What am I missing out on using Mu.Lab?

[cdysthe]

The reason I care about the looks and skins is that I have to stare at it for hours. I do not care about skins for programs I rarely use. For something I use a lot I would like a nice looking skin for the same reasons I would like the walls in my house to look nice even if they would work the same way if they were unpainted/decorated.

[cdysthe]

Ummm...why would anyone spend time here unless they want to make music? What I am finding is that I have spent waaaaay too much time playing live in bands as my musical hobby instead of recording stuff on my computer. The learning curve isn't as steep as I feared. What's so great with softsynths is that they do not show up drunk at gigs. They do not get tired. What a relief!

With tools like the ones available these days, how can anyone even with only minimal amounts of musicality avoid makin' music? I mean, I hook up my M-Tools midi keyboard and out comes music. My main problem is managing software (Mu.Lab is an exception. Using it just "came to me"), especially drums (since I'm not a drummer). But anything that can be controlled with keys is just a couple of mouse clicks away. You will of course need to have some song structures bouncing around in your brain, but that's about what it takes!

And I have finally realized why it's so much trance music around: You do not have to know how to play any instrument to make it (not that there's anything wrong with that... If I was a teen today I would spew out so much music I would have been considered an "audio-terrorist".

Oh well..

[pljones]

Hehehe..!

On the drumming -- you just have to learn to think like a drummer a bit, just as you do to produce convincing parts for any replaced "real" instrument. Unless you want to sound like a beat box (again, not that there's anything wrong with that... hmmm... ).

[MachFront]

Well, I'm incredibly non-commital.
I'll work on something for a few hours, but then I'll close it down without saving. Mainly I do that because I usually never really like anything I've done.
I get further with step-sequenced drums more than anything. Well, that and using the Matrix when I used Reason 2.5 a few years back.

I'm not kidding when I say I've never finished a song ever. Ever.
I've been attempting to make music on computer at least for three and a half years. Three and a half years and not one finished song.

But I will say that I've been more creative and been closer to actual output since using MU.LAB than I have in years. The most I've ever done was with Reason and I think that was because I was "stuck" with what it had, but that was a good thing. I just got tired of being "stuck" like that. Well, that and no integrated audio.

Sometimes I think I shouldn't have stopped playing bass after all those years. Then again 15 years of that help me now a lil bit with soft synth bass and drums.

But all of this is why I'm so glad to have MU.LAB. It keeps me from worrying about all this mess. It doesn't glare back at me, taunting me. As I said before, it has a relaxing feel to it. It doesn't feel so intimidating. It looks more like an open door with a sign above that simply says: "Welcome. Create."

[cdysthe]

You may be judging your own stuff too harshly. I feel that everything I do, even hearing my own keyboards in a band, isn't good enough. It's because it's me doing it. It sounds too "familiar" and not professional. To others it may sound very different.

My main purpose right now is getting my material down. I am not trying to produce professional tracks for publication, not even for demo purposes. I am hoping to be able to use MuLab to capture these songs so I can work on them when I am getting better at mixing and editing on my computer.

It seems like MuLab is perfect for what I am trying to do. We will see if it continues to be perfect as I get good at this. One thing is clear though, Sonar scared the living daylights out of me and I thought "it's going to take forever getting my songs down using this". Now I have two songs (no vocal) done using MuLab

[MachFront]

I may be.
But I never really did that with my bass playing. I always felt fairly confident about it.
*shrugs* Surely it's the fact that I was more used to it, and it was a singlular instrument after all. Now, just like so very many of us here, I've got to play (and learn) everything.

[asnor]

I had the same problem; not being able to finish any songs. I've found that creating music on a computer doesn't work for me. Computers engage too much left brain activity, which has a tendency to kill creativity in me. This discovery came after a long search for the perfect "simple to use" recording software that could just get out of the way when I wanted to write.

In the end I found that it didn't matter which software I used. Just the process of turning on the computer, waiting for it to boot up, then opening the software I want to use, then another, then maybe activating a template if the software allowed it. All of that is enough to make my muse say, "screw this, I'm gonna go find someone who is ready to work!".

These days the only technologies I use for writing are a pen, paper and simple voice recorder. I carry these with me everywhere I go. The computer doesn't get turned on until after I have written the song. And even then, only if the song captures my imagination and begs for production.

This approach works for me but, of course, it might not work so well for someone else.

[sluggo]

Hi,
Let me put the question this way: If I want to create songs using
mainly softsynths and a midi controller on my computer and end up with something
which has "MySpace quality" do I need more than Mu.Lab? If I do, what is it
that I will be missing? I just too much of a noob in this area to find out
what it is.

Hi there,

I'm not sure your question has been fully answered, since of course there are some features that you may wish to consider when making tracks. In the end it will be up to you as to what you consider Myspace quality.

Some features that may be very useful but not found in Mu.Lab include:
1. some good time-stretching audio feature like Live's Warp, Sonar's Audiosnap, etc
2. ability to side-chain
3. an easy to use channel eq/compressor (one that is exactly tailored for the purpose of track/channel use)

To be honest, none of the above are super important for your stated goal (using mainly softsynths). I would guess that those are likely candidates for features you may want though. If you like the other aspects of Mu.Lab then I doubt any of those missing features would matter much. Perhaps if you were working more with recording audio then things like time-stretching would become much more important.

s.

[Bonteburg]

At the very least, save your unfinished tunes. Or better still save to audio. What harm can it do? I have heaps and heaps of "shit_beat_v_044.aif" sitting on my disk and various CDs. Then, eventually, I'll discover something and think, "wow this ain't too shabby ...and I did this".

Marco

[pljones]

Hey sluggo,

Doesn't MU.LAB allow side-chaining in the MPA? To be honest, I've not tried but I'd expect it to "just work".

And does it prevent you using a channel EQ/Compressor? (Okay, it doesn't ship with one but that's part of the point of the app, IMO.) Again, I'm not sure I get what you're saying.

Time-stretching... I guess it depends if you've ever felt the need for it... And I believe it's probably on the wish-list already.

[sluggo]

You actually might be right about the side-chaining. I'd have to look into it a bit more.

This is how I arrived at the three things above. I went to the marketing pages of two hosts I'm fairly familiar with: Sonar and Samplitude. I then went through their major features and tried to think which ones would be missed in vsti compositions using Mu.Lab. There wasn't a lot missing to be honest, and the midi editing in Mu.Lab is quite desirable imo. If you expand the "missing features" list to audio recording work then I think the list gets much bigger.

For sure you can use a track eq/compressor in Mu.Lab, I was comparing the ease of functionality for this type of feature. For example, Samplitude automatically assigns an eq/compressor to each track/object. This isn't required but it's a nice feature that can be "missed".

cheers

[pljones]

You can pick your favourite Channel EQ/Compressor and set up your default project for MU.LAB, of course, so when you do File->New Composition, you're away. That way (a) you're not wasting screen real estate on the built in ones and (b) you're not losing any time vs having them built in. (And, of course, you get to pick what you think is the best EQ/Comp.) Best of both worlds!

Personally I don't use audio editing, as I'm pretty much MIDI only (except when I have to bounce down to save CPU). I'd have to agree, though, that there's room for growing the capabilities in the audio editor quite a lot. Oddly enough, I think we may see some changes here fairly shortly...

[theorize]

The reason I care about the looks and skins is that I have to stare at it for hours. I do not care about skins for programs I rarely use. For something I use a lot I would like a nice looking skin for the same reasons I would like the walls in my house to look nice even if they would work the same way if they were unpainted/decorated.

that's exactly my take on it too.

I've got a couple skins on the way too, just i'm spread pretty thin right now so the going is slow, but they'll come hopefully sooner than later.

and I'm not sure Mu.Lab has "everything" you need to make "pro" quality music (not sure what the quality level it on mySpace) straight out of the box... but the holes that it leaves, free VST's can easily fill, and I bet that as Mu.Lab grows you will get ever closer to using just it. I look for the modular section to grow, meaning that effects as well as advanced synthesis will be possible as long as you're willing to put in the work.