Though a keyboard player my whole life, I'm constantly blown away by the wealth of information that some of the members of this and similar forums possess. Where does it come from? Who have you learned from, and how? What are some of your favorite information sources (besides forums) i.e. books, videos, tutorials? Do you read manuals all the way through? Do you retain it all? How do decide what to learn, and when? How do you orient yourself in this dizzying world of synth technology?
Just curious.
Shai

We don't go out and we have no friends.

Starting to get interest - wanting to know more about this interest - falling in "love" with technology - wanting to get more out of it - starting to get informations - asking the web - finding the infos - finding Kvr-vst! - and finally doing better music than before.

Finding nice and good people here...
AND:
We don´t go out and we have no friends.


lol
putte

Yup! - Don't think that intelligence comes into it anywhere!

H

Yepper... no friends. We are Midi Monks. I wear one of those Franciscan robes, only mine is tied with a midi cord.

Well, maybe a few manuals now and then. Excellent forums like this one where you can talk to people but never have to be more than a few feet away from your computer. Magazines sometimes have good articles.

Lots of trial and error.

This is where all the pot heads of the internet hang out.

all this vst talk is just a cover.

tinker toys/lincoln logs/erector set/chemistry set/trumpet/wah-wah/harmonizer/synth/drum machine/computer/sax/computer/midisax/computer/computer

Necessity, Frustration, boredom

Having to learn to be able to use...

Getting angry, not being able to get ideas thru

Being bored with skills acquired

Oh, and getting new stuff

someone asks a question and i go to www.askjeeves.com
he knows everything ha ha

Alright, so having no friends seems a popular approach. But really, are most of you self-taught? Are there any good courses? Do you spend more time learning about tech than actually making music?

There is alot of unnessicary humility in this thread. My day job is as an ICU doc and I can easily confirm that the higher levels of technical expertise and ingenuity exhibited by members of these forums is astounding, easily on par with anything you would see in any medical subspecialty. The fact that most people here are self-taught is even more amazing.

When I come across a post where someone has "coded up" a new tool off the cuff it just blows me away. That kind of DSP skill usually requires an engineering degree.

Like I said in my other thread, I think all you prodigies here at KVR should combine forces into one giant VST/DSP think tank. Steinberg and NI will never know what hit 'em...

Dunno wot u guys r on about....I have loads of friends....they mite all make noises when I plug them into cubase but hey...friends is friends! 8¬)

The way I learn the easiest is by playing with stuff....hearing what it does when u twist this knob or pull on that slider....then getting some backgrounders from stuff like magazines, books, and would u beleive it...the net - it all fallsz into place eventually - even if it's the wrong place.

It all depends on whether you're an academic or a hands-on learner...I'm a bit of both.

Dunno wot this kvr-vst malarky is...u'll have to fill me in on that one! 8-P

c'mon guys...
gimme some insight! recommend a book, a site, a school, a mag.
What sources have been most helpful?
This forum is absolutely phenomenal, it's a priviledge to hear input from such masterful specialists...
How did you get there?

Well, a good starting point for me was a monthly journal. Here in Germany we have two "major" journals: "Keyboards" and "Keys". They have a wealth of information, basic knowlege, monthly workshops and so on... For the English reader most members of this forum will recommend the UK Computer music magazine (is this correct?) for sure!

I started as a pupil and read those journals for more than five years. If you don't forget everything right after reading it, then this is the way to go

Bye

Crossinger

Great Thread!

shaifire,

The answers are already in the previous posts. To recap:

Plan on making some sacrifices - you can have friends, you'll just see 'em less often.

Read everything you can find on subjects that interest you. Be prepared to sort out the gems from the garbage.

most important: Start with a musical idea. Using the above advice, make it a song. Repeat as needed.

peace,
venice

quote:

---

Originally posted by venice:

Plan on making some sacrifices - you can have friends, you'll just see 'em less often.

---

UHH! Does this mean that I could have friends too??

quote:

---

Originally posted by shaifire:
How did you get there?

---

Well, it all started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

Umm, don't believe the friends part. Unless, of course they have little glowing lights and lots of knobs!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Cubase - sometimes temperamental, cranky friend. Love/hate relationship!

Seriously, the magazine advice is good. There are many good magazines out there with lots of helpful columns about many relavent topics.

Personally, I read Keyboard, Electronic Musician, Recording.

Computer Music is a fabulous publication too.

Sharing tips with fellow users. There's a Club Cubase in my area which has been a really good forum for sharing ideas. If you have enough interest and there isn't one in your area already, you may consider looking into starting one up.

Which is not to say that there can't be a Club Logic too if you like. Or Acid Freaks Get-together. Whatever.

Exchanging ideas in a person-to-person atmosphere is pretty cool.

Ok, well don't tell my computer friends that I said that!!!

KVR is a great site, and there are other cool sites around. Don't remember them right offhand. KVR is really THE best!!!

Trial and error. Lots and lots and lots of trial and error. I bought this "damn" thing and by God I'm going to make it work!!!

Some books. I like Tunesmith as a generally good book on putting together a song. Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owinski. Which brings me back to the magazines... don't just read the articles per se. Read the interviews too. Sometimes in a good interview you may pick up an idea or two to try out.

Manuals. Manuals can be pretty dry reading and sometimes worthless, but they can also be good. Behringer manuals seem to be fairly informative. The Waves manual is fantastic. Everything you could possibly want to know about audio engineering (almost) is right there in the Waves manual.

...and listen to music too!

...and finally: don't forget the beer!

Well, just kidding about the beer (maybe)

Shaifire,

I think we might have forgotten to ask the important question;

What is it that you want to do?

Invention is the mother of necessity: If you know what you want to achieve that becomes the goal. Look at the instruments and equipment you have at your disposal, they are your tools. If there is a shortfall between achieving the goal and the means of accomplishing it then you find a way to bridge the gap - or give up.

Bridging the gap is the fun bit AND the frustrating bit 'cos this is where you start learning and experimenting. Sometimes the results can be shite - but quite often they can be 'king amazing. And that's what keeps people at it.

Don't worry that you're missing out on the secret to making music the easy way - 'cos there isn't one.

Chill out, and decide what it is you want to do. Break it down into little pieces. If you want to record a song and need to find a sound like a buffalo being dragged backwards through a bush then it would be easy to answer it (putte's got loads of samples like that ).

Don't forget - this is supposed to be fun, and not just a race to fill 'yer brain up with stupid stuff that you might never need. (Yeah, OK to late for that here.... )

H

I have a lot of friend and with many of them I make music(bands, other projects). That could be one of the reason I try to work with a lot of hardware instead of a whole studio in my pc, because only one person can work with a mouse...

greetZ ANdreas

Practice, Patience, Time, Experience.
Two years ago I thaught my mixes sounded great ... Each Day since then I have learned something new by Grabbing the HORSE by the reins and Diving in.
Learn to Read a Wave, Not just hear it.
Take the Time and each day, you will learn something.
Cheers
Paul Brown
Manytone Music

How do we get so smart?

Listen folks, there's no magic formula. I just follow the
three "c"s: clean living, chewing thoroughly, and a daily
dose of vitamin "church!"

seriously-

hmm...it's true that i don't go out.
everytime you find yourself not knowing how to do something, you somehow find out how. Then you're one click more knowledgeable.
one click at a time EXPERIENCE and EXPERIMENTATION.
there are lots of books out there on midi and electronic music, but they can't teach you how to learn.
forums (especially this one) , using your manuals to troubleshoot and pushing your programs to their limits.

all of the answers you seek are already in your brain.

vitamin church heh? Maybe that's my problem, I'm jewish!
And don't get me wrong, I've come a hell of a long way since last year when I loaded my first soundfont. However, I guess my biggest problem is deciding which manual to read first. It just seems that it's useless just reading a section of it. How do I decide what tools to use?
It also seems that every platfrom is trying to be so inclusive, tackling every aspect of the music. And just when you start to get the hang of one, then bam! out comes a new version.
What do I want to do?
I want to create electronic masterpieces, it's been my dream my whole life. The new world of VST's has made this dream seem so much closer to being realised. But there are so many aspects! There's PC's, soundcards, platforms, instruments....aaaaaH!
This forum has also been instrumental (heh) as I'm learning more here than anywhere else. Still, some sort of solid book that covers all the basics, or some more of those kickass tutorials like Anderton has put together, these are tangible ways to fill in major gaps in my education.
LOVE!

Burnout..an ICU doc? And I thought I was the only medical-related person on this forum (just a measly 4th year medical student going into Radiology). That's extremely cool that you have interests outside of the hospital, I never thought I would meet other physicians with hobbies (especially from a medical student perspective). That's a relief.

As far as information gathering, the best place clearly is the internet and in my mind www.google.com. Type in anything you want to know about the world into this thing and if it is documented you can find it here, usually easily, although sometimes with a lot of patience. Learning in this field is interesting because it is usually born out of necessity. For example, when you start hooking up peripheral devices to your computer to drive soft-synths, all sorts of questions have to be answered unless you are rich and can afford to buy junk. What kind of midi port are you going to buy? Do you want it connected via serial, parallel, or USB ports? What is MIDI in, out, and thru? How come my 15 year-old hardware synth responds quicker than my state-of-the-art computer? Oh, latency... Well how do I decrease latency? Drivers, K-mixer bypass, WDM, ASIO, DX, VSTi, DXi, TDM....Basically in the end, technology in every field comes down to deciphering and understanding acronyms. If you are broke, like many of us, a little bit of understanding can save you a lot of money. Also if you are into technology and the interactivity of the internet, it helps as well, because then you've got that extra drive.

Courses? No. Teach yourself because then you'll know what you are doing. If you have the time to build your own computer, build it..you'll be able to troubleshoot so much better (use the internet as your guide for troubleshooting when you are over your limits). If you have time to learn software, do it on your own as much as possible. Asking questions without trying to learn on your own is the greatest detriment to your ability in any field and being spoon-fed information will never help you in the long run. So I suggest, read, read, read...(kind of like med school).

I like Horse's comment about necessity being the mother of invention.

If you have a vision - and you obviously have one or the beginnings of one - use that as your measuring stick. On a certain level, I think if you follow your vision, then everything else will follow accordingly in relation to the strength and clarity of your vision.

I was thinking about this even before I read the latest posts...

A lot of times it seems we fall into the pattern of "this is what I have, now what can I do with it?"

Sometimes it's better to say: "this is what I want to achieve, now what steps do I need to take to make that happen?"

Using the paradigm of programming a synth for example...

You can either poke around with the parameters and see what comes out of it, or you can have a sound in your mind that you try to reproduce.

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong answer. The answer is different for everyone. It's more a question of defining what seems to work for you and as someone else mentioned above:

Having fun.

Well personally I resent the idea of anyone thinking I'm actually smart at this stuff.

What I know I learned through Computer Music .

I should get paid for that remark.

Everytime I think I'm pretty good at this I get made to look like a clown by someone who really knows what he's talking about. Life I guess.

I think the major incentive to learn is as a procrastination exercise. I can't very well compose music while I'm learning about it can I???

At one stage I was spending so much time in one forum I was considered a resident expert (what a joke) and I was getting unsolicited e-mails from the other side of the world asking which soundcard to buy, which CD Burner to install. What the..?!

Caleb.

Hmmmm. Well I have already lauded Computer Music magazine once in this thread so I'll leave it at that.

I think the important thing is to not think that you're any less of a genious than anyone else. You can create music just as good or even better than any of us, with or without this knowledge that you're in awe of.

The creation of music isn't about learning, it's about doing. It's not about thinking, it's about feeling. It's not about knowing, it's about experimenting.

I obtained a demo copy of FruityLoops for a friend who loved music. She had absolutely no training in music software, synthesis, sampling, music theory and yet she began to churn out the music she wanted to hear. Why? Because she loves music and she always wanted to write music of her own.

Sometimes a lack of knowledge is the advantage you require in making music. No stupid rules to follow.

If you're halfway through a track you're really proud of and you're having trouble mixing it properly - ask someone. Let the knowledge come in small pieces when required. Subscribe to Computer Music (damn I wasn't going to say that) so that you can get bite-sized chunks of knowledge you can experiment with. And stop looking for a course or a book. If you want to write music they're only another way of saying procrastination.

If you want to become a professional sound engineer - do a course. If you want to write music and you've dreamed about it all your life, grab a copy of FruityLoops, Orion, Reason, Cubase whatever - and start.

The only thing your music is waiting for is you.

Well that's torn it. I've just turned into an informercial.

Caleb

Seems like the more you know the more you realise there
is to learn
like climbing a mountain the higher you go the further
away the horizon gets
if you know a bit more today than you knew yesterday
then you are getting there

What kind of info r u after?.....if u want DSP maths/programming linx then go to TobyBear's site (www.tobybear.de.vu)...tonnes of useful stuff to plough thru.....there's a DSP programming forum on www.bluelife.co, too. It all boils down to hardcore maths anyway in the long run...or stealing the rite algorithms if you're lazy....If it's just using the stuff, then I still say the best way is to play, then look up things. It all depends on what u wanna know really.

quote:

---

Originally posted by shaifire:
c'mon guys...
gimme some insight! recommend a book, a site, a school, a mag.
What sources have been most helpful?
This forum is absolutely phenomenal, it's a priviledge to hear input from such masterful specialists...
How did you get there?

---

For the beginner, I'd recommend Computer Music. Excellent "Hands On" approach.

Also check out http://www.sospubs.co.uk/

Aside from that, Keyboard Magazine, Electronic Musician, etc...

Book: The Computer Music Tutorial from Curtis Roads (heavy) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262680823/qid=1003415155/sr=8- 1/ref=sr_8_3_1/102-1759597-5456162

Computer Sound Synthesis for the Electronic Musician (Music Technology Series)
by Eduardo Reck Miranda http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/024051517X/ref=pd_sim_books/102 -1759597-5456162

just to list a few

We are all drummers.

blue

That's hilarious ... we're all drummers! hehehe

Also, well said Raven! ECHO ECho echo


Doug

I have to second the Computer Music Tutorial...
BUY IT NOW. Peabody Convervatory does an entire synthesis class based on it.
I got mine used at amazon for 25 bucks...
best money I have ever spent

you guys all absolutely rock.
The breadth of intelligent, thought-provoking, philisophical, and hillarious responses here are absolutely inspiring.
It's been a while since I've studied with a teacher, but my last one was this monstrous world-class pianist Andrew Burashko (saw him do the Rach 2, wow). He never really taught me anything tangible, probably because he would never let me play more than one bar. He would always stop me and go into some philosophical lecture about how I shouldn't think with my fingers, how I should be free of my ego, that wanting so badly to play the piece was stopping me from concentrating on every nuance of every bar, that I should be uncompromising, never letting a bad bar go unpolished, how I should embrace the paradox....
Well, a couple of years later I'm still trying to absorb his wisdom, and I realise that he taught me more than anyone else, precisely because he didn't actually teach me anything (you see, the paradox). He just served as an example.
And so I'd like to extend my appreciation and respect to all of you out there for sharing your experiences. I continue learning by your exapmles. Thanks for the support and encouragement.

Hey,yo u a drumer?



blue

What do u want to learn ?

Being a masterfull specialist myself (hehe) i think i would say i learned by making music. Every so often i would get stuck and not be able to to what i wanted so i would find out how and so on...

[ 19 October 2001: Message edited by: mooseman ]

brown noser

Try to figure things out, experiment

If you run into a brick wall, check the manuals

If that doesn't help, search "google.com" for sites with answers

If that doesn't help, post your question on "kvr-vst.com"


That pretty much sums up my approach regarding the technical side of things

When it comes to software and hardware, I often search the major companies, and read all about their products. The try demos ( if available), and look in this forum, and cubase.net. I have read 10 % of the CUbase manual ( I belive I can figure everything out myself, witch only works 10 % of the times I have a problem) If I cant figure it out, I search the KVR forum, and Cubase.net, and if nobody can help me, I read the manual. This is how I learn about my software, and of course my hardware. Remember, just read the first 20 pages of the manual, look at the pictures in the other, searc foruma. I dont like pdf's so the Manual are often the last place iI look.

Regarding playing instruments, musical history and music theory, I have 5 years education, (I was hoping to be a music teacher when I grew up, but did'nt) So here I am, with knowledge, education, some gear, and a job in a brewery, but thats OK to, because now I know something about beer to, not only how to drink it, but how to make it.

So, in answer to your question...
Get some instruments and drink plenty of beer.

works for me...

[ 19 October 2001: Message edited by: brittnell ]

I do take steroïds...
It helps to make friends!
Another positive effects : I can overtake cars with my bicycle.

And, after all, I'm not so smart, even if I'm not a drummer

LowweeK,
Speed 3

quote:

---

Originally posted by bobb:
Regarding playing instruments, musical history and music theory, I have 5 years education, (I was hoping to be a music teacher when I grew up, but did'nt) So here I am, with knowledge, education, some gear, and a job in a brewery, but thats OK to, because now I know something about beer to, not only how to drink it, but how to make it.

[/QB]

---

Hey bobb,
I'm currently working a dayjob myself, just to make some cash to buy more gear. I've taught music in the past as well before, and have recently realised that with this new world of music technology, the potentials for using VST and multimedia progs for teaching are enormous. I've dreamt of starting up a teaching school that specialises in teaching using the computer. The tools can be wonderful for kids, but as far as learning music, a guide is essential.
Have you ever considered anything similar? It could be quite an exciting and lucrative way to get out of the brewery. Of course, you'd have to buy your own beer, so maybe it's not the best idea.

So the summary is: It´s all about Beer and gear!

Hmmm....Ben should achieve a KVR-group-buy to get tons of this brewery-beer for less money.
I think this should help everybody to get even smarter.


putte