great post, daswesen.
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