KVR Audio

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:36 pm

Musicradar just published the best article ever:

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/5-m ... nse-628773

el-bo (formerly ebow) · Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:42 pm

i think your thread is better than wagtunes'

Harry_HH · Post by **Harry_HH** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:52 pm

The first one is important, IMHO, other 4 obvious or ridiculous.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 4:03 pm

other 4 obvious

There's nothing like "obvious". Especially nowdays, when everybody and their dog wants to make music. Experience shows that most of these people are dumb and clueless

The article is a worthy read as it gives evidence, research results and just reliable sources overall. It's not something someone pulled out their arse over dark and stormy night.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 4:04 pm

Disagree with the point about creativity, yet also somewhat agree with it.

It's not that you don't need creativity, but rather that you have to be creative about where you sneak it in. For me the best music can sound somewhat derivative, but it has a uniqueness in the details which is subtle. It could be as subtle as just the way it's mixed, or the way it plays with expectation. Obvious "creativity" could just lead to something that sounds stupid, at which point it's originality is going to be a mute point.

Then he trots out pop music and beatport music as an example of "why creativity isn't needed". Um, no, 99% of that music, like most other music, just suxxes. Rather like my spelling of that word. You can't conflate popular music with good music, even taking varied taste into consideration. Most music is for people that want a social mcguffin and not to listen to music. Even though I do not like, say, heavy metal, I can hear when it has a certain something.

Personally I'd describe that "something" as an encoded intent. Good music knows exactly what it wants to do, and you pick up on that whether you realise it or not. And it can be creative without you even realizing it. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all".

Re: Don't trust your ears. I couldn't agree more. Beethoven was freaking deaf in the latter part of his life, for christ's sakes! I say rely on your ears for matters of taste, and visual feedback (oscilloscopes and frequency plots) for matters of utility. For the longest time I was making music with crazy amounts of sub bass in stupid areas of the mix (often because I used resonant highpass filters a lot, and when they were closed, they'd be boosing around 10hz), and I had no idea until I got visual tools involved, because it was completely inaudible, but it was totally screwing with my mixes.

Harry_HH · Post by **Harry_HH** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 4:18 pm

DJ Warmonger wrote:
The article is a worthy read as it gives evidence, research results and just reliable sources overall. It's not something someone pulled out their arse over dark and stormy night.

I think you have too gullible picture of the research and evidence. 50 % of this kind of research is interpretation. Worth reading, yes, but read other "research and evidence", too, and draw your own conclusions of all of them, don't believe one research tells the whole story (although Einstein was propably close).

Deep Purple · Post by **Deep Purple** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:04 pm

They forgot to add that your music will sound shitty if you don't tune your bass drum to the key of the piece of music...

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:25 pm

Deep Purple wrote:They forgot to add that your music will sound shitty if you don't tune your bass drum to the key of the piece of music...

Yeah, I've always wondered why drummers don't retune their kick drums between every song. I'm going to make it a requirement for my next band.

But, wait, what if there's a key change in the middle of a song?

Deep Purple · Post by **Deep Purple** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 6:31 pm

cryophonik wrote:
Deep Purple wrote:They forgot to add that your music will sound shitty if you don't tune your bass drum to the key of the piece of music...
Yeah, I've always wondered why drummers don't retune their kick drums between every song. I'm going to make it a requirement for my next band.

But, wait, what if there's a key change in the middle of a song?

Exactly. I just keep seeing people come here and ask advice on how to do it as if they have failed in some way by not re-pitching the bass drum by a variable amount of pitch to satisfy and internet rule.

I get it if the bass drum is synthesized and really resonant, but every time?

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 8:41 pm

If your bass drum has enough tonal sustain to need tuning, it's not a bass drum, it's a one-note bass line

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:09 pm

On the topic of creativity being derivative, check out Nine Inch Nail's song "Copy Of A".

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:56 pm

I don't know about 'best article ever' or anything like that, but it was refreshing to see someone catching on to the fact that originality not only isn't popular, it is in fact quite distasteful to most people.

I don't mind that so many people like predictable music; it makes perfect sense, really.

What I can't stand is when they think that the predictable music they like is really edgy and original because the person singing it dresses a little weird, has an unusual hair style, or hangs around with interesting people.

Karma_tba · Post by **Karma_tba** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 11:23 pm

Sound like anyone you know?
Ask an excessively noob-y theory or production question online, and you'll get smacked down by a forum warrior within seconds for having the temerity to put fingers to keyboard before having a comprehensive grasp of mankind's accumulated musical knowledge.

It's almost as if these virtual vigilantes were never beginners themselves, emerging from their mothers' wombs with a working knowledge of post-tonal music theory and the inner workings of classic hardware compressors.
Just sayin'

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 11:26 pm

The article about creativity that's linked in that top 5 article is really good stuff (though dull in the middle when the author talks about the lipstick problem and Internet of things).

As a person that finds creative work to be an extremely irritating and time consuming process, it has always annoyed me when people act like creativity is some magical fountain I dip into to pop a photograph or song into existence. It's not just that they're making a mythical mountain of it; it's effing lazy to think of creative work as magical. It excuses the myth-spreading people from learning to do that work. Worse, it diminishes the work that people DO put into making things.

arkmabat wrote:On the topic of creativity being derivative, check out Nine Inch Nail's song "Copy Of A".

I love that song. It's the NIN album I find most difficult to get into, but I liked that song instantly. I wonder what he thinks he's a copy of, after copying himself copying someone else. He said Pretty Hate Machine sampled a lot of other records, and the downward spiral used samples, but he has always reinvented his sound to some degree each album. Maybe that reinvention process is the repetition...

My interpretation of the song is one of repeating one's self in life, and in one's efforts to be meaningful. Not just in writing music. It goes thematically well with "Disappointed"... especially if you're a fan that wants him to stop changing his style over time

Now I must go off and do some work, or at least tinker...

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Wed Sep 30, 2015 11:34 pm

herodotus wrote:I don't know about 'best article ever' or anything like that, but it was refreshing to see someone catching on to the fact that originality not only isn't popular, it is in fact quite distasteful to most people.

Kind of like how important individuality and uniqueness is to people in the USA... yet, if you REALLY ARE unique and behave with individuality, you're apt to be brutalized for not fitting in. Society (mine at least) has a habit of dealing lip service to the value of certain things it will then knife in the back.

What I can't stand is when they think that the predictable music they like is really edgy and original because the person singing it dresses a little weird, has an unusual hair style, or hangs around with interesting people.

Just out enough to be in...

5 music production truisms that are actually nonsense