KVR Audio

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Tue Dec 13, 2016 9:17 pm

Ok I'm not the best producer, I'm not the best musician and I'm even not that great of a sound designer. I think somewhere in the back of my mind when i was younger I wanted to be incredible, and i didn't want to have to crawl before I could run. I always told myself that my work was just me "messing around" that i didn't put effort into it, but that was a lie because I did work hard on them.

I'm starting to see the summit I want to reach now, and it's attainable but I do realize just how much hard hard work that will be required. If I want to be like my musical idols, then I'll need to go put the time in just like they did.

Basically at this point, I'm owning up to my arrogance and from this point on I'm going to start focusing on music production as a humble self-learning experience rather than some kind of "Race" where I'm trying to sound better or be better than someone else. It always sort of was a journey, but I had this thought that I wanted to be "Better" than the other guys who were just getting started. It wasn't right, i had to start realizing that this isn't really a race.

Knowing this is kind of freeing, because I don't have to worry about sounding inferior if use plugin X when the latest and greatest plugin Y comes out that sounds better. I dont have to beat myself up and say my stuff sucks when I can't afford a huge studio worth of gear.

It's not about being number #1 on beatport, or selling a bunch of songs. It's all about the journey, and from this point on I'm going to start working on my humility!

What about you? Have you ever had this issue?

mitchiemasha · Post by **mitchiemasha** » Tue Dec 13, 2016 9:39 pm

I felt like that at first but failed to actually develop any talent... lol! It was soul destroying.

harryupbabble · Post by **harryupbabble** » Tue Dec 13, 2016 10:29 pm

I was never arrogant in terms of making music. I know I suck compared to what is in my CD/MP3 collection. And how do you compete in music if music is subjective? How do you prove "My song is better than yours"? In scrabble I could prove I am better than so and so because the stats says so. But in music-making, the only stats available seems to be how many songs have you made and how long did it take you to make them.

In that respect, it might be a race because you could die anytime from disease, from being at the wrong place at the wrong time, from wars you have no interest in, from anything really. And there's the possibility of being super-broke and homeless. And also from yourself changing, depression, losing drive, etc.

For me, the plan is to just keep making as much music till I can't. But then how do I know I'm not living Einstein's definition of insanity. Or that scene from the Shining where Jack Nicholson's character is typing the same sentence over and over for pages and pages. How does anyone know for sure they are not focused on the wrong thing. Go with your beliefs, I guess, it's the only option?

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 12:30 am

No, where I come from in the olden days there was no way to present unless you had the goods.
Also I had humbling experiences, one thing was I gravitated to older people (and even some of the younger people had more 'talent') with experience and I was always aware of where I did not.

One thing I was laughing at yesterday, reminded of Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock. My father put me on stage with professional musicians when I was 12. I wasn't really that good for 12, mind. (drums, then) So they went with Watermelon Man and I'm good. Soon, maybe it was the very next number, the leader pulled this SLOW ballad in 5. It may as well been 5/2. Brushes, and I wasn't great with brushes anyway. I had no idea where I was in the tune. So I'm intensely aware of being a child among adults now.

Later after I had got a high school diploma (not from going to high school, thru the Community College program), I had the fear, and I figured I should go to music school so I picked the classical guitar back up and woodshedded for a couple yrs and got accepted (a few places). So once there, I am really at the bottom of the totem pole, nobody gives you nothin', there.

Music is not sports, no, but there is a such thing as substandard. The thing I noticed that's really irritated me is, in this milieu of technology which places things before you that won't have been place before you otherwise, we get all these people who got the idea it's time to compose music, that have not been involved in music previously. You don't learn to swim out of a book or from an internet article, and music is not different even as there are ways to present a 'production' without anything made by your hands to now, to speak of.

Functional · Post by **Functional** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:42 am

Dunno. I think my humility started to set in due to big ideological changes in me after about six months of depression and a lot of thinking. I think I changed slowly as a person and it affected also me in terms of how I perceive what I do. I don't even really worry anymore that my home studio is really subpar in so many ways, I'll still mix and master even in this environment and so on. It kind of feels nice. It results into more hours on doing stuff rather than worrying about stuff. But when it comes to being popular or successful or whatever, that kind of stuff is just completely past me anyway.

jancivil wrote: Music is not sports, no, but there is a such thing as substandard. The thing I noticed that's really irritated me is, in this milieu of technology which places things before you that won't have been place before you otherwise, we get all these people who got the idea it's time to compose music, that have not been involved in music previously. You don't learn to swim out of a book or from an internet article, and music is not different even as there are ways to present a 'production' without anything made by your hands to now, to speak of.

One could also argue that there is a plus (possibly even from your POV) that it might encourage people to get their hands involved later on, even if they don't do so from the very beginning. I mean that's how I eventually started to learn playing piano, got myself involved into live mixing (not djaying, but like actually, using M7CL console for FOH and monitor mixing for bands, from solo instrumentalists to choirs, from jazz bands to rock bands and so on). And that's how I got involved with theater as well as a sound designer. And that also generally got me very interested in DSP, with me considering perhaps one day applying for IRCAM once I know I got the economic resources to study there, plus possibly start learning the language beforehand, 'cause I think repeating "c'est la vie" won't cut it. Eventually I realized that all I really want to do was become sort of "technical assistent" to artists. So being a "producer" is closest thing to that, I guess.

Not to say that you don't have a point there, but it's not just necessarily all that bad

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 4:58 am

The softening of will thru having it made for you is an inevitable, historical process I think. That's just my irritation at the amount of space that's taken up, music is devalued culturally even more than the tendency already was.

And, ironically it may make it harder to find 'the truth' about a thing, the internet. In terms of music theory you have a lot of people with not even a half-baked reception of the thing (which may have been half-assed itself), blogging now as though expert, arriving at the appropriate fora as if teachers when they're more in need of remedial study actually.

The topic was 'owing up to _ arrogance'. I get called arrogant for such a view as I present here, but the real path to mastery in music is profoundly humbling.

Functional · Post by **Functional** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 5:57 am

Well, that's unfortunately the internet and its adversary effects. I could write a whole bunch of examples of how this stuff occurs elsewhere, literally on almost any topic. But then again, surely you must be well or most likely better aware of this than me. We're (with a friend of mine) actually planning to use category theory to do some political satire and "prove" all kinds of funny things in hopes that at least some people might understand to be critical of stuff that they do not understand (category theory is literally this kind of stuff for 99,9 % of people, at minimum).

I remember actually having beef with you like what, 4 years ago, back when I was much more naive, when I probably could have called you arrogant or something like that (with great irony). But look, that's just young people in the end, I think. I've read a lot of your posts (esp. in music theory section) later on and realized that you're being quite helpful. I think you know it in the end yourself that all these "fresh producers" just tend to be like this, yet you still go on dealing with them. A lot of them are probably very young so you'd expect this kind of behavior from them in other topics too. BUT — lots of people might still be reading (and appreciating) what you have to say without really participating in the conversations.

Regarding the whole "everything made for you", it's really just the marketing and specifically the problem of marketing. All these toys don't function as they're marketed. They don't really replace the lack of artistic expression, now do they? If not, eventually the reality will kick in for most people; I got all these toys yet I can't come up with anything by using them. But the way they're marketed though really encourages for the kind of arrogance; "But I have the best stuff! I should be doing the best stuff! But even X(artist) uses Y(synth)!"

It actually reminds me a lot about a certain allegory used by Richard Feynman, the lovely bongo drum player (who did some physics as well). Dunno if its interesting to you, but especially regarding the "We have the best stuff!" mentality it really is fitting, given the used allegory "the planes dont land": http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:11 am

Please!

Almost everyone on this (and really every forum) are simply what we think of "ourselves" and not of what others are.

In the end, who cares? Do what you want, if someone likes it, fine. If not, fine. Excessive "blah" is arrogant in itself.

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 8:25 am

The epitome of arrogance is to talk about how shit others are at composing in a thread about owning up to your own arrogance.

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:42 am

society is replete with persons who are willing to do this for you and have no other pressing activities scheduled, they probably have the greatest awareness of the criteria as well.

my pdf, "everything fun about synthesis" contains some thoughts on the role of music production for the individual in this culture. it could be a worthwhile read. sorry i can't paste them here, but that would take all the "lookit meee" stigmatisation from this post that will be so very entertaining. oh no, xoxos posted, and he posted about xoxos. meanwhile, enjoy the tao te ching.

nice to see a higher quality discussion here for a while, hoping the thread continues in this fashion instead of the "peggin folks" fashion. maybe we can run a "recognising and owning up to other peoples' arrogance" supplementary discussion elsewhere

in my opinion, most people are quite good at self checking, it's the social checking that encourages them to "reemphasise a bold front", so to speak, both without and within.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 6:40 pm

.jon wrote:The epitome of arrogance is to talk about how shit others are at composing in a thread about owning up to your own arrogance.

Who said anything particular about any other person's 'composing'? A generality {in principle}, the tendency of people to start 'composing' with no previous experience with music, has (on this forum) been demonstrated to be true.
If there is some evidence that the result of that, in any art form or any endeavor (running a race before you can walk, for a prime example) is desirable, please demonstrate, then you have an actual argument before us.

Like I said, you lot call someone arrogant for even noticing this little slice of reality. Do you resemble that remark, are you burned by that?

To jump in a thread as you did, to characterize correcting basic spelling of chords {pertinent to a site which purports to give you the notes of chords in its convenient interface} as "retarded", as though you're above it all, is the very picture of arrogance. Trolling in order to promote conflict based in such a weak position as yours is the very picture of unwise.

mvillemaire · Post by **mvillemaire** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:00 pm

V0RT3X wrote:It's all about the journey...

I don't know if I will ever finish a song, but I am having so much fun learning and experimenting along that road. Worth it in itself.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:11 pm

Functional wrote: I remember actually having beef with you like what, 4 years ago, back when I was much more naive, when I probably could have called you arrogant or something like that (with great irony). [...] I think you know it in the end yourself that all these "fresh producers" just tend to be like this, yet you still go on dealing with them. A lot of them are probably very young so you'd expect this [...]. BUT — lots of people might still be reading [...] without really participating in the conversations.

I don't remember the beef. Last year or somewhere I vaguely recall yer user name as regards something quite unpleasant, but I wasn't even sure that wasn't "Dysfunctional".

I write for the whole of readership. I doubt a problem is specific to an individual. At the moment the ("Jazz Theory") article using a lot of useless lingo is not uncommon, it's actually typical.

Functional wrote: Regarding the whole "everything made for you", it's really just the marketing and specifically the problem of marketing. All these toys don't function as they're marketed. They don't really replace the lack of artistic expression, now do they? If not, eventually the reality will kick in for most people; I got all these toys yet I can't come up with anything by using them. But the way they're marketed though really encourages for the kind of arrogance; "But I have the best stuff! I should be doing the best stuff!"

I think the fact of loops on a computer, just that little slice of it, encourages someone that is all about instant approbation and validation... let alone all of that. I don't blame even the excesses of marketing. The person self-aware (an expansion of self-consciousness?) will be ok. Sometimes we need a nudge in the right direction.

I mention that, tendency of a (as you bring in, a young) person with a machine's result they can stick their name on ('I make beats') could mean they never went on stage and felt scared of falling flat, or felt downright ridiculous when they did.

So the marketing could be for the person that knows enough to appreciate the abundance of articulation, or the abundance of control of a synth. If it's for suckers, don't be a sucker, it's on you.

Functional · Post by **Functional** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:55 pm

jancivil wrote:I don't remember the beef. Last year or somewhere I vaguely recall yer user name as regards something quite unpleasant, but I wasn't even sure that wasn't "Dysfunctional".

I kind of have doubts that it was me, at least if we're talking about "year ago", because AFAIK during that time I kind of lost the little inspiration I had, until I met this singer. But you might be correct. And hey, it's not like I'm still not naive, just more willing to accept it when its (reasonably) pointed out.

jancivil wrote:I write for the whole of readership. I doubt a problem is specific to an individual. At the moment the ("Jazz Theory") article using a lot of useless lingo is not uncommon, it's actually typical.

Oh, i actually was watching that thread curiously. Topic was out of my reach, but still curious enough to read. Anyways, I think the way you write is just good, especially since you seem to consider the other possible readers. Just thought you might want to hear something positive for exchange

jancivil wrote:I think the fact of loops on a computer, just that little slice of it, encourages someone that is all about instant approbation and validation... let alone all of that. I don't blame even the excesses of marketing.

To some extent agree, to another disagree. I agree that this sort of stuff encourages the fresh producers to think that they're going to be putting out those original "banger tunes" quickly. But I'd argue also about the aspect that they might already be predetermined with the mentality before they even get to that point. Many people have the similar story as did I; you love the "flavor of the month" (or year) music, you see the artists in their high-life videos and so forth, as if all this could be yours by just knowing how to program some synths and play some chords. Dunno, but that was sort of how I felt back then. First year of "music production" to me was just so disillusioning and rather liberating.

jancivil wrote: I mention that, tendency of a (as you bring in, a young) person with a machine's result they can stick their name on ('I make beats') could mean they never went on stage and felt scared of falling flat, or felt downright ridiculous when they did.

Yup, must agree here, as you'd probably guess, for personal reasons alone. I find it ridiculous how some people do these "live shows" despite not playing anything at all really. And they do it solo. To me that kind of stuff just feels rather... slimy, I guess. If I'd go on a stage (with what I have right now), I'd be certain to inform everyone that I'm just an utility there; singer is the artist. But hey, I already picked up a bass guitar and slowly learning it, so maybe I'm not that doomed.

jancivil wrote:If it's for suckers, don't be a sucker, it's on you.

Yeah but there might be the possibility that someone sort of drops into this loop of thinking that it's all about the toys. I guess you could call the person a sucker, but I think wasted potential is more precise perhaps?

.jon · Post by **.jon** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:01 pm

jancivil wrote: Who said anything particular about any other person's 'composing'? A generality {in principle}, the tendency of people to start 'composing' with no previous experience with music, has (on this forum) been demonstrated to be true.
If there is some evidence that the result of that, in any art form or any endeavor (running a race before you can walk, for a prime example) is desirable, please demonstrate, then you have an actual argument before us.

Like I said, you lot call someone arrogant for even noticing this little slice of reality. Do you resemble that remark, are you burned by that?

We're not calling you arrogant, you are arrogant. Everybody notices the thing, it just doesn't annoy the rest of us, nor do we use it to lift ourselves on some imaginary pedestal by bringing it up in a thread about arrogance.

This is an opportunity for you to grow as a person, I suggest you seize it.

Recognizing and owning up to your own arrogance.