Software Hoarding

[IvyBirds]

Perhaps that 's the utter failure of anyone to be able to explain themselves in a cogent manner? To me it's the equivalent of loving your car, maintaining it meticulously, washing it every week, starting it up and running the engine but never actually driving it. It makes no sense. They are just tools, you use them to achieve other, greater things. It's weird.

Nope we get you lack passion around Synths, and think knowing them only takes a few minutes because all you care about is the factory presets, so all you need to learn is how to pull up presets from them in the menu

You said it yourself many times on this forum including this very thread

That said, I find that once I know a synth inside and out, when I can remember where all the good presets are (or I've bookmarked them all)

I actually feel rather sorry for you that you lack the passion to get into them and make your own sound for your own music

[jamcat]

Why?
The audience only cares about the song. Maybe BONES does, too.

[IvyBirds]

Why?
The audience only cares about the song. Maybe BONES does, too.

All I care about is the song also, which is why I take the time to learn how various Synths work, have passion around them so that the song and the music can be the best possible experience for the audience.

The last thing I want is for my song to be held hostage by the limitations of the various factory presets and sample packs available to me

What's next? Are we just going to use MIDI packs and AI and not worry about our craft or the audience?

[jamcat]

MIDI packs and AI aren't at all the same thing as presets. Presets are just a shortcut to get you to a place where you can actually start writing, playing, and recording. MIDI packs and AI are a replacement to that.

Do you mean to tell us you start from a default of a basic sine or all knobs down, and create every sound from scratch? That would be masturbatory. I think most people (at least those who work smarter, not harder) know their synths' presets and start with one that gets close to the sound they want, and they tweak it only as needed, perhaps adjust the attack or the cutoff. Then they get on with the music.

And BONES is 100% right. 'Knowing' how to use a synth takes no time at all for most analogue synths. Familiarizing yourself with the presets is probably the most time consuming part for most of them. And there are only so many useful sounds a synth can make. The rest is just fine-tuning it to work within your song.

Knowing a synth is really about knowing its character and what narrow range of sounds it's good at.

[jamcat]

See, there are two types of people who make music. There are the MUSICIANS who hear melodies and harmonies, and rhymes, and rhythms, and feel compelled to bring them into the world. And then there are the TECHNICIANS who twiddle knobs and push buttons until something interesting happens.

No one says you have to be one type over the other, and both have value. Just don't judge one by the standards of the other.

[IvyBirds]

MIDI packs and AI aren't at all the same thing as presets. Presets are just a shortcut to get you to a place where you can actually start writing, playing, and recording. MIDI packs and AI are a replacement to that.

Do you mean to tell us you start from a default of a basic sine or all knobs down, and create every sound from scratch? That would be masturbatory. I think most people (at least those who work smarter, not harder) know their synths' presets and start with one that gets close to the sound they want, and they tweak it only as needed, perhaps adjust the attack or the cutoff. Then they get on with the music.

And BONES is 100% right. 'Knowing' how to use a synth takes no time at all for most analogue synths.

Here is the deal, all that matters to me is the song. As such I have no interest in limiting myself to just analog synths. I have way more passion than that for my music. All analog all the time got boring as hell for me 40 years ago

So yes Bones is right if all you care about is simple boring Synths where you send a sawtooth wave through a Resonant Filter. I have hundreds of ways to do that and it gets boring as hell

Bones is wrong the moment you care enough about the song to move beyond that into things like Additive, FM, Physical Modeling, Spectral Synthesis, and a host of other things

Beyond that since all that matters to me is the song, I have also long since moved on from being trapped into just presets. I can't fathom the boredom and total lack of passion that would take to be reliant on presets. I take the time to learn Synths so I can move beyond the presets to the exact timbres that will work in my song. When I get an idea for a song I can hear the timbre in my head, the only thing that matters to me is bringing that reality to life

It's usually easier to start from scratch to achieve that than it is to browse through hundreds of presets to find something similar and then modifying it

Maybe you consider having some passion and commitment to my craft as masturbatory but for me it's just the way to make something happen in an efficient way

I get an idea, I know exactly the type of synthesis I need to pull that idea off, I know the exact plugin in to use that has that engine to pull off that synthesis type, and I know how to use those tools to make my idea happen

That's called having passion and commitment to your craft

[IvyBirds]

See, there are two types of people who make music. There are the MUSICIANS who hear melodies and harmonies, and rhymes, and rhythms, and feel compelled to bring them into the world. And then there are the TECHNICIANS who twiddle knobs and push buttons until something interesting happens.

No one says you have to be one type over the other, and both have value. Just don't judge one by the standards of the other.

You forgot the third type the MUSICIANS who hear melodies and harmonies, and rhymes, and rhythms, and the timbres that make up those things and feel compelled to bring them into the world.

I feel sorry for you that you can't grasp that

As musician when I get a musical idea it includes melodies and harmonies and the sounds that makes up those things

[Daru925]

And then the BEST type of musician who is obviously smarter than all of us because he only focuses on which ai software will allow them to buy a monkey nft. Imagine wasting time caring at all about quality in 2025. Fast Food Transform.

[_leras]

Why?
The audience only cares about the song. Maybe BONES does, too.

Sometimes the song IS the sound.

edit: whoops, I meant

Sometimes the sound IS the song.

[_leras]

See, there are two types of people who make music. There are the MUSICIANS who hear melodies and harmonies, and rhymes, and rhythms, and feel compelled to bring them into the world. And then there are the TECHNICIANS who twiddle knobs and push buttons until something interesting happens.

No one says you have to be one type over the other, and both have value. Just don't judge one by the standards of the other.

Black and White Thinking Alert

[dexrow]

I think of myself as a hacker, technician. experimenter. Unless it is just backing for a video it requires alot of new software and alot of sorting to be organized to make that a style.

[Jac459]

Why?
The audience only cares about the song. Maybe BONES does, too.

Sometimes the song IS the sound.

edit: whoops, I meant

Sometimes the sound IS the song.

Black or white thinking alert

[Jac459]

I think of myself as a hacker, technician. experimenter. Unless it is just backing for a video it requires alot of new software and alot of sorting to be organized to make that a style.

Was listening at your channel a bit, the title "war over carbon" was softly melting my brain when I saw you were having a title called "psychedelic picnic". As if anything coud be even crazier hehe.

Interesting stuffs.... Future Sound Of London (FSOL) sounds like pop music in comparison to your creations .

[paramita123]

About hoarding : it's easier to spend time downloading, buying and trying plugins than actually crafting a song until the end.
It's also easier to spend time browsing forums talking about gear and arguing about gear and hoarding than making music ..

As per the book "The art of War" this is all but a distraction. If you know it affects you, find the strength to set your path according to what you really want. Close the browser, open the DAW, throw the phone ... and craft !

[frag]

See, there are two types of people who make music. There are the MUSICIANS who hear melodies and harmonies, and rhymes, and rhythms, and feel compelled to bring them into the world. And then there are the TECHNICIANS who twiddle knobs and push buttons until something interesting happens.

No one says you have to be one type over the other, and both have value. Just don't judge one by the standards of the other.

Sometimes music making involves both these aspects, but generally, I prefer the "musician" type. A meaningful composition sounds good on many instruments, across different ages, while interesting sound usually stops being interesting as soon as you install new VSTi.
"Sound is song or song is sound" is 20th century fashion, an absurdity. Sound in itself will never be "song", simply because it lacks musical structure. It might be INTERESTING, but it's definitely not a song.
But someone needed really big market, where deaf people make sounds for the deaf people. I mean, sometimes I hear tracks in which everything is out of tune, but look at that - there's a market even for that kind of "music"!