Your (music-related) confessions....

[Reverse Engineer]

i can't answer, i can't answer that.

[tomg]

-Sometimes when I sit down to do some music, I smoke too much dope and fall asleep.

-I like it loud as hell.

-I collect too much shit.
--I have 5 hosts installed on my machine.
--I have 5 hosts not installed on my machine.
--I have too many guitars.
--I have too many keyboards.
--I have way too many vsts I didn't create.
--I have created way too many vsts.

-I spend more time trying out new stuff than using the old.

-I love to play live but I hate to tour.

-I can't sleep the first night in a strange hotel room unless I've had a few.

-I drink beer on stage.

-I hate tour buses.

-I don't like dealing with management, promoters or radio people.

-I should practice more.

-I don't need two full stacks but that's what I want.

-I don't need a new $$ Les Paul but that's what I want.

-I sing too loud... but it's ok 'cause I play too loud.

-I hang out at KVR too much to actually develop a new band and start performing again.

[silenthill2006]

I listen to j-rock. I actually speak Japanese. I've studied it off and on for 10 years. Weird for a black guy, I know.

Even though I know music theory and basic composition, I will use Band-in-a-Box to generate pieces of a composition if I'm lazy to achieve a certain style. Of course, I have to remove the apparent cheesiness of it, and make it so that a real person performed it.

I started creating Music MTV Generator on the PS1 in 2000/2001. Then I got the PC version. I loved prentending like I knew what I was doing and creating melodies with samples with no knowledge of music theory. But it's brought we a long way.

I gotten Acid Pro 4.0, and had no clue what a VST was and I didn't care because I had my loop CDs. I learned the error of my ways.

On a yearly basis, I switch from video games to movies to Japanese to music. I'm ADD.

I mostly make music at work, because I rarely find time at home with wife and kid. I'm a Systems Administrator (IT) for the gov't.

[funky lime]

i often sit in total silence for hours upon hours. it's almost as if i enjoy making music but i don't actually enjoy listening to music.

i don't buy musical gear anymore... not because i don't want it (i really do) but because every person i've ever had to deal with who works at a music store is either a total moron or an enormous douche bag, and i'm reluctant to even buy a pack of guitar strings from them because it would put money in their pocket and i would hate myself for adding fuel to their inanity. i went shopping for a microphone preamp, and the guy was trying to sell me some shitty USB audio interface instead. him: "it's USB, so it will run all your plugins without using up your computer's processor!" me: "uh, i don't think that's correct." him: "ha, you must be new to this stuff!" me: "yeah you're right, i HAVEN'T been building my own computers since i was 12, and i HAVEN'T been recording on a PC for six years, and i HAVEN'T recorded/produced/mixed three albums entirely in the box, and i DON'T own cubase and REAPER and a bunch of vst plugins. yeah, silly me. goodbye, try not to have too nice of a day."
or how about this gem, after chatting with a sales rep about reaper for PC: "well anyone who is really serious about their music records on a mac with pro tools." oh, c**t off. you just lost a customer, you incompetent satchel of f**k.

whenever someone recommends a band/artist to me, i make it a point NOT to check out that band/artist. i guess i just like stumbling upon stuff for myself. and i'm an asshole.

if i had to choose between a nice big, skunky, sticky bud, and an opportunity to get freaky-naughty with the hottest girl in town, i'd pick the bud for sure.

my first couple years playing keyboards, i only used the white keys. most guitar stuff i've written in the past is in the key of E. i've only recently started to branch out from that in the past year or two. i'm a f**king phony.

i really want to be in a band, but my ideal band is comprised of four of me.

i only really understand the basics of subtractive synthesis. "designing patches," for me, consists of f**king around with energyXT's random preset generator, and then adjusting the envelopes to fit my needs.

i'll spend hours setting up track templates for every conceivable situation for every VSTi i have to be instantly recalled in new projects, supposedly for efficiency's sake. i actually enjoy doing this. i don't, however, actually use any of these templates to make songs. i just have them stockpiled in my track templates folder.

musically (and generally) i'm okay at lots and lots of things, but i'm truly great at nothing.

i have never once been able to translate an idea from my head into a recording. all day, every day, i have these wonderful imaginary songs playing in my head. i can hear them and break them down into individual parts and piece them back together in my head and each one is a freaking magnum opus or whatever. but i sit down at the DAW and just looking at the computer screen kills my whole buzz. i fart around with some plugins, try to play these ideas on an instrument, get frustrated at my lack of patience/ability, and then end up cursing at the monitor, pounding my fist on the desk, smoking a joint, and playing video games for a couple hours until i'm too depressed to stay awake.

i visit kvr every day, but i usually only post once a week (if that). i feel (and this applies to "reality" as well) that everything worth saying has been said by somebody else already. communication/human-interaction is just something to do to avoid loneliness, and to reaffirm our personal beliefs (it seems people enjoy talking to others who share similar viewpoints)

whenever someone doesn't notice me or respond to anything i say, it actually makes me just a tiny bit happier.

[debra1rlo]

whenever someone doesn't notice me or respond to anything i say, it actually makes me just a tiny bit happier.

I had to quote you, just to bum you out.

[deaf dunderkwac]

@funky lime...
I cringed at your confessions, having sat in the same place time to time.
However, opus in my head are generally too cheesy to actually make me want to show them the light of day. Instead I attempt to mock them to some extreme.
Thus is the fate of my endeavors.
To become a mock-up.

[Caleb]

funky lime I almost died laughing reading your post. So many of them sounded like me.

I really enjoyed the track templates one because I did exactly the same thing.

Hmmm - my confessions.

- I can't play keys and sing at the same time, which pretty much crushes my dream of becoming a one-man performer. I am working on it though.

- The sounds I end up with in my songs are nearly never intentional. I suck at sound design and I'm impatient enough that I'll go through a number of presets in Wusikstation until I just make my idea conform to the sound I've ended up with.

- I find that clever arpeggiators are often coming up with better riffs than I could come up with myself. Thanks Ugo.

- My stupid attempts at learning how to compose for guitars/drums in midi with a high level of proficiency have basically been a failure. I'm now a big fan of loops - both midi and audio.

- My mixing/mastering is an exercise in frustration where I've read advice that seems to make sense on paper but I can't really hear the result. So I mix with eyes and a couple of basic principles and just hope that I end up doing something right.

- I never think my voice sound right in any recording.

- I don't really buy any VST fx. I have CSR and Metallurgy and that's about it I think.

- The more I don't think about how much a synth/sampler can do the more I tend to actually get things done.

- I constantly look for the be-all-and-end-all composition solution in a sequencer but secretly suspect that this is saying alot more about me than the general state of sequencer development.

- I owned a Yamaha QY700 and composed more complete songs on that in 1 year than I have in about 6 years of composing on a computer.

Regards
Caleb

[Lunatique]

whenever someone recommends a band/artist to me, i make it a point NOT to check out that band/artist. i guess i just like stumbling upon stuff for myself. and i'm an asshole.

if i had to choose between a nice big, skunky, sticky bud, and an opportunity to get freaky-naughty with the hottest girl in town, i'd pick the bud for sure.

What happens if you stumble upon the recommended band at a later date on your own? Do you count that as having been told to check out that same band (since you remembered their name from the recommendation) and then refuse to check them out...again? I guess I can't relate to that because the joy of (possibly) finding new music that I'd love would be far greater and important than any kind of personal baggage I could ever possibly have. Don't you welcome that kind of joy in your life?

And seriously, you'd pick the booze over the girl? Really? Even if you are single and not in a relationship with anyone, the girl is perfectly clean (no STD), and she won't become a clingy mess afterward?

[Psy-T]

took a while to think what the hell i have to confess, but i came up with a couple:
i use the default mastering suite combinator preset in every song i make, and i load it in a project before i create anything else, in fact, it's included in my 'new song' template.
i can't correct timing f**k-ups by overdubbing, i have to either re-record the whole thing, or correct it with the mouse/quanitizing.

[shamann]

- Every time I use Sound Forge's "Insert Silence" function, I start singing "insert the silence" to the tune of Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence. I've been using Sound Forge for ten years.

- Most of my work-related passwords are based on 70s/80s song lyircs, like from Thomas Dolby's "One of our submarines", OMD's "Joan of Arc", J. Geils Band's live riff about "Raputa the Beuta" (not sure what song that actually is, think I've only heard the live recording). So I start every workday singing one or all of those songs.

[Reverend Rhythm]

Sometimes... late, late at night... when no one else is around... I listen to Kenny G.

[mcnoone]

if i had to choose between a nice big, skunky, sticky bud, and an opportunity to get freaky-naughty with the hottest girl in town, i'd pick the bud for sure.

Aaahhhhhh...Yea. Me too dude. I'm married though so...
@Lunatique. Booze? That ain't skunk bud.

funkylime. Do not listen to this band please.
http://www.myspace.com/rehabmusic

[Jazzyspoon]

But I noticed that the response I got from those who thought I was still in the band (and that the recordings were done with them) was considerably more favorable than those that I told I was doing it all myself.

That's really odd! Anyone else have this experience?

I still have no idea what the psychology behind this is, but I spent a lot of years testing this theory and it (generally speaking) held true. (especially with people who didn't know me at all)

[sockofgold]

... and i'm reluctant to even buy a pack of guitar strings from them because it would put money in their pocket and i would hate myself for adding fuel to their inanity.

Yep. Spot on man. And "incompetent satchel of f**k" is one of THE best insults I have ever heard.

[zerocrossing]

* I forced myself for four nights in a row to watch/listen to Wagner's Ring Cycle as performed by the Metropolitan Opera Company...I finally broke in the middle of the fourth night. I snapped. I started shouting and cussing and had to switch it off. I simply didn't have what it takes to suffer through it all.

This is the funniest post in a long time! I totally sympathize. However, I also remember times when I listened to Eno's Music for Airports and thought, "When does the song start?" I was judging the music based on what I was expecting, and not what it was. I'm not saying you should like The Ring Cycle. I sure don't. I don't like any opera but I often wonder if I'd like it if I saw it as intended in a theater. I know with some music like Reggae I can't listen to a recording of it. It only works in a live situation for me.