thawkins

This week I remixed an old track.

I don't get what you mean by phase response? I feel like it's a lot easier to do the thing with a measurement microphone and eliminate any big resonant frequencies there might be. Because I'm realistic and I am never going to have a dedicated room that I can put bass traps and foam padding all over the place to have a studio space.

By the way, what's this thread's opinion - is it worth to buy cheaper monitors with some room correction software like Sonarworks Reference or go with more expensive monitors and "learn the room"?

Weird thing about refinement and invention is that if you look at how new genres evolve, I don't think there is any clearly identifiable crossover point when genre A becomes B. It's just some organic process, where people work and are influenced by each other's work and what generally goes on in the world. Occasionally there is some new technology that helps, but it's not like a new genre drops newly formed. Like for example Kraftwerk went and built their own sequencers and made groundbreaking work, but if you listen to their stuff and what else was around during that time, it's suddenly not so alien and new at all. Before they had fancy gear, they tried their best with regular amps and instruments. Their stuff becomes special and distinctive over time as Kraftwerk refines their sound, but that process happens over the course of literal decades. Also I wouldn't say you can throw away old stuff the moment something new comes. The booming retro analog synth market would want a word with you. ? Same thing with old music, there's plenty of stuff to listen to and get inspired.

Well yes, I said music theory is a broad concept! Scales are basic stuff - if you want your track to sound "in tune" with itself, you remove all the notes that are not on your chosen scale, and then the result will sound according the classical harmonic norms. I think this qualifies as an application of music theory in composing. It's still music theory even if it's not using advanced concepts. I guess what I wanted to say that if you manage to learn all of music theory somehow (including all the non-western, non-classical theories), then in the end you still have to go with your gut feeling and pick the concepts that you care about when making a particular track. I.e. theory can help you but intuition has to come first to show the way.

You should be able to do that with the new M1 Macs. I haven't tried this because I don't have a M1 Mac, but here you go https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/18/21574207/how-to-install-run-any-iphone-ipad-app-m1-mac

I got an used pair of Presonus Eris E5 for the living room setup and I really like how they sound just for regular listening stuff. Not sure how they work as monitors for mixing but SoS has good reviews.

Music theory is a really broad subject. No surprise if you and I and all the other posters in this thread are simultaneously talking about different things. ? I don't have a good example on hand, but my go-to trick when I feel like I need more harmony or something is to move or add one of the notes so that it's 2st above or below. Yeah, maybe it does fit in the "allowed notes list" of whatever scale I am working in, but I don't go and check whether by doing so I changed scales, I just trust my ears and gut feeling.

I don't know, I feel like mixing theory and frequency response and all that is still a part of music theory as a whole. Like when theory says all your notes have to be on the same scale, but you ignore it when your chords with off notes sound better to you.

I am not sure what the confusion is about "theory follows practice". If your theory says "human hearing starts from 20Hz" but your kick sounds way better in the club if it is sharply cut off at 50Hz, then I don't think there is a lot of debate and you will do what your ears tell you. Yes, it's circular in the sense of practire -> theory -> practice -> theory, because that's how you progress: you experiment and learn and take the learned knowledge with you to the next experiment.

Yeah I think if I start out doing things that intuitively feel like a good idea, and I occasionally stop to meditate, reflect on whether it was a good idea or not, then by repeating this process, eventually I get to a point where I have my own theory of what to do in a certain situation to get the result I want. Theory is a kind of a formalisation of what I get once I have trained my intuition/gut feeling.

Well since you can patch stuff around it's quite modular, no? Even if the modules themselves are built in and not removable, you can still change the way it is patched, so it kind of counts.

We can push this argument and start reviewing ambient drone to see whether it's innovative from the standpoint of "music theory". Clearly most of it is utter crap because there are too few complex arrangements. It's over for Brian Eno.

Sorry mate if you show up to me after a show trying to explain that I should have used more harmony or whatever it is that you think "music theory" is, then you are getting the "yeah I will just hear what the crackpot has to say before I get an excuse to bail" treatment. If you want to be a critic you got to do better.

Getting incredibly unnerved by those plastic butterfly screws. Is that a tape delay? Yes, sign me right up for a 50000 squid maintenance nightmare.

100% agree that music theory is a tool. I don't think @brian trageskin has a very clear idea of what they are talking about when they mention theory though. 100% disagree that more theory definitely makes a better result. You just can't avoid the part where you use your gut feeling and instincts (as opposed to following some rules that come from theory) to create something new and cool and innovative. Maybe a good summary would be that learning and practicing theory (as in what is taught in schools or the current industry standard) is really important so you can get to a point where you trust yourself enough to build upon that theory and create something new and exciting.

Looks like you don't know anything about anything and you are just trying to avoid saying "I don't like some of AFX tunes". It's fine, I don't like most of his tunes either. I can't argue however that his stuff is pretty innovative and one of a kind (and inspired a lot of other folks). You are trying to move your goalposts of "what is music theory" to be somewhere that makes "jazz greats" good and AFX bad. Music theory in your interpretation is both "stuff you learn from jamming" and "classical music education" depending on whether it supports your argument or not. I think Aphex Twin absolutely has his own theory of how his stuff works and how he prefers to work, probably he will exhaustively explain it to you like all those jazz greats could. No problem, if there is anything everyone always appreciates is some rando explaining them how they could do their thing better.

Yeah, for some reason I don't think that all the jazz greats from 20th century went through some classical training course before they started composing their music. I feel like it was the other way around - jazz came from a bunch of people playing together and teaching each other, theory came later to help systematize things and make it possible to write it down to an extent. OK so my main thing with you guys saying "music theory" over and over again is that it's a very broad concept. There are simple theory concepts that 99% of people making music know: like what are notes, what are note durations, how to read sheet music, what is tempo, etc. I would say that anyone who ever touched a piano(roll) or a MIDI step sequencer and made something with it, knows music theory at least limited to these concepts. Therefore Aphex Twin knows music theory. Then there is more stuff, like intervals, circle of fifths, modes, different tunings for different instruments, things like colundi, atonal music etc. etc. whatever it is that they teach you at conservatories. Most people making music as a hobby don't know or care about that stuff. If I need to be familiar with these high level concepts in order to be able to say "I know music theory", then yeah even after 10 years of classical studies that I even got a diploma for, I don't know music theory. I think it's a weird argument to make that just because an artist does not write their music to make use of things you personally like in music theory, then that artist must obviously not know music theory and it would definitely be better if they knew more music theory. In the end it's their creative decision to use or not to use any production tool (which is all music theory really is - a collection of tools and concepts to help you out). And for many styles of music I would say that you can really easily kill any true creative process by starting to apply too much theory and end up ruining everything by overthinking it.

And here's the full jam session that I made the above track out of.

Isn't music theory some stuff smart people figure out way longer after the fact to objectively try to explain and reason about some music? If so, the who cares if AFX knew any theory or not, because "music theory" is going eventually to have to explain what's going on in his tunes and EDM as a whole. Also if you know theory it does not mean that now you have to use it always (unless you produce math rock).

It's not known because not much is known about him in the first place and he clearly likes to joke around and bullshit in all kinds of interviews too. It's clear that AFX knows something about music theory because obviously he managed to put together his gear, record kickass albums and get them published. I am not sure at what point someone's knowledge of music becomes "music theory" because even the most newbie producer knows what an instrument is and how to get at least some noise to come out of the speakers. OK maybe the correct thing to say is that if you keep posting too much on WATMM about music theory then that's the wrong way to go. You should do some music practice and go write and record something. Yes, the author of this post should also follow their own advice.

That's probably true, but another thing that comes to mind - you won't find enough other listeners that will give you that feedback with enough detail. Even if it's in the form of thumbs up or thumbs down.

I think Mozart's and Afx's stories both show that it's the combination of grinding (hard work) and talent (luck). I don't think either of them lucked out by accidentally composing their music perfectly on the first go. It was probably a lot of experimentation and learning (not necessarily classical music theory) that got them to where they were. I read something in one of those smart books (Thinking, Fast And Slow) that basically it's true that 10 000 hours of work will get you to an expert level of whatever thing you are doing, but the catch is that you need to work in such a way that you can get feedback/criticism on whether you are progressing in the correct direction or not. With music this is incredibly difficult because there is no such thing as objective criticism on art. That said, working on your technical producer chops and knowledge of the gear and tools you use is going to make it much easier to execute your vision at least.

Well that's a pretty bad-ass drawer. You ever thought of getting a central MIDI sequencer for controlling all that stuff? This post reads like a cool modern outsider art concept album?

Post pics of the drawer. Not even joking, my biggest respect goes to people who post a pic of their janky cheapo laptop or some small setup that looks like you can't really do much with it until you check out their bandcamp/soundcloud and go "huh I have all this gear and how come my stuff sounds so boring and bad compared to theirs". IMO you think "yeah when I have a Proper Studio all will be cool", but honestly it never fucking ends. Whatever gear you get, however nice the space is, there is always something missing. It still sucks; highs are too aggressive on your $texas monitors; if you have a view to something nice - people/dogs/birds/trees/the sun will come and make noise and piss you off because you can not concentrate while making music; if you don't have a view, you can't concentrate because you are going insane staring at a dumb wall. At least that is how I have discovered my brain works - no matter how good I have it, I guarantee I will find a way to make myself think it sucks.