Quality Control on Release Material

[Cryptowen]

Lately I've been thinking it might be a good idea to become more disciplined with what I make public as far as art/music goes. As in, instead of just putting stuff out as soon as it's "done" like I do right now, wait for a specific interval (monthly/quarterly/annually/etc), then go through all my new stuff & pick out the genuinely worthwhile endeavours which would then be released.

 

So for example, say I was doing it quarterly. January rolls around & I have 15 things worth putting out. Put something out every 6 days for the next 3 months. Then when April comes I'd look at what all new I'd made from January-March & repeat the process.

 

So like, what do you guys think is best when it comes to what you do & what people you like do

 

-release stuff constantly seemingly without a filter (Jandek, Tonetta, Muslimgauze back in the day)

-hold onto things for ages to decide if they're good (simple* art)

-spend lots of time on a few things until they're perfect to your ears (every perfectionist ever)

 

Option 1 is kinda what I do. Option 2 is what I'm think of. Option 3 generally not a fan of cuz 80% of things I spend a lot of time on just get boring to me & I/most others seem to prefer the stuff I made on the fly.

 

*I didn't mean "simple" as an insult of course, just talking art/music that seems to have strong sense of style while not being terribly complex, probably the result of the creator making tons of quick sketches & filtering through them rather then reworking one piece a bunch. Think early 90s IDM or expressionist painting

[modey]

My workflow is closest to option 3 these days. I will usually write a bunch of sketches or demos at first, and then spend months getting those demos into a cohesive order. After that, I work on finishing the tracks and transitions between tracks, so it becomes almost a concept/prog album. This way works quite well for me since it becomes pretty easy to tell whether or not I should bother finishing the demo songs. I do finish most of the songs I write as demos, though it might take me a few years to understand what I need to do with them.

As for actually getting the songs to a demo stage in the first place, I've become rather good at being able to tell whether or not a song is worth the effort.. so my quality control is kinda on-the-fly.

[YEK]

my first two albums every track on them was in the order of when each was completed. it turned out each new track was technically better/better than the next . it worked for me but i would never do it again like that. i like the idea of planning an album, thinking how i want it to sound and then choosing from a pool of tracks is the best way for me nowadays.

also, eps are silly. i've done them before but , WORK HARDER YEKKER

[Guest Aces]

My quality control process is pretty similar to modeys. Generally I tend to have an idea make a brief demo, sometimes these just stay exactly that, sometimes not. If I am not writing something new I usually flick through the vast amounts of idea I have and see if anything sparks.

 

As a rule these days I don't put anything out there until I'm happy with it.

[Friendly Foil]

I don't know.

 

when I'm in the music making mood (lol) I make around 15-20 tracks in a months. Some, or many, of them are pretty shit, but some of them are also quite good. At some point, I'll decide to put together an album... well, just because. At that point I pretty much just pick a theme, like what I want the 'sound' of the album to be (ambient, beat based stuff etc.) Then, I look through the folders from the last year or so, to find some tracks that fit that sound. and then you have an album! I don't really care if the album is the best thing ever or not. An album is just a way for me to bundle some good tracks together so I can put them on my mp3 player.

 

That said, I'm trying to get away from the whole 15-20 tracks 'thing' since it does have at least some influence on the quality on (some) of the music. The problem is that I simply don't have the time to sit down an spend/waste ten hours on a track, and honestly, I don't really want to. Some of the best things I've done has been the things I spent a few hours on. Also, I make everything available for free, try not to spam my stuff all over the place and doesn't force anyone to listen to it, which means I don't really have a responsibility for everything I put out on the interwebz to be good in the first place.

[ascdi]

I guess it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If it was 7-8 years ago, then option 2 or 3 would be the best way to go. You know, back when people gave a shit about albums.

 

Nowadays, I really question for myself what the purpose of me "releasing" music is. If I "release" an "album" on Bandcamp and 7 people including my mom download it, is it really reasonable to continue thinking about "release strategies" or "albums" if no one else cares?

 

So maybe some fully alternate realities could help. Like, what do people like, what do people want out of music now? One interesting thing is definitely to work faster and use the power of the 'net to "release" much more music, but in a different way. That blog "Dust Breeding" was really awesome, back when that guy was doing "one creative thing per day" and uploading all of them. Maybe a less-perfectionist but faster-moving "song diary" sort of release strategy would be compelling to people. I've thought about that a bit.

 

I have serious perfectionist tendencies and as a result haven't "finished" a track I really like in like, 10 years. But the question is, say you do perfect your track and it's AWESOME. You just spent 6 months on a track and now what? I dunno. The days of making a "splash" with a single or something are seemingly over. Maybe the way to be an artist these days is to acknowledge that more openly.

 

Then again, releasing a ton of shit online is also annoying. There's SO MUCH free music online now, and honestly, most of it is okay to pretty good. So I think the question is really the same in that case: what is the purpose of this? What are you trying to accomplish? Some people may dig the whole "here's a pile of stuff I made, feel free to sift out the gems" aesthetic, but I feel like Internet denizens are so jaded most of them just think that is super lame.

 

I'll tell you what I've been doing: I mess around with music like always, but recently I've been trying to give every track a "reason" to be released. By that I mean, the forum Skyscrapers comp, remix contests, remixes for friends, sending demos to netlabels, etc. I think one way to combat the "there's a deluge of random techno online" issue is to team up with people. So I've resolved not to "release" any tracks "on my own", but rather to try and gather as many reasons for tracks to exist elsewhere as I can. So, as many compilations as I can get on, as many remixes as I can do, split releases, collabs, etc. Just trying to give everything a clear "reason to exist" beyond just "I felt like uploading this".

 

That naturally limits the amount of music getting out, but in a good way. And also, I do think it is true that joining forces with other people for "releases", in any way that you can, is the real way to make any sort of splash or impression with listeners. I hate just dumping something on SoundCloud on my own and then having it just sit there.

 

My 2 cents, didn't edit this or read it back. Hope it makes sense!

[luke viia]

Well, "releasing" electronic music is really easy - much simpler than building a website to make it look nice, or finding fans, and there's a flood of half-baked music out there. The world has more than enough "my September tracks" type albums; that is boring. No serious offense meant to anyone releasing their tunes in that way, but I think a bit more care is required, if only for your own satisfaction. One of the beautiful things about electronic music is the editing features we have over the entire product; rock bands and more traditional forms of music can't easily do what Modey is talking about, for example (musically tying all your tunes together into an album format, an awesome and fun thing to do for those of you who haven't tried it!).

 

What I'm trying to say is: a collection of your songs is interesting to you, no doubt, but remember that the reason it's hard to get people to listen music nowadays is the sheer overabundance of it. If you're releasing 3-4 "albums" a year, and they aren't shit-hot anthems of greatness, you're basically asking people to spend four hours of their time having a mildly exciting - at best - experience, and sometimes we even get the gall to ask people to pay for this experience. Make albums into real albums, make art for them, make videos for them, make a website for them, make a story for them, etc. The album (music, no more) works for other genres a bit better I think; electronic musicians can easily do more.

 

In short, yeah, utilize quality control. Often times - due to the sheer volume of music on the internet - the first song of yours that someone hears can be the judging board they use for your entire output. First impressions and all that.

[Cryptowen]

Basically my thinking is

 

advantage of frequent release

 

-internet is ADD & prefers constant flow of new material

-prevents you from being overly perfectionist

-putting stuff out while it's still fresh & exciting to you

-art diary release format is a new & intriguing style that may be the way of the future

 

advantage of infrequent release

 

-more quality control

-released material seems more "special"

-less chance of annoying followers with over saturation

-albums more likely to have distinct sounds rather than being gradual transition of style

 

 

 

So far I've only put out one album a year & I think I'll probably stick to that (thought two in the same year might not be too ridonkulous from time to time). And pictures are different so I'll probably keep releasing those frequently. But what I wanna do for both is get in the habit of not putting something online "just cuz" & instead waiting to see if I still like it a week later.

[Squee]

You should only present to the public what you feel is worth presenting. A good quality control trick is be to listen to your tunes with someone else in the room. Make the person listen to it actively and the same goes for you. Pay attention to it. I'm sure that once the track is over you don't even need your friend to tell you what to change. You will know that yourself. I've done this a bunch and it works every single time. It's almost as if you're listening to your own tunes through the other person's ears, and then you suddenly realise that the intro is too long or the first part needs more variations and so on and so on. You see, the problem with making music by yourself is that there's no one to play ball with so there's never no one there to tell you whether or not what you're making is worth listening to.

 

I have yet to release a full album because there are only so and so many tracks that I'm 100% satisfied with.

[BCM]

my current project of creating an album/ep using only an MFB SynthLite and an FX unit has been very freeing in terms of quality control - i love my SynthLite but unfortunately the sound quality is utter shit and has noise all over it. i have decided to embrace this and not worry about trivialities like "production". i am using the mantra that as long as you can hear everything alright and the whole thing is not distorted beyond the realms of coherance, then fuck it eh? it's meant to sound like that.

 

fuck levels.

 

anyway, look out for some badly recorded music by The Druggler in the near future.

[modey]

I guess it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If it was 7-8 years ago, then option 2 or 3 would be the best way to go. You know, back when people gave a shit about albums.

 

Nowadays, I really question for myself what the purpose of me "releasing" music is. If I "release" an "album" on Bandcamp and 7 people including my mom download it, is it really reasonable to continue thinking about "release strategies" or "albums" if no one else cares?

 

I still listen to albums, so I still release albums. The tracks are designed to work together as a whole. I don't feel satisfied just working on endless standalone tracks anymore, it lacks focus. If I can put together an collection of 7 or 8 songs that are tied together by similar sounds/melodic structures, then I feel like I've accomplished something.

The last Pselodux album I released on Bandcamp brought in about $200 in the first week, and that's enough for me to be satisfied, for the moment. I still get a couple of sales here and there.

The album format isn't dead; people just need to start doing interesting things with it.

[Cryptowen]

I deffly prefer doing albums, with artwork etc

Promoting them I have no interest in unless it involves making a cool video or something

[sweepstakes]

This is something I've been thinking about lately too. I've wanted to do an album or EP for as long as I can remember and haven't got around to it yet. I do lots of jams but haven't pared much of anything into a structured song/track. I would really like to do that more. I just throw jams up on Soundcloud and I feel like people aren't expecting much of me because my shit is so rough. It would be great to put some stuff out that's really polished and finished.

 

my current project of creating an album/ep using only an MFB SynthLite and an FX unit has been very freeing in terms of quality control - i love my SynthLite but unfortunately the sound quality is utter shit and has noise all over it. i have decided to embrace this and not worry about trivialities like "production". i am using the mantra that as long as you can hear everything alright and the whole thing is not distorted beyond the realms of coherance, then fuck it eh? it's meant to sound like that.

 

I love doing and listening to stuff like this. Trying to do more Shruthi-1 + MPC w/ Shruthi-1 samples over here. Fun shit.

[BCM]

yeah man

[vamos scorcho]

You should only present to the public what you feel is worth presenting. A good quality control trick is be to listen to your tunes with someone else in the room. Make the person listen to it actively and the same goes for you. Pay attention to it. I'm sure that once the track is over you don't even need your friend to tell you what to change. You will know that yourself. I've done this a bunch and it works every single time. It's almost as if you're listening to your own tunes through the other person's ears, and then you suddenly realise that the intro is too long or the first part needs more variations and so on and so on. You see, the problem with making music by yourself is that there's no one to play ball with so there's never no one there to tell you whether or not what you're making is worth listening to.

 

I have yet to release a full album because there are only so and so many tracks that I'm 100% satisfied with.

 

 

I think this advice is really true. I've got a lot of music on my drive that I just don't care to change (but that I love). I wouldn't want to show it to anyone else because it's not "done." I can tell though what's good and what's not when I listen with someone else, I don't have to hear anything they say. It's a very good way to grasp at objectivity. I can tell when they're impressed, even without seeing their face or any indication. I just "know" what is working by the sense of "triumph" I experience while listening with them.

 

I have a way of fooling myself when I listen alone, I come to think what I'm doing is better or worse than it "is."

 

After listening with another I can discard 90% of the work without a second thought, without much guilt, without really looking back.

[Cryptowen]

Netlabels help a lot (in theory), because you've got neutral third parties judging whether or not something is worth unveiling to the public. Problem is there are so many netlabels you start running into the same oversaturation problem, especially when most of them seem to be vanity projects for dude's to release their own/their friends' material on. Bigger netlabels that have a reputation/followers/good quality control probably also have a lot more competition as far as getting your submission considered

 

(no personal experience though, I've never tried submitting anything serious to a label because there's just so frickin many I wouldn't know where to start or who'd be worth haranguing)

 

Sorta related - whatever happened to that idea proposed a while back about having an official WATMM netlabel putting out releases on a regular basis?

[Guest EleminoP]

You should only present to the public what you feel is worth presenting. A good quality control trick is be to listen to your tunes with someone else in the room. Make the person listen to it actively and the same goes for you. Pay attention to it. I'm sure that once the track is over you don't even need your friend to tell you what to change. You will know that yourself. I've done this a bunch and it works every single time. It's almost as if you're listening to your own tunes through the other person's ears, and then you suddenly realise that the intro is too long or the first part needs more variations and so on and so on. You see, the problem with making music by yourself is that there's no one to play ball with so there's never no one there to tell you whether or not what you're making is worth listening to.

 

I have yet to release a full album because there are only so and so many tracks that I'm 100% satisfied with.

oh wow, this works for me and i never realized it.

[modey]

Haha yeah same here. But it helps to play it to someone who you know is actually interested in the genre. For example, I won't play my chippy/demoscene/idm stuff to the guy I record psychedelic lounge noise with.

[sweepstakes]

psychedelic lounge noise

[Guest]

Only release music when the stars align in the most profitable constellation.

[modey]

psychedelic lounge noise

http://pselodux.com/audio/circle%20of%20sharks.mp3

[ascdi]

You should only present to the public what you feel is worth presenting. A good quality control trick is be to listen to your tunes with someone else in the room. Make the person listen to it actively and the same goes for you. Pay attention to it. I'm sure that once the track is over you don't even need your friend to tell you what to change. You will know that yourself. I've done this a bunch and it works every single time. It's almost as if you're listening to your own tunes through the other person's ears, and then you suddenly realise that the intro is too long or the first part needs more variations and so on and so on. You see, the problem with making music by yourself is that there's no one to play ball with so there's never no one there to tell you whether or not what you're making is worth listening to.

 

I have yet to release a full album because there are only so and so many tracks that I'm 100% satisfied with.

 

oh wow, this works for me and i never realized it.

 

Oh man, same for me. I had always subconsciously felt this way but never consciously realized this until I read what you just typed. Brilliant! I'm gonna try this more overtly in the future.

 

dux, 200 bucks on a BC release? That's QG, nice job! I guess maybe my concerns about the death of the album have been greatly exaggerated. Personally, I still listen to almost all albums, but I've never been big into the idea that an album is a big cohesive statement thing. I don't mind albums that are just track collections, usually.

 

More what I was wondering, w/r/t "the kids" and getting people interested, is about delivery formats. Suppose the "release" of your album is a streamable YouTube playlist, or a MixCloud, or something. So you lower the barrier to entry that way. What I'm wondering is, now that "compact discs" aren't something that we care about, if the definition of a "release" could be broadened into other ways of presenting stuff that are more Internet-friendly.

 

I mean, Bandcamp is great, but even "local music" (as in, downloading music files, putting them in your media player, syncing them to your iPod/device) is becoming a little antiquated now. Comparatively few people cultivate their own hard-disk-based music libraries anymore. Does that give us license to do something cool with the idea of "releasing" music?

[Friendly Foil]

Floppy discs

[sweepstakes]

psychedelic lounge noise

http://pselodux.com/audio/circle%20of%20sharks.mp3

I personally wouldn't describe it this way. Noise makes me think of Merzbow or Masonna or at least Pan Sonic or something. Maybe ambient spaghetti western post-gaze? But it is nice and chill, I like it.

[Guest NZT]

I also think that's a great observation made by Squee. I've experienced it as well but just not really 'noted' the fact. Will use this trick in the future.