Waves Plugins worth $0?

[reggie1979]

I made more music when I had more restrictions. Sad but true.

Likewise. I spend a hell of a lot more time in auditioning sounds than in making music!

But it's funny why. Back in the day, I'd use a 532 and then do the waves to "acid pro" or whatever and then do music.

Isn't it weird? We have TERRIFIC tools but we feel restricted................

[Local Man]

I made more music when I had more restrictions. Sad but true.

Likewise. I spend a hell of a lot more time in auditioning sounds than in making music!

But it's funny why. Back in the day, I'd use a 532 and then do the waves to "acid pro" or whatever and then do music.

Isn't it weird? We have TERRIFIC tools but we feel restricted................

I believe this is to some degree a myth that we create for ourselves.

Often times as musicians we feel the most joy and inspiration when we are just starting out and the process of making music is still new, exciting, and somewhat mysterious. This is particularly true of musicians in popular genres where our music is primarily guided by inspiration and enthusiasm.
It just so happens that this euphoric period of discovery and satisfaction coincides with the time when we have the bare minimum of the tools that we need to accomplish the task.
It is in spite of this fact not because of it that we first experience the thrill of creating something from nothing.

As we progress in our musical journey we constantly learn about and acquire new tools, but at the same time we start to understand more what it is we are doing and that initial period of growth can sometimes dull the shine of our initial exuberance as we pull back the curtain to see that there is no magic there.
It is a process and when we learn it is a process then sometimes it can become a routine and then inevitably it becomes a rut.
And then we tell ourselves that it is all yhis gear that is holding us back. All these plugins are bogging us down.
But of course that is not true. It isn't the gear now that's holding us back just as much as it wasn't the gear then that was propelling us.
It isn't Logic Pro that is making me feel like I am going through the motions when I sit down at my keyboard, and it wasn't my Tascam Portastudio that made me feel a deep sense of joy when I would wake up in the morning because I couldn't wait to listen back to what I had recorded the night before.

This is why I am an advocate of constant growth and learning as a musician. I still challenge myself everyday to learn new things and find new approaches to music making because that is what keeps the process fresh. Not plugins, or the lack thereof.

The music I make now is better than it ever was before even though my confidence and enthusiasm waxes and wanes. My focus now is learning how to weather that storm of emotions and stay productive.

[Ian Mackie]

I made more music when I had more restrictions.

It´s good to try and impose restrictions back on yourself!

Try it!

[Infinite5ths]

Excellent post Local Man

I made more music when I had more restrictions. Sad but true.

Likewise. I spend a hell of a lot more time in auditioning sounds than in making music!

But it's funny why. Back in the day, I'd use a 532 and then do the waves to "acid pro" or whatever and then do music.

Isn't it weird? We have TERRIFIC tools but we feel restricted................

I believe this is to some degree a myth that we create for ourselves.

Often times as musicians we feel the most joy and inspiration when we are just starting out and the process of making music is still new, exciting, and somewhat mysterious. This is particularly true of musicians in popular genres where our music is primarily guided by inspiration and enthusiasm.
It just so happens that this euphoric period of discovery and satisfaction coincides with the time when we have the bare minimum of the tools that we need to accomplish the task.
It is in spite of this fact not because of it that we first experience the thrill of creating something from nothing.
...
...
...

[acousticglue]

I play stuff that is just super basic sounding all the way to far out experimental with plugins and I learn something new all the time

[reggie1979]

Excellent post Local Man

I made more music when I had more restrictions. Sad but true.

Likewise. I spend a hell of a lot more time in auditioning sounds than in making music!

But it's funny why. Back in the day, I'd use a 532 and then do the waves to "acid pro" or whatever and then do music.

Isn't it weird? We have TERRIFIC tools but we feel restricted................

I believe this is to some degree a myth that we create for ourselves.

Often times as musicians we feel the most joy and inspiration when we are just starting out and the process of making music is still new, exciting, and somewhat mysterious. This is particularly true of musicians in popular genres where our music is primarily guided by inspiration and enthusiasm.
It just so happens that this euphoric period of discovery and satisfaction coincides with the time when we have the bare minimum of the tools that we need to accomplish the task.
It is in spite of this fact not because of it that we first experience the thrill of creating something from nothing.
...
...
...

Hun? it's a quote w/o the actual quote. Not trying to be a jerk, but I don't get it.

[simon.a.billington]

I made more music when I had more restrictions. Sad but true.

I don’t have that problem as I already have a predefined idea or “set of restrictions” when I approach a project. I pre-make a lot of those endless decisions that could slow a project down when I start to work on it. Most of the time.

What does slow me down is distractions. Family, friends, kids, pets, email, Facebook, Waves Sales, police knocking on the front door telling me to turn it down, etc...

Some days I’m good at managing it, other days, not so much. I’m all too easily distracted, unfortunately.

[reggie1979]

I garnered quite a bit of attention over that statement of late. I'm just sayin', it feels that way.

But I will also say that Reason has been divine. I have a TON of cool stuff but just have been lazy.

[simon.a.billington]

I garnered quite a bit of attention over that statement of late. I'm just sayin', it feels that way.

But I will also say that Reason has been divine. I have a TON of cool stuff but just have been lazy.

I only just wish I had more time to explore creative mix ideas and sound design. Sure I do a bit on a project to project basis, as I still try to expand myself, but time is limited. It seems I have all these creative tools but don’t know them as well as I would like. Well the deep ones like synthesisers such as Massive X, Reaktor, Flow Motion, Lion, or deep effects like Byome and well, Reaktor again.

If anything this is my problem of too much choice. Not being paralysed by having too many options, but not being able to spend enough quality time with my tools.

Before long Waves will come out with some new tantalising piece of tech that I probably won’t be able to keep my hands off of, and the song and dance will continue.

[jochicago]

I said this in a different conversation, but I think the trick is to separate plugin exploration from actual music making time.

So to learn and explore set up a test session and have fun with plugins. But when you are making music, decide upfront to only use stuff you already know. This allows you to move at good pace and get things done, without letting plugin experimentation and paralysis take over.

[plexuss]

I said this in a different conversation, but I think the trick is to separate plugin exploration from actual music making time.

So to learn and explore set up a test session and have fun with plugins. But when you are making music, decide upfront to only use stuff you already know. This allows you to move at good pace and get things done, without letting plugin experimentation and paralysis take over.

This is excellent advice. Learn to know when you are better off using something you know vs trying to work with something that isn't working out. then go back and do test sessions with the tools that were challenging and try and figure them out. sometimes you find tools that just dont work for you and can eliminated. as a side note, but relevant, this is why I personally prefer a flexible transfer policy over NFR (and high transfer fees) because it takes me time to determine if I'll use a tool on an ongoing basis. I dont often buy NFR tools unless I fully expect to not sell it or sell it for a large loss as with high transfer fees. This is why I no longer find myself buying Waves products anymore.

[reggie1979]

I said this in a different conversation, but I think the trick is to separate plugin exploration from actual music making time.

So to learn and explore set up a test session and have fun with plugins. But when you are making music, decide upfront to only use stuff you already know. This allows you to move at good pace and get things done, without letting plugin experimentation and paralysis take over.

Definitely not a bad idea.

Mainly my comment was made (did I say this already??? ) from all the years of bad hosts, ram issues before x64, constant bugs and shit that just slowed me down. It's been better since reason 8 with doze. All that time, basically being a beta tester.

I'm glad hosts are far more stable and we're past the cakecrap days of NON-STOP bug hunting But I still think I did more with less at one point, kinda a KISS situation. Workarounds were expected back then and we didn't have the micky'd's "NOW" mentality most of people have.

[Razzia]

To add to jochicago's point, a lot of the time I'll do some experimenting with a new plugin when I'm too tired/uninspired to actually make music. That way I'm not losing anything in the way of opportunity cost by just dicking around, and half the time it results in something that I can use later anyway.

edit - I don't know about you guys, but for me the biggest (maybe only) difference between a jam and an actual writing session is the mental energy I expend each time I resign myself to commit to something. "Okay I guess we'll build on that" as opposed to "hey that was cool" and just moving on. When I don't feel like that sort of decision making acuity is in me, I just mess around with stuff and maybe eventually come across something I like, even though it's not really the goal

[CrystalWizard]

...

Very thought provoking post.

[CrystalWizard]

I said this in a different conversation, but I think the trick is to separate plugin exploration from actual music making time.

So to learn and explore set up a test session and have fun with plugins. But when you are making music, decide upfront to only use stuff you already know. This allows you to move at good pace and get things done, without letting plugin experimentation and paralysis take over.

Most definitely.
And what Razzia said, too.
Time for music making, time for playing around with the tools (especially if i’m not in a music making mode.)
Some of the time it turns into both.