One Synth Challenge #80: MUX by MuTools (Voting Over, preliminary results in)

[bjporter]

Look, I obviously don't have the talent for music production.
At this point, honestly, I really don't care anymore.

I'd say after seeing the improvement of this last preview, that is wrong. Instead of taking this out on yourself, just stop from this point on. That was the last time you put yourself down.

Remember these words of eternal wisdom:

[rghvdberg]

Just put all the notes expect the first 3, one 16th to the left. Melody fixed.
I copied your notes in my sequencer, listened and couldn't find anything wrong. Then I turned on the metronome and I noticed how strange it sounded.
At 140 bpm a 16th note after the best is very short and sound like lag.
Please just give it a try and let's hear what people think.

[keyman_sam]

FTR, if I seem frustrated, angry and fed up, I am.

You need to understand something. I'm 57 years old and have been writing and recording my own music since 1979. That's 36 years. You would THINK that by now I'd at least be decent at this. But I'm not. I have close to ZERO natural ability and talent. For someone to love making music so much and to be so bad at it is probably the cruelest joke God can play on a person. And it's been like this with every creative thing I've ever done. I simply have no real talent. On top of that, my ears are shot so I can't even hear the things that normal people here.

I continue doing this for one reason and one reason only.

I can't picture myself NOT doing it.

But damn, I wish I were at least half way decent at this stuff.

Maybe I wouldn't take it out on everybody else.

If there's one magic bullet that you're missing its musical training. I listened to your track - like others have said the stuff doesn't line up. If it does, you've solved half the battle. And you don't know the stuff doesn't line up because...(im guessing) you don't have the musical training.

Get a teacher. 6 months to a year - learn the piano/basic music theory. See what you come up with. That one year will yield more than what you ever could in the past. You have a problem that can be solved, lucky you. Good luck!

[wagtunes]

FTR, if I seem frustrated, angry and fed up, I am.

You need to understand something. I'm 57 years old and have been writing and recording my own music since 1979. That's 36 years. You would THINK that by now I'd at least be decent at this. But I'm not. I have close to ZERO natural ability and talent. For someone to love making music so much and to be so bad at it is probably the cruelest joke God can play on a person. And it's been like this with every creative thing I've ever done. I simply have no real talent. On top of that, my ears are shot so I can't even hear the things that normal people here.

I continue doing this for one reason and one reason only.

I can't picture myself NOT doing it.

But damn, I wish I were at least half way decent at this stuff.

Maybe I wouldn't take it out on everybody else.

If there's one magic bullet that you're missing its musical training. I listened to your track - like others have said the stuff doesn't line up. If it does, you've solved half the battle. And you don't know the stuff doesn't line up because...(im guessing) you don't have the musical training.

Get a teacher. 6 months to a year - learn the piano/basic music theory. See what you come up with. That one year will yield more than what you ever could in the past. You have a problem that can be solved, lucky you. Good luck!

Ha, ha, ha. This is hysterical. No musical training? LMFAO.

I have a music minor from Upsala College which I graduated from in 1981. I've composed Symphonies, Piano Concerto's and Church Anthems writing actual sheet music. Would you like to see some of it?

My mother taught me piano when I was 5. I took singing lessons when i was 3.

I have NO f**king TALENT!

It is absolutely pitiful how much one can learn and still be so damn f**king crappy at his craft.

It's the same thing with computer programming. I went to 2 computer schools but can't program anything more complicated than simple bookkeeping shit. I can't create anything really cool like computer games. Not because I don't know how to code but because I have no f**king talent.

Everything I do is essentially copied from somebody else because my internal creativity quotient is zero. Even this track is essentially bits and pieces of old 70s vibes.

I can do a whole lot of things piss poor but nothing really well. That's been the story of my life. Even music, which I have dedicated over 36 years of my life to (really more if you want to be technical about it) I only do so-so.

But no training? OMG, that is the funniest thing I've heard since some chick once told me that I was a handsome man. LMFAO.

Had I had no training I wouldn't even be doing this shit because I'd be too embarrassed to.

Anyway, thanks for my laugh for the day man.

No training. LMFAO.

** EDIT ** Here's a symphony I wrote a couple of years ago. Transcribed in Finale one note at a time just like in the old days thanks to my "training." Sounds like crap because I have no musical talent but at least I had the training to write it.

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

[ThePresent]

As for OSC tracks, focus on it, and just use the help of these forum contributors. Use the maximum amount of time to perfect your sounds, composition and production (one whole month ) and you will see and hear improvement, no matter how the voting thing will turn out. Creativity can be an instance of suddenly coming out of nowhere but it can also be a result of long focused periods of time. Having that faith will be of great use in keeping away from despair. And of course, disciplining yourself to spend way more time on music than forums, no offense

[Eauson]

Creating comes from relaxing and not stressing, be childish in you're attempts, accept mistakes and be HAPPY

[z.prime]

I thought I'd share this with everyone... it's a presentation to some Berkeley students by NGHTMRE (a recently popular producer, some releases on big labels). He went through the Icon Collective production program (which seems very awesome and I would possibly do if I had time), so there's probably some bleed-through of information garnered there, as well some information garnered from a production crash-course from Jaytech (who is also well known and has some very nice tracks, too).

Brian's comment reminded me of it, because in particular it included a similar quote that I liked a lot, talking about being "creative" from Ira Glass. It's interesting that everyone seems to say the same thing - that *no one* just sits down and plops a grammy winning track down. It takes hard work. Lots of hard work. In fact, very much work is required *after you're already good* just for honing your skills, for solidifying your foundations. In particular, I might not want to hear it myself, but feel like everyone should accept the bit to some degree that says: "Do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work." Wherever you are today in your music creation process, I think it's important to acknowledge that aspect, that even the best producers or creative people struggle from time to time to be creative and have to work hard to get as good as they are.



The thing about it is... maybe you've been doing music for 36 years or 3 minutes. If there are things to improve, spend time improving them. Do "a huge volume of work" on those particulars. I've mentioned many times my strategy for OSC, which is: pick my weakness and work on it every month until I've figured it out and it's no longer my weakest point. Lately, I've been having problems finding good information to address my weakest points, but nonetheless am trying to address those shortcomings by the small volume of work I can produce for the OSC. And I encourage you to do the same thing, if you're interested in getting better. If you're not interested in getting better, then don't bother, but understand that those deficiencies will show and people around you *will* be getting better.

I also don't buy the 'lack of talent' thing. People *do* have natural abilities for things, granted. Some people may just seem to be great at producing amazing things. I don't count myself into that category, but I'd lump Jasinski in there. The thing is, those amazing things took a lot of time. They took a lot of practice to get there; they didn't happen overnight. If you asked either of us, we'll tell you we spend a bunch of time on the tracks we produce. For me, at least, not to win the OSC, but to push what I can do to my limits. So to classify a lack of time or lack of dedication as a lack of talent is a misnomer at best, call it what it is. Lack of time? Ok, people are busy, we know that. But I don't buy that it's a lack of talent. There is not really such a thing.

Anyway, here's the full video (it's 2 hours, highly recommended... it's geared toward Ableton Live, but it's applicable to just about any DAW, I think; and lots of general music production/creation information):

[ontrackp]

Wow. Hey Z - thanks for posting that video. And I agree with your thoughts about improving each month, and what that process is.

I've been recording original music for over 30 years. Most of the time there has been a creative directive which would push the composition and production in a specific direction. The OSC is a unique opportunity to get a piece done in a short time, and have it held up to a pretty high standard with the bonus of comments from a very accomplished peer group. It's also an opportunity to work on the areas that need improvement, and to produce something that just follows its own creative path, and that's a great opportunity.

There is no substitute for hard work. And as long as I learn something new every day I plan to continue doing this. This month is really hard -- using MuLab is challenging and although the open architecture of the synths is flexible and fun to use, I'm finding it hard to program sounds that I'm really happy with. But this is part of what makes it fun -- the challenge. And if my piece doesn't really work and I come in last that's ok -- I know I will have learned something from the process, as well as from listening to everyone else's work, and that carries it's own reward.

[psmacmur]

This is all reminding me of a passage in Superfreakonomics that distilled Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours to, more or less, this: expertise requires large amounts of technique-focused practice with timely feedback.

IIRC, they actually attempted to measure the ratio of talent to practice required, and while talent is a factor, mostly at the beginning, it's not a huge factor; obsession, practice, and timely feedback count more. (It's in chapter 2's section "Where does talent come from?" article about the book

[rghvdberg]

To be honest.
I hear a lot of tracks on the OSC and few songs.
You got a song here, with a good melody. I like songs.

But the song is ruined buy the timing of the melody.
No amount of sound production wizardry can fix this.
Several people mentioned this, I'm not the only one.
For Cliff's sake, put those laggy notes a 16th to the left.

[wagtunes]

To be honest.
I hear a lot of tracks on the OSC and few songs.
You got a song here, with a good melody. I like songs.

But the song is ruined buy the timing of the melody.
No amount of sound production wizardry can fix this.
Several people mentioned this, I'm not the only one.
For Cliff's sake, put those laggy notes a 16th to the left.

The timing has been fixed. I just haven't posted a new version yet. In fact, a lot has been added to it. It's greatly improved but still not there.

[rghvdberg]

Can't wait to hear it!

[wagtunes]

Can't wait to hear it!

I've taken up enough of everybody's time with feedback already so I'm just going to work on the rest privately and post it when it's ready to go live. At that time, whatever is still wrong with it, well, whatever. I'm not going to get all bent out of shape over it.

Trust me, I'm not expecting anything amazing this month.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

** EDIT ** Here's a symphony I wrote a couple of years ago. Transcribed in Finale one note at a time just like in the old days thanks to my "training." Sounds like crap because I have no musical talent but at least I had the training to write it.

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

http://www.stevewagenheim.com/wagsrfm.c ... vement.mp3

bizarre, bordering on surreal it's like finding out someone who is deaf, dumb and blind can paint like picasso. though i'm exaggerating, of course, i wonder why you are not playing to your strengths. you do have great musical sensibility, and when composing in a more traditional manner everything falls sweetly into place

though you deride this work as you do the rest, surely you can see that you have achieved in this what you are finding so difficult in your more 'contemporary' styled work i.e cohesion

how hard would it be to marry this workflow with a different musical style ??

[kurodo]

I've taken up enough of everybody's time with feedback already so I'm just going to work on the rest privately and post it when it's ready to go live. At that time, whatever is still wrong with it, well, whatever. I'm not going to get all bent out of shape over it.

Trust me, I'm not expecting anything amazing this month.

I think you are beating yourself way too much man - your posts now run the very real risk of the sympathy vote in the challenge. That won't help you though, it'll just hinder you.

You've made music all your life and will hopefully continue to do so for the remainder.
Honestly as long as you enjoy what you are doing try not to let other peoples opinion deter or derail you from what you obviously get a lot of pleasure from.
You still have your presets, webpage and other notches in your belt and hopefully your health