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Things I sort of believe about making music

johnwhiles.com

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Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#51

Post by kcindric »

Great post! Nowadays I struggle a lot with creating music. I mostly WFH and most of my job equipment (laptop + monitor) and my music equipment (guitars, synths, pedals etc.) with my music recording equipment (laptop + monitor) is in the same room. I don't have the luxury of another hobby only room so I mostly finish my day job and never return into my office until the next work day starts.

Also there's the recording medium problem, which is the same as my work medium - a laptop. I would love to hear some suggestions how to turn this around.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#52

Post by rocketbop »

adamnemecek wrote: post #49
Minor49er wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that this has in common with the article is that it's related to music creation in some way. Beyond that broad scope, there really isn't much.

That’s close enough for me.

The issue is that isn’t close enough for anyone else.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#53

Post by kamranjon »

kcindric wrote: post #51

Great post! Nowadays I struggle a lot with creating music. I mostly WFH and most of my job equipment (laptop + monitor) and my music equipment (guitars, synths, pedals etc.) with my music recording equipment (laptop + monitor) is in the same room. I don't have the luxury of another hobby only room so I mostly finish my day job and never return into my office until the next work day starts. Also there's the recording…

I just recently purchased a Tascam DP-008EX which is a small, portable (even runs on batteries), 8 track recorder that is entirely self contained. I love it. I want to completely remove the computer from my music process because I find it distracting. This is a great way to do it which harkens back a bit to the older 4 or 8 track cassette recorders but this has some nice built in stuff like phantom power, reverb knobs on every track, etc.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#54

Post by jerrysievert »

kcindric wrote: post #51

Great post! Nowadays I struggle a lot with creating music. I mostly WFH and most of my job equipment (laptop + monitor) and my music equipment (guitars, synths, pedals etc.) with my music recording equipment (laptop + monitor) is in the same room. I don't have the luxury of another hobby only room so I mostly finish my day job and never return into my office until the next work day starts. Also there's the recording…

> Also there's the recording medium problem, which is the same as my work medium - a laptop. I would love to hear some suggestions how to turn this around.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. work is on the work laptop on the couch, personal is on the personal laptop on the couch. desk goes mostly unused at the moment, but music gear is surrounding the desk.

here's my current line of thinking:

* work on work laptop on the couch

* personal laptop moves to desk, where monitors and music gear live

* personal couch work gets moved to iPad Pro to be purchased, so different form factor

I think I'm stuck on the iPad Pro right now, because FOMO in 5 months, but otherwise I think I have my next steps figured out.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#55

Post by tgv »

I had experienced the modular trap with sample libraries. I've got a bunch, and they're really good, but setting things up and adding modulation tracks and getting the reverb right and all that, and then getting the mix to sound really good is so frustrating...

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#56

Post by munificent »

mjr00 wrote: post #17

> Christmas Music One important skill I've found necessary in both music and my software career is dissociation . By that, I mean the ability to separate yourself from the work that you've created. It's natural to feel that what you have made is a reflection of yourself and your value, but it also leads to a lot of fear. In the music world, this manifests as a fear of releasing music and instead endlessly tweaking kn…

The psychology of art is fascinating because it's a mixture of conflicting drives.

Caring about how others perceive your work helps incentivize you to get better and grind through all of the non-creative work required to get stuff in front of an audience. But it also creates anxiety that you'll be rejected by them.

Believing in yourself and the worth of your art helps overcome that anxiety and allows you to make authentic work that is personal in ways that resonate with others instead of pandering. But it also risks making you oblivious to actual useful critical feedback and can make you inflexible and unpleasant to collaborate with.

There is an interesting feedback loop between artist and audience. I think the best art comes from an artist intensely connecting with their own inner emotions in ways that reveal something meaningful and true to the audience. That level of vulnerability is difficult without external support, so it's incredibly hard to do that without an audience that it resonates with. It's like each artists needs to find their own local microclimate of the right fans in order to blossom.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#57

Post by smrq »

homonculus1 wrote: post #45

The point about equipment is a really important one. A lot of people have a very stupid attitude that art is some kind of special domain where the tools don't matter--a true artist works beauty with whatever he has! Leave that nonsense at the door. If you were learning how to do landscaping, you'd buy a chainsaw, a shovel, and a blower. Anything less would leave you unequipped to do the job. I guess some guys have a…

Hell, if you want 20 guitars and can afford it, get 20 guitars. Ideally each one brings something new to the table for you. I had a sudden uptick in creativity immediately after buying #6.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#58

Post by jancsika »

> For months I thought this was a deficiency in my playing, until eventually I discovered some latency setting, read about what latency was and realised what was going on.

It's a good idea for anyone doing things related recording audio: ask someone how to measure the "round trip latency" in the software you're using. Ask on forums, HN, Facebook groups how to do it. If someone responds with simple arithmetic to calculate latency, or responds with the term "latency" that isn't preceded by the words "round trip," or does anything other than tell you a surefire way to measure the round trip latency for that software: go somewhere else and ask again.

This will get you a baseline measurement of your system: one that that you can use to ask future questions and get practical answers.

If you don't do this you'll get spammed with "help" from people who write before they measure.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#59

Post by bartread »

> At some point I became a software engineer, had more disposable income, and had discovered the concept of modular synthesisers. Obviously this is a terrible combination.

Good grief but this made me laugh.

I partially fell down that damn rabbit hole myself, although managed to avoid modular thus far. I decided to get back into making music during the 2020 lockdowns, spent a lot of time kitting out my office to double as a studio. Spent too much time watching gear reviews on YouTube, and Studio Time by Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL). Bought a Polybrute, and a bunch of second hand kit: couple of acid boxes, an old Akai sampler (actually two of them from which I built a single "monster" rig), a DX7 (which I can confirm is very hard to program, although Dexed helps), a couple of drum machines, and some other stuff. This is on top of kit I already owned.

I also repainted and refloored the room, added 72 sockets, routed power cables around the walls, and fitted industrial cable conduit to route signal cables over the ceiling. I fitted floor to ceiling shelving around 3 sides of the room, and added guitar hangers to the fourth wall. I then fitted a 1200W equivalent LED ceiling light cluster for working, a few other LED lamps, and added a 57 metres (really) of coloured LED strip lighting. Bear in mind we're talking about a room that's 2.5m x 2.5m so it's possibly in the top 10 of the most excessively lit rooms in all of human history.

And how many tracks have I finished since I started all this?

None.

Point 3 is, at least for me the single take home message I absolutely needed to read from this:

> 3: You need to find ways to force yourself to finish things. Arbitrary deadlines are actually sometimes good.

Number 6 is also an absolute gem:

> 6: Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human

Great article.

Re: Things I sort of believe about making music

#60

Post by AlwaysRock »

stuntkite wrote: post #2

"Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human." Tattoo that on my forehead backwards.

Yup. This is so hard to internalize. And to keep fresh in ones mind after extended periods of time with no external gratification. I stopped making a lot of art in the past because I felt like It was just for me and that wasnt enough.
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