thawkins
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Posts posted by thawkins
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Regarding websites where you upload MIDI and get a sound back from a Real Analog Synth.. I feel like on all the cheap Uli clones and efforts to simulate-reproduce the legendary gear (c.f. Roland Cloud for instance) are just reducing the appeal of those services to practically 0. In the end you can't put two people's MIDI through the gear at the same time, so it will only ever be able to serve one person at a time.
However to get back on topic, I don't know if it counts as a online tool strictly, but the ORCA sequencer is kind of cool
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On 2/18/2022 at 6:06 AM, luke viia said:
yep
I am like two degrees of separation away from knowing those guys in real life. I honestly did not expect to see this thing pop up in this thread.
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I'm just going from the problem statement of "how do I make music when I don't have much free time". A laptop is something you probably already have and so you can immediately get started without spending any money. Even if you choose to get a hardware thing, you are still probably going to use a laptop to record your stuff and sum down to a mp3 for practical listening.
I'd really like to stress that the point is not to think too much about how get good result, the point is to get started with the process of making something and then see what works for you and what does not, as you go.
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8 hours ago, chim said:
I'm kind of a H/W junkie so the discussion isn't really about that, just the right tool for each fool. If we can forget the watmm anti-work sentiment for a second, I didn't mean effectivizing your workflow as in cranking more beats per minute, but you need an environment in which it's easy to find inspiration, get ideas out, and it's not too painful to polish those ideas, so it's not just width but depth as well. So that might mean you need weird idiosyncratic tools to get in the right headspace, or it might mean replacing an analog synth with a digital one run through a Lonsberry or Jive FX pedal instead... and of course days of cable management to avoid fucking yourself over. I've tried a lot of different methods over the years, from dawless sequencing to programming in Pure Data. I've also had phases of just impulse buying old crap because it looks & sounds cool, then finding out wrestling sysex programmers to create patches on slow interfaces isn't really my favorite way to go about it. But I can get happily lost for ages when I feel connected to the right tools, which is a good sign I'm on the right track (Carl Jung also talked about that). You mention some good examples of structure and work ethic in your post and just like for sushi chefs, creative work benefits from that, not because you're producing goods under expectations, but because it's meaningful to experience a sense of direction and continually grow with your output and its challenges. If we look at the typical EKT topics, since we're talking electronic music and gear here and not just sitting on the porch with a banjo, people can get frustrated by everything from time management to harmony & production techniques. That's why it's important to find a personalized & structured approach/solution to each aspect of music making.
Yeah, I agree that these nice things like taking care of your gear, getting to know it better in bed, etc... it's for when you already have made room in your life for regular music making.
Like if your back's to the wall and you want to get started having one or two hours of uninterrupted creative time per week, the most versatile and effective tool for this situation is a modern laptop and a pair of good headphones. Sure, it can be any other setup as well, but the main thing is to get into a regular routine and then step by step change things around, learn your mind and your gear. I guess that's the aforementioned perfection of the rice making across many years.
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Yeah this stuff resonates with me a lot. What I like most is to play music, to be in the moment of creating something new and engaging in a jam session. Even better if that jam session is with friends, and the best if it's also got an audience that can appreciate it.
However in order to get to a point where I am allowed or invited to play these jam sessions in clubs and event spaces, I kind of need to record them, polish, cut into listenable tracks - most of all I need to get my name out there so that I get to have the live opportunities. This is all good in terms of getting better at making music, but at the same time the productifying-marketing aspect is also really soul sucking and demands energy that would otherwise be spent on being creative instead.
I am not having any illusions with regard to being able to live from my music, but I did like to play live concerts every once and a while.
Although I would say again that if your problem is "step 0: finding time & motivation to make music in your off hours" then that's really far from "step 31232: making money off my music".
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Paraphrasing a classic: time you enjoyed tuning your analog synth is not time wasted tuning your analog synth.
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3 minutes ago, cern said:
Wow then the "problem" is way more simple.. I stand by my first post here.
That everyone should become a rich tax evasion criminal in Thailand? You don't even sound happy living that life.
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3 hours ago, TubularCorporation said:
My problem these days is that I do treat music production like I treat the gym.
Yeah I feel that this type of approach sucks some joy out of it and turns music into yet another chore you have to schedule in your weekly calendar. I am not sure though how else to approach this at the moment, because I am afraid that if I stop, it'll be harder to get started again.
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1 hour ago, cern said:
No my point was only that he was (still is) a highly respected musician. He was touring, releasing music and so on but then come back with terrible story like that.
I have never being interested in music business so for me it has been much easier to secure my economy in other ways.I feel like you're missing the point here. This thread is about "how to find time for making music" not "how to make lots of money from your music".
Like, if you don't have enough time to devote to music, you are probably not going to have any music to sell anyway, so we need to solve the more important problem first.
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A while ago I had this joke idea that you should treat music production like a gym.
Start with 16x4 sets of techno beats, just open up a project, make a 4 bar beat, save the project, then a next different 4 bar beat. Get your APM up so your subconscious only has to hint towards "polyrhythm" and your fingers already do the motions and 2 seconds later (if Live has not crashed) you have a beat going.
Take 2 minute break.
Follow up with 4 reps of bass sound design, alternate between FM and AM synths.
OK anyway you get the idea..
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My suggestion is to trawl through some used gear listings and get something that you feel your heart connecting with that you can also use immediately as well.
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On 2/8/2022 at 10:04 AM, Berk said:
For me it's really difficult to keep up the music making, while at the same time I have to juggle my full time job. The deadlines, the cerebral work, takes up a lot of mind space and kills all creativity. I think i need a level of boredom and to feel relaxed, which i often don't anymore. Work work work.
Any tips how to sort of achieve that flow again? Thx
I am kind of in the same place as you are - full time job and even though I work from home, I am a dumbass who spends probably way too much brain cycles doing work. The result is that I am really tired most evenings and well I also try to have a social life and family (no kids though, just a cat).
On the other hand, I think music wise I am doing OK. I started doing WeeklyBeats in 2018 and since then I have kept up putting a track on Soundcloud each week. With @TubularCorporation we are also running a weekly livestream on Twitch and Youtube. I also go out in the real world once every 2 weeks to jam with a local guitarist pal for 2h where I play drums. All this still takes a good chunk of my time - let's say 1 evening 4h for doing the stream with setup-teardown and another evening making a track (4h again). Most weeks I will not get all the things done that I want, and this is probably just overly ambitious thinking on my part. Also, this schedule is probably only possible thanks to the pandemic killing off social life.
That said, I have some practical suggestions for digging out of the hole and starting a creative routine.
In your situation, the first thing what I would do is set some regular time each week (lets say 1-2 hours) for music. You could do it like weeklybeats, and set a target to make one new track each week. I think it's best to aim to create something new each week - either it is a finished track or a cool new Live preset, or you just take a youtube tutorial and try it out, or even just work on setting up your template project. Having tangible results to look back on to see "I did that" is a massive motivation boost, at least for me. Even if your result is just a single saw tone with a modulated filter, that's already great - you won this week's battle against fucked up time constraints and achieved something! Just like with hitting the gym or practicing anything else, you are not going to instantly win, but if you do steady work over time, you'll get there.
2nd thing - the project template. It's a reality problem that if you are struggling for time, you do not have time to reinvent your gear setup or whatever it is that you use to make music. So it's good to have your DAW project and favorite sounds set up in a nice sounding mix so you can get started quickly. Doing those livestreams I have everything set up to go, all I do is just open up the project and jam in some loops as sound check to begin with. Same with the video part. I never built that stuff from scratch, everything has evolved step by step by tweaking the mix and elements here and there.
In my opinion, the main thing you first want to achieve is that you get a routine going that fits you. You should not feel bad that you are not creating amazing music off the bat, maybe you never will, but I have found that after listening to my own tracks from years ago, some of them occasionally are not dog shit.
And since everyone's being philosophic, let me share a Bukowski quote.
Quote“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski-
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On 2/7/2022 at 9:06 PM, Taupe Beats said:
Updates to last post:
1. Looks like the industry term I was unaware of is "Digital Label".
2. I went on a bit deeper investigation after posting this and it appears the Faderfox EC4 is my ideal solution.
3. I had forgotten the Novation SL MK3's and the NI Kontrol do this, but I remember they only let you keep 1 preset onboard with user configurable data (the rest are presets they give you for DAW's). Baffling and not helpful if you use a lot of hardware. The Faderfox appears to have 16 presets which isn't great but it also appears each preset has up to 256 independent controls (so it's really 32+ presets when you get clever).
The last time I went to search for this kind of thing I discovered that what I personally wanted would be something that implements the Mackie Universal Control protocol. Because that seems to be the industry standard for showing you different controllers and also automapping to DAW elements which is super important, if you do not want to spend ages trial and erroring your own.
In the end I decided to get the 1st generation Ableton Push. This solution works for me because I am doing everything in Live nowadays.
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On 2/6/2022 at 12:21 AM, ascdi said:
Great idea for a thread! Here are some random thoughts (just my opinion)
1. don’t sample artists in your same genre (agreed)
2. don’t sample things that are already sampled
3. don’t sample lossy sources
4. don’t sample SEX SOUNDS. Way worse than blade runner samples, y’all. SO MANY electronic tracks ruined by sexy lady sounds. Ugh
5. don’t sample rappers rapping more than a few words
6. don’t sample other people’s versions of breaks
7. don’t sample other people’s 303 linez
8. DO sample the 808 state loon sound
9. DO sample the hoover bass sound
10. DON’T sample reggae (hot take here)
11. DON’T sample the door opening sound from Doom (distracting, makes me think I am playing Doom)
12. DON’T sample Autechre or Boards of Canada. Just don’t do it
13. DON’T put an annoying sample in your tracks just so people know it’s you (looking at you Terror Danjah)
14. DON’T sample video games (looking at you Burial)
EDIT: oh yeah 15. DON’T SAMPLE VINYL CRACKLE. WE GET IT
Not gonna lie, I have a feeling that I should be doing exactly the opposite of what this list tells and I might end up with something really cool.
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Ah whoops, the global re-enable button does the trick. Gosh boy it did feel amazing for 5 seconds to be all "guess you boffins did not think of this one!".
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Ok Ableton heads, anyone know how to re-enable automation on the Scale MIDI device? I am on Live 10, maybe this killer feature exists on Live 11.
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19 hours ago, Hautlle said:
Lol, yeah it doesn't get used a ton. I do like to use it as an input into rings for nice textured strings/drones. You can get rhythmic things going on by patching the kastle and using a stereo input y adapter to patch it with an adsr or clock from the system.
I also will use it as an osc source for percussion sounds from time to time. Now that I'm thinking about it, sampling it into the the Arbhar might be interesting....
12 hours ago, TubularCorporation said:I don't have a Kastle but I bet it would be cool as the carrier signal for a vocoder.
Thanks, great tips.
I am sure I tried both feeding some clock signal into the Kastle and also some vocoder experiments. I must have been using it wrong because the results definitely did not impress me back then. I used it mostly as a noise source that I could mess around with using Live's autofilter and its own knobs.
Maybe I will give it a shot again one day.
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On 1/28/2022 at 10:02 PM, thefxbip said:
Success of a sampling imo is the new track being at least as good or better than the original bit.
I came to post this here basically. Just like with any creative move, you're eventually responsible as an artist to make it sound good. Like if you sample, and it sucks and it feels unoriginal, people probably will not magically switch to liking the song more even if you can prove that you did it "by the rules".
Sometimes it does feel like a sampled track done by a big name becomes greater than the original, even though it was just slapping 4-4 bassdrum and professional mixing-mastering on a track that was already 95% there. That's just tough luck really, and usually it still ends up with real music heads discovering and playing the original track.
Oh and I personally am super exhausted of hearing Timothy Leary or Terence McKenna or whatever pseudo new age enlighted deep spiritual quotes on top of tracks. They work really well when used sparingly, but at this point it's like hearing the airplane safety instruction spiel before takeoff. This has 99% turned me off from listening to any modern psytrance, psychill and related genres.
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On 2/3/2022 at 3:02 AM, Hautlle said:
This has been my setup for the past ~1 year. Recently looking into power conditioners as I'm pretty sure it would reduce my noise floor a bit. I've been very content exploring and recording lately. No GAS to speak of (for now)
That's a nice setup. I am curious how you use the Kastle. Mine is mostly used for filling space in my shame drawer.
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Yeah with all things like this, if the person actually goes and pulls it off, it's really amazing and cool to see and I can totally respect that. On the flip side, you rarely see this kind of folk post on the internet, because they have just completely immersed themselves in their way of life and that does not include being online beyond the bare minimum.
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1 hour ago, Taupe Beats said:
Silver lining: This banter has made me ponder if something similar happened around Kraftwerk's "Pocket Calculator". Which is funny to me.
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On 2/2/2022 at 6:12 AM, cern said:
We don't talking about a synth here.. This is a toy.
It has never ever happened in history that someone makes cool music with something that is not meant to be an instrument. Anyway here's another toy:
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[Silence falls upon the room] Choose your next action:
- [Stealth req not met] Sneak into the kitchen to make some popcorn.
- [Might] Piss in the Oberheim.
- [Dexterity req not met] "Hey any of you techno freaks every play a REAL INSTRUMENT?"
- [Perception] "Come on, if you argue with a chiptunes guy you its like wrestling a pig in the mud, except the pig will enjoy it."
- [Perception] "Come on, if you argue with a analog tube synths guy you its like wrestling a pig in the mud, except the pig will enjoy it."
- [Aphex Twin knowledge req not met] "You know AFX used a nanoloop on track X on album Y?!"
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On 1/30/2022 at 4:32 PM, TubularCorporation said:
I would stick with the hardware personally but that's me.
I really like hardware, but I have to also be honest with myself and see if I am spending more time fighting with latency/MIDI issues and other things that have nothing to do with the music and sound itself. Like it's great to have the physical piece of kit, but if I spend 10 minutes per project trying to troubleshoot stuck notes, whoops I turned my keyboard on and now it sent a program change messing up all my sounds, etc etc. it all adds up to a big grand total of wasted energy and frustration that does not need to be. Like these are not the kind of "good" technical limitations that force creativity in my opinion.
Not selling the hardware anyway because I am a hoarder.
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Your Favorite Online Music Production Tools (such as the infinite drum machine)
in EKT General Discussion
Posted
Yeah I knew it existed but forgot the name because it's kind of generic. Thanks for reminding!