thawkins

May 24, 2021

This week I remixed an old track.

May 24, 2021

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.

May 23, 2021

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"?

May 23, 2021

13 hours ago, psn said:

There was a "most people..." at the start of that quote.

If I rephrase to "Most people working purely intuitively will repeat what's already been done" do you still disagree?

I've enjoyed how some of my favourite genres have been refined over the years. But there's an interesting nuance between refinement and invention. The former is a matter of having good taste, honing your craft and focusing on the best parts of what's already been done. You keep the good bits and toss out the bad bits through trial and error. Needs "a good ear" more than anything else. That's how genre/tradition music evolves, in a linear fashion. While invention is more interruptive and angular - something so new comes along that you can throw away a large chunk of what's been done before.

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.

May 23, 2021

On 5/22/2021 at 12:31 AM, ghsotword said:

Music theory doesn't really say that all your notes have to be on the same scale. Theory tutorials for beginners might say something like that but that's just oversimplification of theory that's done with the aim of making it easier to digest.
Music theory has concepts e.g. passing notes, chromatic harmony, borrowed chords and modulations for describing the off notes. I'm sure whatever you come up with by moving the notes by 2 semitones, theory actually already has names and concepts to describe it.

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.

May 23, 2021

On 5/21/2021 at 9:31 PM, dingformung said:

would be nice if one could run iOS apps on macOS. too busyy rn to check if there is a way to do that, maybe someone knows about thsi?

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

May 23, 2021

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.

May 21, 2021

5 minutes ago, xox said:

maybe, when all is nothing, and nothing is all and conversation turns into the theatre of the absurd

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.

6 minutes ago, xox said:

do you have an example of this?

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.

May 21, 2021

1 hour ago, xox said:

All clear to me but, we were talking about the music theory not about physical aspects of the sound

music =/= sound

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.

May 21, 2021

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.

May 21, 2021

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.

May 18, 2021

9 hours ago, kakapo said:

Really pushing the definition. There doesn't appear to be any cv, there's one eurorack module and a couple of guitar pedals. Im guessing you can reorder the effects. Nice design aesthetic but he should probably call his company Simulacrum Synthesizers.

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.

May 17, 2021

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.

May 17, 2021

29 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

i have no idea what the rest of your post means though. i don't need to explain to you what music theory is and what it's used for, you already know that. yes, afx probably has some sort of understanding of what's going on harmonically in his tunes but i doubt he really understands how it works though. maybe he does but then, why would he choose to make weak-ass shit like some of the stuff he's put out in recent years? kind of a very weird artistic decision imo. just my opinion.

also, me being an outsider has nothing to do with the topic here. a food critic doesn't need to know a thing about cooking to be good at their job. and don't get me wrong, i have great respect for the act of creation itself, i think it's absolutely great that people make music, no matter the outcome. it's the outcome itself i'm more critical about, and i personally believe it's what every musician should be critical about too.

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.

May 17, 2021

Getting incredibly unnerved by those plastic butterfly screws.

Is that a tape delay? Yes, sign me right up for a 50000 squid maintenance nightmare.

May 17, 2021

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.

May 17, 2021

1 hour ago, brian trageskin said:

you're perfectly right when you say that the "jazz greats from 20th century" didn't have formal training. what does that prove though? that you don't necessarily need to learn theory in an academic way to make sophisticated music. big deal. all those guys knew quite a fucking lot about theory, which they learned through improv and playing with other musicians. their understanding of it was probably not to the extent of "classical" composers' but they certainly could explain the theory behind any jazz chord progression or solo. exhaustively.

good for you that you have formal training but i really don't see why you mention that here. yes, there are different levels of understanding in any discipline, and the level you're at qualifies you to claim you know music theory. probably not to the extent of a jazz "great" but yeah, you understand how most music works, for the most part. knowing how to read sheet music etc. has nothing to do with understanding theory, so that doesn't qualify as knowledge of theory. if that's the extent of afx's knowledge then no, he doesn't know theory.

i'd be extremely surprised if he knew it to a certain extent for a very simple reason: when i listen to his releases post-tuss, i hear a guy who doesn't really know what he's doing, harmony-wise. i hear a guy who's limited in his ability to craft interesting or moving melodies and progressions. yeah, you don't have to apply your knowledge of theory in your tunes but i really don't think the quality of his stuff would be so varying if he did know it, i'd expect more consistency. i refuse to believe it's his creative decision to release well crafted progressions next to very weak and clumsy shit. i might be wrong though, maybe it is his personal choice. in which case that would mean he ran out of fucks to give.

and that last bit about killing the creative process by overthinking it, i mean i don't create so i wouldn't really know but i really don't see how knowing a bit of theory could lead someone to overthink their art. it's not like knowing theory makes the process slower, quite the fucking opposite, it's an accelerator. it gives you access to a panel of options in any situation, which makes moving your way through a tune so much easier. if you're deeply neurotic and your goal is to be the next great composer then yeah, it's probably gonna slow you down in the process, but aside from that, i really don't see how it could ruin the creative flow, quite the opposite imo.

agree to disagree i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

making weird stuff doesn't mean you undertand anything about theory though. your argument that he probably choses not to release more advanced stuff is kinda weak because it's kind of an ad hoc hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis - yeah i'm getting dcom-level of annoying lol - no offense to him hahaha). there's no proof out there that he's actually capable of making advanced stuff (advanced to the extent i'm of obviously) therefore there's no reason to believe so.

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.

Quote

i mean i don't create so i wouldn't really know

No problem, if there is anything everyone always appreciates is some rando explaining them how they could do their thing better.

May 17, 2021

14 hours ago, ghsotword said:

Not necessarily. Music in some melodically and harmonically complex styles like jazz or classical is generally made by people who use theory while constructing the music. Music theory is less relevant of course for making three chord punk rock, or techno where the only element that's not a percussion is a three note bassline

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.

13 hours ago, brian trageskin said:

first, you don't need to be smart to learn music theory, any idiot can do it. yeah, nobody cares if you know music theory or not, as long as the music's good. the problem is that ignorance is limiting, if anything else. limits can be very useful when you create art but they can also be an obstacle to achieving your goals. so i would argue that you don't need to know any theory if you don't have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, or if the music you aspire to is fairly simplistic; but if you do have a clear idea and it happens to be something a little more sophisticated, or if you don't but you're after achieving more sophisticated stuff anyway, then yeah, theory can help you a lot in the process.

to quote limpyloo:

https://forum.watmm.com/topic/79317-music-theory/?do=findComment&comment=2022755

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.

May 16, 2021

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

May 16, 2021

12 minutes ago, brian trageskin said:

he has a good ear for melody and harmony but he definitely doesn't know theory. i wonder why he never asked squarepusher to teach him a few things, quite strange imo. well maybe he did but then it doesn't show in his more recent output.

the strangest thing being how the harmony improved on each release up until the tuss, and then it suddenly got less sophisticated after that, as if he had suddenly lost his skills. retrospectively, he was at the peak of his art with the tuss.

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).

May 16, 2021

1 hour ago, ghsotword said:

Is it known for a fact that Aphex doesn't know music theory? To me, his early 90s stuff sounds like it's been made by someone who doesn't know music theory but I would guess he has picked up the theory later

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.

May 16, 2021

1 minute ago, xox said:

But we can be ‘objective’ enough to be, practically speaking, ‘objective’.

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.

May 16, 2021

13 hours ago, vkxwz said:

I think stuff like this proves that it's not solely about just grinding until you're suddenly a great composer, it has to be something else, like the way they actually think about music is entirely different. Otherwise you'd just be believing that they were born with musical talent or a brain that learns 1000x faster than the average person which is absurd. And aphex proves it's not about knowing music theory so you nerds can fuck off with that. It's gotta be something to do with the way they conceptualize music OR how they treat the process of creating and/or listening. telling people they just need to grind it out seems like the slowest and least efficient way to get to that point, and they may never even get there.

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.

May 12, 2021

3 hours ago, purlieu said:

Oh yeah, as someone with OCD and ADHD, my brain will never tire of telling me "all you need is this one change and then everything will be perfect". Continual goalpost shifting.

This is the drawer content:

The Volcas, the three Boss pedals and the SM58s are the only proper kit I've bought new, everything else is either charity shop stuff, gifts, or cheap crap from toy shops and hippie stores. The pile of mangled tape is all raw material for making tape loops. I've got a Behringer X1222, a second hand MicroKorg and four cheap guitars which would all ideally be set up alongside these little boxes in a corner of a room.

I've been mostly doing music on my computer for the past few years, but even though my skills have been continually improving, I've just found the whole process less and less fun as time goes by. I think when I was first doing computer music, kind of 2002-2011, I really enjoyed it because it was new and exciting, but since then the only time I seem to actually have fun is when I've got some kit out and I'm recording to 4-track.

This is the last 100% hardware thing I did, almost five years ago. It's very lo-fi but I had a lot of fun doing it:

Well that's a pretty bad-ass drawer. You ever thought of getting a central MIDI sequencer for controlling all that stuff?

3 hours ago, xox said:

imagine having vibraphones instead of parquet floors in your apartment! ...producing (shitty) music just by walking around

or you wake up late for work and your neighbors are having rave party

or getting up at night for a secret snack, walking slowly to kitchen bc you don't want to wake up your partner to know that you're eating sweets in the middle of the night and all that would probably sound something like like late morton feldman

or running to the toilet but always stepping the same bars to inform everybody around that you're having a massive no.2, which means not to disturb you and to avoid the toilet for the next 2 days, minimum

This post reads like a cool modern outsider art concept album?

May 12, 2021

9 hours ago, purlieu said:

God, every time I read this thread it reminds me how much I'm looking forward to getting a place of my own so I can actually set my gear up rather than having it stuck away in a drawer. Need to take a picture of the various cheap crappy kit I've picked up second hand and been gifted over the years.

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.

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