11 ms·

Things I sort of believe about making music

199 points by jwhiles 4y ago

stuntkite 4y ago
"Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human." Tattoo that on my forehead backwards.
- smitty1e 4y ago
  I just had a big project land with a dull thud. It felt great though; the learning along the way was invaluable. Principle: be patient with yourself on this heuristic journey and keep improving.
  - YPCrumble 4y ago
    What was the project?
    - smitty1e 4y ago
      It is a precursor to my PhD proposal. With massively overlapping vector shapes I want to analyze, making a "faux raster" index of boxes contained in the shapes seems a good approach. Except that I wound up discovering an improvement for my immediate question that obviated all of the intermediate schema I'd build up. Big shout out to Spatialite (https://www.gaia-gis.it/ https://www.gaia-gis.it/) and GeoAlchemy-2 (https://geoalchemy-2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://geoalchemy-2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/).
- brk 4y ago
  I've been wanting to explore doing tattoos to express my creativity, if you're ever in the Tampa area, stop by and I'll take you up on that!
- drcongo 4y ago
  That one resonated hard with me too. I make music purely as a creative outlet that isn't my job, and because my job is on a laptop all day, I've deliberately chosen to produce music purely on iOS so that I can have that total context switch. I release stuff on Bandcamp, and recently on streaming services too (apart from Spotify), but I'm releasing it mostly as an ending, like waving your kid off to university or something - I'm not releasing it for anyone else. However, having said all that, I get enormous joy from hearing one of my tracks being played by a DJ I've never met on the other side of the world.
  - kcindric 4y ago
    Are you trying to say that working in a different OS is an enough context switch for you? I also produced a lot of music but when I switched careers and became a developer a struggle to create using a laptop and a DAW.
    - drcongo 4y ago
      Yeah, absolutely. Except it's not just a different OS, it's a different physical device. My Mac only gets used for work (and playing around with music visualisation), my iPad only gets used for music, I think of it as a portable studio - the iOS music ecosystem is incredible these days.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  I have a history of being hung up about my perceived importance about making art/entertainment in a world saturated with it. Which is kind of inconsistent given that I don't lend a greater degree of importance to most other things, but it's just the unshakable sensation that yields when I rationalize what to do. What is flipping things a little is focusing on desire for "flow", or enjoying mastery, that I do not want solely tied to my vocation. I also have a separate but similar itch, which is to work with my hands with no cognitive overhead. I don't feel an obligation to create (to "be human", for pride, validation, etc) nor am I particularly creative. However, my sense is it can satisfy wants where passive consumption falls short. Probably I could be just as satisfied if I obsessed over a sport.
  - comboy 4y ago
    Objectively there is no rational argument you can make why colonizing other stars is better than recording sounds of farts. It all drops down to our values. But I got hung up about that too. My solution - as always it turns out to be a bit of this and a bit of that. It's a personal very complex function that takes into account what you know, what you believe, what you value and what you feel. Very difficult to compute. Luckily you don't need to think about it at all. Your subconscious brain is already computing it all the best it can and presents you the result in the purest form: "I want to do X now". It's pretty amazing. Inevitable follow up - but I don't know what I want to do - do nothing. It works.
    - slothtrop 4y ago
      That seems good for tapping into desires, but may be an unreliable heuristic for long-term. In part because we are creatures of habit, and our habits can be hijacked, or plainly unhealthy. We may have several prospective or competing desires - if instant gratification is among them, that is the path of least resistance, the grooves deepen. "I want.. to sit down, eat, and watch something, and be left alone". Delayed gratification is abstracted enough that moment-to-moment desire leads you off course. If we have in us a desire for validation or high-level engagement which drives us to do something, keeping an eye on the prize may mean disposing with whatever the imminent "X" is right now. The point of frustration is that these motivators, which drive us to try to master something, can be tepid or inconsistent and therefore insufficient. You end up needing a sense of obligation, i.e. discipline. At least for me, getting anything done means creating habits, because 'desire' is a shot in the dark. There's a quote from somewhere that power is "acting in the face of uncertainty". Desire and motivation is a murky area to me, beyond obvious things.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I’m always saddened to see a very cool project posted here only for the waves of “yeah but how does it make money”.
  - leviathant 4y ago
    "You don't have to monetize your joy" - via https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/ https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/
  - stuntkite 4y ago
    I've spent the last sixish years trying to take all the things I know that are pretty valuable and channel them into a project that is absolutely impossible to monetize. It's a meditation on death and seeing something in the world that is only mine. Just trying to create something that is a reflection of me and make it exist to make me laugh or smile when it's dope. Sometimes other people are interested. That's cool. Part of this came out of the frustration of being a knowledge worker. I don't know how many contracts I've had to negotiate where someone is hiring me for some shit like GIS or Unity3D and they want a perpetual non-compete where I can't ever work on those things again. Like what? You came to me. If a carpenter makes you a chair you don't get to own his woodshop and it's not my fault that I found knack for computer in the 90s and now the whole world needs that shit. For a while I'd get frustrated when I'd show people my project and they'd be like "I don't see how this can be a business." Now I kind of love it and lean in and troll the shit out of it. Also I'm getting pretty good at combining sounds, pixels, and GIS information in real time. Which no one on earth would ever pay me to do if I waited around for a paycheck to do it. Also it's really nice prior art coverage when moving into new operations. Hunt bliss not vested shares. The more people that do that the better the world can be.
- AlwaysRock 4y ago
  Yup. This is so hard to internalize. And to keep fresh in ones mind after extended periods of time with no external gratification. I stopped making a lot of art in the past because I felt like It was just for me and that wasnt enough.
threefour 4y ago
On the topic of getting things done, I’ve applied a bit of software development skills to making music. Instead of creating an increasingly growing body of works I focus on a smaller number of “products” that I improve on over time. I get some ideas that are my backlog and I implement them and release a new version. I think of it as an analog to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; one work that he made and just kept improving over the course of his lifetime.
thisismitch 4y ago
I've had a similar approach to music except, instead of field recordings, I started with MIDI keyboards in the mid-90s instead. For me, it's been a fun hobby to keep my toes in music while I play software engineer most of the week. I can confirm all six of the tips in the article are correct. > Anyway, I eventually discovered a life changing life-hack which I have now used for years to force myself to finish and release music. It’s called ‘Christmas Music’. Funnily enough, my life-hack was 'Birthday Songs'. I would write 30-60 second songs, most not very good and some parodies, for my friends' birthdays just to keep busy musically. Eventually I wrote a full-length birthday song for my friend's dad's 70th birthday. I also wrote a Christmas song and a Thanksgiving song. > 6: Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human Now I have a fancy audio interface, Universal Audio Apollo x4, and a small collection of high quality microphones and instruments. And I'm still happy recording pointless, joke songs. Example songs First birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/easy-29 https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/easy-29 Korn parody birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/happy-birthday-from-a-klown https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/happy-birthda... Full-length birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ferrell-dise https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ferrell-dise Thanksgiving song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ooh-its-thanksgiving-400th-anniversary-heritage-edition https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ooh-its-thank...
- hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
  I laughed, well done!
- cos2pi 4y ago
  Haha, thanks for sharing. Really enjoyed how you captured the essence of Freak on a Leash.
- pards 4y ago
  The Korn parody is brilliant!
jonwinstanley 4y ago
Really like this approach. The rawness of the use of everyday sounds reminded me of Burial - Untrue.
- imbnwa 4y ago
  That's one of the greatest albums of the 00s, should be on people's Top 50 if not Top 25
  - jonwinstanley 4y ago
    Yes it’s great! I do go back to it quite a bit.
sudden_dystopia 4y ago
Cool stuff. Got about 8 months to get some Christmas tunes cranked out.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  I thought it was 20 months. Unless you want to sprint right to the earliest most challenging deadline conceivable.
adamnemecek 4y ago
- tleb_ 4y ago
  That comment feels out of place; at least try to link it with the content posted.
  - drcongo 4y ago
    It also appears in every single HN thread about music.
    - adamnemecek 4y ago
      It’s relevant.
      - Minor49er 4y ago
        The only thing that this has in common with the article is that it's related to music creation in some way. Beyond that broad scope, there really isn't much.
        adamnemecek 4y ago
        That’s close enough for me.
        rocketbop 4y ago
        The issue is that isn’t close enough for anyone else.
      - matthewh806 4y ago
        Surely it's up to you now to make the case as to why it's relevant? A 2 two word answer just stating the opposite of what the previous poster said doesn't magically make it so... I agree with other comments here that your "revolutionary" music IDE gets spammed into every discussion related to music - but the actual website you link to doesn't really give any hint as to what it really is either, just a bunch of vague sounding marketing friendly hype words. I hope what you make truly is revolutionary & unique and I will take a look at it when it launches out of curiosity (so your relentlessness in plugging it has, it would seem, worked). But please can you explain how it is relevant to the article / discussion here?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MDGeist 4y ago
Totally agree with the importance of FINISHING work and just put it out there! I'm always writing and recording but I have never put out a full release (independently) until this year. I got to learn all about getting physical copies made and trying to market them this time. It's also good to build a body of work. It creates more opportunities for discovery and it is a fun way to look back on your own journey and have a sense of accomplishment.
mjr00 4y ago
> Christmas Music One important skill I've found necessary in both music and my software career is dissociation. By that, I mean the ability to separate yourself from the work that you've created. It's natural to feel that what you have made is a reflection of yourself and your value, but it also leads to a lot of fear. In the music world, this manifests as a fear of releasing music and instead endlessly tweaking knobs and refining 4 bar loops; in the software world, I see it manifest in the form of not making difficult decisions out of fear of taking responsibility, due to the fear of failure of those decisions reflecting on you personally. In leadership training sessions I've taken at Amazon and elsewhere, this attempts to get addressed by some bs "vulnerability" segment where the facilitator asks you to share something about your childhood that was difficult, or a time when you made a mistake in your life, something like that. Personally I just make something up or say something really generic here, which I assume many others do as well. I feel like a much more effective way to train this "dissociation" skill would be something like the Christmas Music approach. Music and art are deeply personal works; sharing something you've created to the world and getting sometimes harsh feedback (or, more likely, no feedback at all!) is a far better way to learn how to be vulnerable than a carefully chosen story from your childhood that makes you look like you had it rough (but not too rough). It's also more relevant since it's about making your output vulnerable, rather than your personality. Musically, I have a bit of a fanbase now, which I still find shocking. But still, every time I release a new song and see the initial Soundcloud plays roll in my stomach goes into knots. Why aren't they liking it? Is this song way worse than my other songs? Did I release garbage and people hate me now? It's a very tough feeling to overcome.
- klodolph 4y ago
  > In the music world, this manifests as a fear of releasing music and instead endlessly tweaking knobs and refining 4 bar loops; This is pretty common, and I’d like to add that there are more reasons besides “fear” for endlessly tweaking knobs and refining four-bar loops. Fear is a good explanation, and it’s not a wrong explanation, but it’s only a part of the explanation and as I’ve gotten older I’ve placed less weight on “fear” as the explanation for these things. “Practice makes perfect” is the old adage but “practice makes permanent” is a bit more accurate. If you practice a piece of music, but your technique is sloppy, through practice, your sloppy technique becomes more habitual and permanent. The same thing happens with songwriting and composition—you work on a four-bar section of a song for too long and that four-bar section becomes permanently engraved in your mind as the only section of that song, a single section that loops forever. At this point it’s not a question of whether you are scared to release music or whether you feel vulnerable. Your mind has simply worn ruts into the ground that pass through these four bars over and over again. This is one of the many places you can get stuck in when writing music and it’s one of the more common. There are plenty of people who never even make it to the four-bar loop, just noodling on guitar over and over again against some backing track. There are plenty of people who don’t even make it to noodling, and just play scales or licks that they know, never making the jump from playing something they know to making something new. And then there are people who get stuck playing scales or chords in isolation, without even a backing track, because they spent so long playing without a metronome or backing track that their timing is just complete garbage. There’s a technique to bust past the four-bar loop, however. What you do is you just bust past the four-bar loop immediately, as soon as you’ve written it. Don’t give in to the temptation to listen to it over and over again. You might think that if you listen to those four bars you might be able to hear what comes next in your mind, but in fact, the more you listen to those four bars repeating, the more your brain gets used to the idea that after you hear those four bars, you hear the same four bars again. In short, what you have to do is write a B section to your A section as soon as possible and before you spend too much time listening to the A section. When possible, I recommend writing your B section before you listen to the A section even once. At least, I recommend that you try working that way. There will be problems with the A section that you want to go back and fix but you can do that later. And once you get past the four-bar loop, there are other places to get stuck. Just like it is possible to tweak the four-bar loop over and over again, it’s possible to tweak the chorus, verse, bridge, intro, or any other part of a song over and over again. You can end up rewriting lyrics, adding and removing instruments, completely redoing the arrangements, etc. “Fear” is a workable explanation for why these songs don’t get released, but the fact is, you hear your own song often enough and you just have no idea what parts of it are any good. You have to move fast enough to keep a fresh perspective, but slow enough to work out the details of your song, and that’s a delicate balance.
hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
As a hobby composer, my takeaways have been very similar. Inspiration can be sudden and fleeting. If I don't finish something in a short period of time, I loose the feeling and impetus for what I was writing. I've started an order of magnitude more tracks than I've finished. My friends and I have a tradition where we each write a song and then play them on News Years Eve. We usually procrastinate and do it at the last minute. There are usually some good bits and we have fun doing it. It's low pressure and the deadline forces us to finish. For me, technology can be more distracting than beneficial. Modern DAWs have so many settings. There's always something new to try or a setting to tweak. My goal for now is to try staying focused on the composition of the piece and capturing the mood and feeling I am trying to convey. If your composition isn't solid, your track isn't going to be good no matter how much time you spend on the mixdown or getting your drum kit just so. Easier said and done, but that's my goal!
birdyrooster 4y ago
Modular synth is a boondoggle like literally the first thing he warns against lol.
- tmountain 4y ago
  It tows the line between tinkering satisfaction and musical satisfaction. It's easy to get wrapped up in the tinkering aspect (which can be really fun) and not create anything musical in the process. This is fine unless you have goals that come with the your hobby pointed towards releasing something--in which case, the tinkering part can become a time suck pulling you away from your objective.
jefftk 4y ago
> I would listen back to my recordings, trying to overdub new parts, feeling like I was playing pretty tight and in time. But when I listened back my playing would sound totally off. I was always miles behind the beat, sounding incredibly sloppy and rhythmless. For months I thought this was a deficiency in my playing, until eventually I discovered some latency setting, read about what latency was and realised what was going on. I tried my best to fix my latency problems, failed, put up with it for ages, and then eventually used my student loan to buy an audio interface and a shure SM57 microphone. These are two of the best buys I’ve ever made. I could suddenly record things that were pretty much in time, and also everything I recorded sounded way way better. When overdubbing you don't actually need to minimize latency: as long as your latency is constant, you can adjust for it. For example, if your end-to-end latency is 200ms you can tell your music program to adjust, shifting everything you record 200ms earlier.
- michaelgrafl 4y ago
  That's playback latency. But if monitoring latency is too high, you get sloppy playing. That's only relevant if you monitor through your audio interface, of course. Also, I'm not sure if all DAWs have always compensated playback latency the way you describe. But I agree that it shouldn't be a problem in general.
  - thraxil 4y ago
    > Also, I'm not sure if all DAWs have always compensated playback latency the way you describe. But I agree that it shouldn't be a problem in general. Ableton definitely does, and that's what they say they were using.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      My guess is their low-end usb mic did not accurately report its latency, and so the Ableton wasn't able to automatically adjust. It's still a possible to adjust manually, though.
      - 4y ago
amznbyebyebye 4y ago
Nice blog post, to the point.
abcc8 4y ago
One part of my personal creative process I didn't find discussed or mentioned in the post is about having a goal for one's creative endeavor. I've found the idea of sitting down to simply 'write a song' or 'create something' doesn't work for me. What does work for me is having a specific goal and working towards that goal. The goals don't have to be overly complex, but I need at least some nugget of an idea that I can consciously refer to during the process to keep me on track (I'm easily distracted by 'possibilities' and 'choices'). An example of such a goal would be that I wish to write a song that has a verse with a more minor feel, use the I–vi–IV–V progression for the bridge, make the chorus upbeat, have a Joy Division meets the 50s vibe, and write some lyrics that tells a story that starts with driving somewhere. This method isn't foolproof and sometimes I have ideas that don't work or result in bad songs, but occasionally the final product is good enough that I can introduce it to the band and incorporate the new song into our practice/performance setlist. Having a goal that I write down gives me an idea of what I want the final product to look/feel/sound like while still leaving room for spontaneity, as I'll edit the goal if I think of a better idea. A side benefit of this approach is that it makes it easier to communicate the gist of the song to other musicians when they ask what it sounds like and/or what it is about.
fuckofff 4y ago
fuckofff 4y ago
homonculus1 4y ago
The point about equipment is a really important one. A lot of people have a very stupid attitude that art is some kind of special domain where the tools don't matter--a true artist works beauty with whatever he has! Leave that nonsense at the door. If you were learning how to do landscaping, you'd buy a chainsaw, a shovel, and a blower. Anything less would leave you unequipped to do the job. I guess some guys have a gear fetish and can't stop from buying their 20th shiny guitar. Well, ignore EVERYTHING they have to say and get yourself the equipment you need. It can make the difference between waffling with no purpose and iterating productively.
- smrq 4y ago
  Hell, if you want 20 guitars and can afford it, get 20 guitars. Ideally each one brings something new to the table for you. I had a sudden uptick in creativity immediately after buying #6.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  True up to a point. There's a difference between content and production values. Production values are the frame. But you have to put something strong in the frame, otherwise the frame looks empty. Give Paul McCartney a shitty USB mike and a shitty guitar and he'll still sound like Paul McCartney. Whatever he creates will be unusually musical, even if it's not polished. Give most people world class studio time with a top engineer and they'll produce something mediocre at best, no matter how how much effort goes into it. Good tools get out of the way and sound right without much effort, but all that really does is remove one layer of distraction/excuse. The gear fetish market is driven by people who are mostly just collectors. Some musicians are also collectors. They will buy special vintage guitars, synths, studio processors, and so on because they're useful and the sound works for them. But mostly it's middle aged middle class professionals - dentists, doctors, lawyers, some software developers - buying equipment as a hobby in itself, because buying is a lot easier and less stressful than creating.
  - filoleg 4y ago
    > But mostly it's middle aged middle class professionals - dentists, doctors, lawyers, some software developers - buying equipment as a hobby in itself, because buying is a lot easier and less stressful than creating. This hits a bit too close to home. I thought that it was a nice touch in Silicon Valley (the TV show), for their corporate lawyer to have a fancy Gibson Les Paul guitar (with a bunch of autographs on it) in his office that he touched exactly once on camera. All while having no amps or pedals or speakers or anything else to use it with at all.
AlbertCory 4y ago
I like the Christmas Music thing. People's expectations are massively lowered. With respect to putting things out there, a very common question on Quora is "how do I protect myself from getting ripped off?" I always think of what a fairly well-known web personality at Google said to me: The risk on the Internet is not that you'll be ripped off. It's that you'll be ignored.
kcindric 4y ago
Great post! Nowadays I struggle a lot with creating music. I mostly WFH and most of my job equipment (laptop + monitor) and my music equipment (guitars, synths, pedals etc.) with my music recording equipment (laptop + monitor) is in the same room. I don't have the luxury of another hobby only room so I mostly finish my day job and never return into my office until the next work day starts. Also there's the recording medium problem, which is the same as my work medium - a laptop. I would love to hear some suggestions how to turn this around.
- kamranjon 4y ago
  I just recently purchased a Tascam DP-008EX which is a small, portable (even runs on batteries), 8 track recorder that is entirely self contained. I love it. I want to completely remove the computer from my music process because I find it distracting. This is a great way to do it which harkens back a bit to the older 4 or 8 track cassette recorders but this has some nice built in stuff like phantom power, reverb knobs on every track, etc.
- jerrysievert 4y ago
  > Also there's the recording medium problem, which is the same as my work medium - a laptop. I would love to hear some suggestions how to turn this around. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. work is on the work laptop on the couch, personal is on the personal laptop on the couch. desk goes mostly unused at the moment, but music gear is surrounding the desk. here's my current line of thinking: * work on work laptop on the couch * personal laptop moves to desk, where monitors and music gear live * personal couch work gets moved to iPad Pro to be purchased, so different form factor I think I'm stuck on the iPad Pro right now, because FOMO in 5 months, but otherwise I think I have my next steps figured out.
tgv 4y ago
I had experienced the modular trap with sample libraries. I've got a bunch, and they're really good, but setting things up and adding modulation tracks and getting the reverb right and all that, and then getting the mix to sound really good is so frustrating...
jancsika 4y ago
> For months I thought this was a deficiency in my playing, until eventually I discovered some latency setting, read about what latency was and realised what was going on. It's a good idea for anyone doing things related recording audio: ask someone how to measure the "round trip latency" in the software you're using. Ask on forums, HN, Facebook groups how to do it. If someone responds with simple arithmetic to calculate latency, or responds with the term "latency" that isn't preceded by the words "round trip," or does anything other than tell you a surefire way to measure the round trip latency for that software: go somewhere else and ask again. This will get you a baseline measurement of your system: one that that you can use to ask future questions and get practical answers. If you don't do this you'll get spammed with "help" from people who write before they measure.
bartread 4y ago
> At some point I became a software engineer, had more disposable income, and had discovered the concept of modular synthesisers. Obviously this is a terrible combination. Good grief but this made me laugh. I partially fell down that damn rabbit hole myself, although managed to avoid modular thus far. I decided to get back into making music during the 2020 lockdowns, spent a lot of time kitting out my office to double as a studio. Spent too much time watching gear reviews on YouTube, and Studio Time by Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL). Bought a Polybrute, and a bunch of second hand kit: couple of acid boxes, an old Akai sampler (actually two of them from which I built a single "monster" rig), a DX7 (which I can confirm is very hard to program, although Dexed helps), a couple of drum machines, and some other stuff. This is on top of kit I already owned. I also repainted and refloored the room, added 72 sockets, routed power cables around the walls, and fitted industrial cable conduit to route signal cables over the ceiling. I fitted floor to ceiling shelving around 3 sides of the room, and added guitar hangers to the fourth wall. I then fitted a 1200W equivalent LED ceiling light cluster for working, a few other LED lamps, and added a 57 metres (really) of coloured LED strip lighting. Bear in mind we're talking about a room that's 2.5m x 2.5m so it's possibly in the top 10 of the most excessively lit rooms in all of human history. And how many tracks have I finished since I started all this? None. Point 3 is, at least for me the single take home message I absolutely needed to read from this: > 3: You need to find ways to force yourself to finish things. Arbitrary deadlines are actually sometimes good. Number 6 is also an absolute gem: > 6: Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human Great article.
- malthaus 4y ago
  I feel you! Before lockdown i shared my home with some music gear; now I more or less have a bed in a music studio and my actual, finished musical output has approached 0.
- justinlloyd 4y ago
  I've struggled with releasing music for years, because the music, in my mind, has to be a finished product. Polished. Perfect. Flawless. For years I felt the same way about art too. I come from a video game background, and games have to be "done" before you start showing them off. Two things changed in my recent past: 1. Getting an art mentor who encouraged me to show off partially completed artwork, showing my working progress. 2. Joining a company where we encourage each other to show off our work that is incomplete, broken or "not even a functioning prototype" with no expectation of criticism or feedback other than an acknowledgement that you have progressed. And then in December of last year I resolved to release stuff, no matter it's state. Once a month I had to release a music track. And so far, I've done pretty well. I slid a little in March, and April came in a little later than I would have liked, but so far, it has been working out well for me. And yeah, number 6 is the gem. I've always held the belief "I create for me, even if nobody else is paying attention." So if I am creating for me, why do I care if it isn't ready to show the world? Just put it on a virtual shelf for display and be proud that I did _something_, _anything_.
analog31 4y ago
>>>> 3: You need to find ways to force yourself to finish things. Arbitrary deadlines are actually sometimes good. That's one of the joys of live performance. You show up, play, then it's gone forever. The other is not having to keep up with technology.
58x14 4y ago
Here's where I'm at in my musical endeavors: - I have world-class equipment (a Nord Stage 3 among other things) that has radically changed my perception of sound, which is both a good and a bad thing. The positive is I'm becoming much more precise and subtle, and the negative is I'm often distracted by the new depth of sound and technology - I'm aware of when I feel inclined to practice, when I feel inclined to compose, and when I feel inclined to improv and have fun - I crave novelty and variety more than consistency As a result, my current strategy is to build a library of simple patterns, like a chord progression, a melody, a beat, a specific sound. When I feel inclined to practice, I'll choose a key and find a pattern to repeat and explore. Maybe I'll change the sound or the tempo, and explore that pattern. Maybe I add a layer, which branches into its own pattern. I also do this with lyrics. Over time, I expect that many of these patterns will converge into actual tracks. It's happening already - I'll combine some lyrics with a melody and a beat and suddenly I'm inspired to create more layers. I'm in no rush to produce or publish anything; I have only a handful of hours a week set aside for music. But I know those hours are well spent, and in the future, I know I will continue to grow and develop as a musician and a writer. At that point I'll certainly experience the inevitable loop of "is this good enough to publish?" And once I reach that point I suppose I'll release a Christmas song and probably call it "my antithesis."
maydup-nem 4y ago
> If you change your processes too much it is hard to built up an identity other than as someone who is inconsistent. nah and why should consistency matter across songs anyway, unless you are writing a concept album?
bobbiechen 4y ago
Incredibly relatable on the Christmas music. I did this in 2020 with my roommate and it really was a lot of fun - I wrote that up here: https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2020/12/22/the-making-of-christmas-in-this-economy https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2020/12/22/the-making-of-christm...
logbiscuitswave 4y ago
> I’d start pieces, make reasonable progress, and then spend hours making irrelevant changes no one would notice getting more and more confused about what I was doing, and whether the piece I was working on was any good Even the greats can succumb to this. The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson got caught in this trap when working on the band’s Smile album in 1966. He intended it to be a entire album in the modular cut/paste vein that Good Vibrations used (which was still pretty novel at the time). He spent nearly a year experimenting, tinkering, and retooling to the point of creative paralysis. Having to release something, the entire project was scrapped and the original project became something of legend among aficionados. It wasn’t actually “completed” until 2004 when Wilson was finally able to revisit the project. Funnily enough the big motivator to finish the project was a deadline — just like the article recommended. In Wilson’s case, it was a commitment to perform the material at a series of sold out live shows. While I’m not a musician, I certainly understand the desire for some measure of perfection in my software or hardware projects — many times to the point of creative paralysis and eventual abandonment. It’s said that “shipping is a feature” and sometimes you just have to settle for “good enough” if you ever want to share your creations with others.

199 points by jwhiles 4y ago

"Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human." Tattoo that on my forehead backwards.

smitty1e 4y ago
I just had a big project land with a dull thud. It felt great though; the learning along the way was invaluable. Principle: be patient with yourself on this heuristic journey and keep improving.
- YPCrumble 4y ago
  What was the project?
  - smitty1e 4y ago
    It is a precursor to my PhD proposal. With massively overlapping vector shapes I want to analyze, making a "faux raster" index of boxes contained in the shapes seems a good approach. Except that I wound up discovering an improvement for my immediate question that obviated all of the intermediate schema I'd build up. Big shout out to Spatialite (https://www.gaia-gis.it/ https://www.gaia-gis.it/) and GeoAlchemy-2 (https://geoalchemy-2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://geoalchemy-2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/).
brk 4y ago
I've been wanting to explore doing tattoos to express my creativity, if you're ever in the Tampa area, stop by and I'll take you up on that!
drcongo 4y ago
That one resonated hard with me too. I make music purely as a creative outlet that isn't my job, and because my job is on a laptop all day, I've deliberately chosen to produce music purely on iOS so that I can have that total context switch. I release stuff on Bandcamp, and recently on streaming services too (apart from Spotify), but I'm releasing it mostly as an ending, like waving your kid off to university or something - I'm not releasing it for anyone else. However, having said all that, I get enormous joy from hearing one of my tracks being played by a DJ I've never met on the other side of the world.
- kcindric 4y ago
  Are you trying to say that working in a different OS is an enough context switch for you? I also produced a lot of music but when I switched careers and became a developer a struggle to create using a laptop and a DAW.
  - drcongo 4y ago
    Yeah, absolutely. Except it's not just a different OS, it's a different physical device. My Mac only gets used for work (and playing around with music visualisation), my iPad only gets used for music, I think of it as a portable studio - the iOS music ecosystem is incredible these days.
slothtrop 4y ago
I have a history of being hung up about my perceived importance about making art/entertainment in a world saturated with it. Which is kind of inconsistent given that I don't lend a greater degree of importance to most other things, but it's just the unshakable sensation that yields when I rationalize what to do. What is flipping things a little is focusing on desire for "flow", or enjoying mastery, that I do not want solely tied to my vocation. I also have a separate but similar itch, which is to work with my hands with no cognitive overhead. I don't feel an obligation to create (to "be human", for pride, validation, etc) nor am I particularly creative. However, my sense is it can satisfy wants where passive consumption falls short. Probably I could be just as satisfied if I obsessed over a sport.
- comboy 4y ago
  Objectively there is no rational argument you can make why colonizing other stars is better than recording sounds of farts. It all drops down to our values. But I got hung up about that too. My solution - as always it turns out to be a bit of this and a bit of that. It's a personal very complex function that takes into account what you know, what you believe, what you value and what you feel. Very difficult to compute. Luckily you don't need to think about it at all. Your subconscious brain is already computing it all the best it can and presents you the result in the purest form: "I want to do X now". It's pretty amazing. Inevitable follow up - but I don't know what I want to do - do nothing. It works.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    That seems good for tapping into desires, but may be an unreliable heuristic for long-term. In part because we are creatures of habit, and our habits can be hijacked, or plainly unhealthy. We may have several prospective or competing desires - if instant gratification is among them, that is the path of least resistance, the grooves deepen. "I want.. to sit down, eat, and watch something, and be left alone". Delayed gratification is abstracted enough that moment-to-moment desire leads you off course. If we have in us a desire for validation or high-level engagement which drives us to do something, keeping an eye on the prize may mean disposing with whatever the imminent "X" is right now. The point of frustration is that these motivators, which drive us to try to master something, can be tepid or inconsistent and therefore insufficient. You end up needing a sense of obligation, i.e. discipline. At least for me, getting anything done means creating habits, because 'desire' is a shot in the dark. There's a quote from somewhere that power is "acting in the face of uncertainty". Desire and motivation is a murky area to me, beyond obvious things.
the_only_law 4y ago
I’m always saddened to see a very cool project posted here only for the waves of “yeah but how does it make money”.
- leviathant 4y ago
  "You don't have to monetize your joy" - via https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/ https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/
- stuntkite 4y ago
  I've spent the last sixish years trying to take all the things I know that are pretty valuable and channel them into a project that is absolutely impossible to monetize. It's a meditation on death and seeing something in the world that is only mine. Just trying to create something that is a reflection of me and make it exist to make me laugh or smile when it's dope. Sometimes other people are interested. That's cool. Part of this came out of the frustration of being a knowledge worker. I don't know how many contracts I've had to negotiate where someone is hiring me for some shit like GIS or Unity3D and they want a perpetual non-compete where I can't ever work on those things again. Like what? You came to me. If a carpenter makes you a chair you don't get to own his woodshop and it's not my fault that I found knack for computer in the 90s and now the whole world needs that shit. For a while I'd get frustrated when I'd show people my project and they'd be like "I don't see how this can be a business." Now I kind of love it and lean in and troll the shit out of it. Also I'm getting pretty good at combining sounds, pixels, and GIS information in real time. Which no one on earth would ever pay me to do if I waited around for a paycheck to do it. Also it's really nice prior art coverage when moving into new operations. Hunt bliss not vested shares. The more people that do that the better the world can be.
AlwaysRock 4y ago
Yup. This is so hard to internalize. And to keep fresh in ones mind after extended periods of time with no external gratification. I stopped making a lot of art in the past because I felt like It was just for me and that wasnt enough.

threefour 4y ago

On the topic of getting things done, I’ve applied a bit of software development skills to making music. Instead of creating an increasingly growing body of works I focus on a smaller number of “products” that I improve on over time. I get some ideas that are my backlog and I implement them and release a new version. I think of it as an analog to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass; one work that he made and just kept improving over the course of his lifetime.

thisismitch 4y ago

I've had a similar approach to music except, instead of field recordings, I started with MIDI keyboards in the mid-90s instead. For me, it's been a fun hobby to keep my toes in music while I play software engineer most of the week. I can confirm all six of the tips in the article are correct. > Anyway, I eventually discovered a life changing life-hack which I have now used for years to force myself to finish and release music. It’s called ‘Christmas Music’. Funnily enough, my life-hack was 'Birthday Songs'. I would write 30-60 second songs, most not very good and some parodies, for my friends' birthdays just to keep busy musically. Eventually I wrote a full-length birthday song for my friend's dad's 70th birthday. I also wrote a Christmas song and a Thanksgiving song. > 6: Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human Now I have a fancy audio interface, Universal Audio Apollo x4, and a small collection of high quality microphones and instruments. And I'm still happy recording pointless, joke songs. Example songs First birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/easy-29 https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/easy-29 Korn parody birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/happy-birthday-from-a-klown https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/happy-birthda... Full-length birthday song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ferrell-dise https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ferrell-dise Thanksgiving song: https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ooh-its-thanksgiving-400th-anniversary-heritage-edition https://soundcloud.com/mitchell-anicas-project/ooh-its-thank...

hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
I laughed, well done!
cos2pi 4y ago
Haha, thanks for sharing. Really enjoyed how you captured the essence of Freak on a Leash.
pards 4y ago
The Korn parody is brilliant!

jonwinstanley 4y ago

Really like this approach. The rawness of the use of everyday sounds reminded me of Burial - Untrue.

imbnwa 4y ago
That's one of the greatest albums of the 00s, should be on people's Top 50 if not Top 25
- jonwinstanley 4y ago
  Yes it’s great! I do go back to it quite a bit.

sudden_dystopia 4y ago

Cool stuff. Got about 8 months to get some Christmas tunes cranked out.

fuzzfactor 4y ago
I thought it was 20 months. Unless you want to sprint right to the earliest most challenging deadline conceivable.

adamnemecek 4y ago

tleb_ 4y ago
That comment feels out of place; at least try to link it with the content posted.
- drcongo 4y ago
  It also appears in every single HN thread about music.
  - adamnemecek 4y ago
    It’s relevant.
    - Minor49er 4y ago
      The only thing that this has in common with the article is that it's related to music creation in some way. Beyond that broad scope, there really isn't much.
      - adamnemecek 4y ago
        That’s close enough for me.
        rocketbop 4y ago
        The issue is that isn’t close enough for anyone else.
    - matthewh806 4y ago
      Surely it's up to you now to make the case as to why it's relevant? A 2 two word answer just stating the opposite of what the previous poster said doesn't magically make it so... I agree with other comments here that your "revolutionary" music IDE gets spammed into every discussion related to music - but the actual website you link to doesn't really give any hint as to what it really is either, just a bunch of vague sounding marketing friendly hype words. I hope what you make truly is revolutionary & unique and I will take a look at it when it launches out of curiosity (so your relentlessness in plugging it has, it would seem, worked). But please can you explain how it is relevant to the article / discussion here?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

MDGeist 4y ago

Totally agree with the importance of FINISHING work and just put it out there! I'm always writing and recording but I have never put out a full release (independently) until this year. I got to learn all about getting physical copies made and trying to market them this time. It's also good to build a body of work. It creates more opportunities for discovery and it is a fun way to look back on your own journey and have a sense of accomplishment.

mjr00 4y ago

> Christmas Music One important skill I've found necessary in both music and my software career is dissociation. By that, I mean the ability to separate yourself from the work that you've created. It's natural to feel that what you have made is a reflection of yourself and your value, but it also leads to a lot of fear. In the music world, this manifests as a fear of releasing music and instead endlessly tweaking knobs and refining 4 bar loops; in the software world, I see it manifest in the form of not making difficult decisions out of fear of taking responsibility, due to the fear of failure of those decisions reflecting on you personally. In leadership training sessions I've taken at Amazon and elsewhere, this attempts to get addressed by some bs "vulnerability" segment where the facilitator asks you to share something about your childhood that was difficult, or a time when you made a mistake in your life, something like that. Personally I just make something up or say something really generic here, which I assume many others do as well. I feel like a much more effective way to train this "dissociation" skill would be something like the Christmas Music approach. Music and art are deeply personal works; sharing something you've created to the world and getting sometimes harsh feedback (or, more likely, no feedback at all!) is a far better way to learn how to be vulnerable than a carefully chosen story from your childhood that makes you look like you had it rough (but not too rough). It's also more relevant since it's about making your output vulnerable, rather than your personality. Musically, I have a bit of a fanbase now, which I still find shocking. But still, every time I release a new song and see the initial Soundcloud plays roll in my stomach goes into knots. Why aren't they liking it? Is this song way worse than my other songs? Did I release garbage and people hate me now? It's a very tough feeling to overcome.

klodolph 4y ago
> In the music world, this manifests as a fear of releasing music and instead endlessly tweaking knobs and refining 4 bar loops; This is pretty common, and I’d like to add that there are more reasons besides “fear” for endlessly tweaking knobs and refining four-bar loops. Fear is a good explanation, and it’s not a wrong explanation, but it’s only a part of the explanation and as I’ve gotten older I’ve placed less weight on “fear” as the explanation for these things. “Practice makes perfect” is the old adage but “practice makes permanent” is a bit more accurate. If you practice a piece of music, but your technique is sloppy, through practice, your sloppy technique becomes more habitual and permanent. The same thing happens with songwriting and composition—you work on a four-bar section of a song for too long and that four-bar section becomes permanently engraved in your mind as the only section of that song, a single section that loops forever. At this point it’s not a question of whether you are scared to release music or whether you feel vulnerable. Your mind has simply worn ruts into the ground that pass through these four bars over and over again. This is one of the many places you can get stuck in when writing music and it’s one of the more common. There are plenty of people who never even make it to the four-bar loop, just noodling on guitar over and over again against some backing track. There are plenty of people who don’t even make it to noodling, and just play scales or licks that they know, never making the jump from playing something they know to making something new. And then there are people who get stuck playing scales or chords in isolation, without even a backing track, because they spent so long playing without a metronome or backing track that their timing is just complete garbage. There’s a technique to bust past the four-bar loop, however. What you do is you just bust past the four-bar loop immediately, as soon as you’ve written it. Don’t give in to the temptation to listen to it over and over again. You might think that if you listen to those four bars you might be able to hear what comes next in your mind, but in fact, the more you listen to those four bars repeating, the more your brain gets used to the idea that after you hear those four bars, you hear the same four bars again. In short, what you have to do is write a B section to your A section as soon as possible and before you spend too much time listening to the A section. When possible, I recommend writing your B section before you listen to the A section even once. At least, I recommend that you try working that way. There will be problems with the A section that you want to go back and fix but you can do that later. And once you get past the four-bar loop, there are other places to get stuck. Just like it is possible to tweak the four-bar loop over and over again, it’s possible to tweak the chorus, verse, bridge, intro, or any other part of a song over and over again. You can end up rewriting lyrics, adding and removing instruments, completely redoing the arrangements, etc. “Fear” is a workable explanation for why these songs don’t get released, but the fact is, you hear your own song often enough and you just have no idea what parts of it are any good. You have to move fast enough to keep a fresh perspective, but slow enough to work out the details of your song, and that’s a delicate balance.

hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago

As a hobby composer, my takeaways have been very similar. Inspiration can be sudden and fleeting. If I don't finish something in a short period of time, I loose the feeling and impetus for what I was writing. I've started an order of magnitude more tracks than I've finished. My friends and I have a tradition where we each write a song and then play them on News Years Eve. We usually procrastinate and do it at the last minute. There are usually some good bits and we have fun doing it. It's low pressure and the deadline forces us to finish. For me, technology can be more distracting than beneficial. Modern DAWs have so many settings. There's always something new to try or a setting to tweak. My goal for now is to try staying focused on the composition of the piece and capturing the mood and feeling I am trying to convey. If your composition isn't solid, your track isn't going to be good no matter how much time you spend on the mixdown or getting your drum kit just so. Easier said and done, but that's my goal!

birdyrooster 4y ago

Modular synth is a boondoggle like literally the first thing he warns against lol.

tmountain 4y ago
It tows the line between tinkering satisfaction and musical satisfaction. It's easy to get wrapped up in the tinkering aspect (which can be really fun) and not create anything musical in the process. This is fine unless you have goals that come with the your hobby pointed towards releasing something--in which case, the tinkering part can become a time suck pulling you away from your objective.

jefftk 4y ago

> I would listen back to my recordings, trying to overdub new parts, feeling like I was playing pretty tight and in time. But when I listened back my playing would sound totally off. I was always miles behind the beat, sounding incredibly sloppy and rhythmless. For months I thought this was a deficiency in my playing, until eventually I discovered some latency setting, read about what latency was and realised what was going on. I tried my best to fix my latency problems, failed, put up with it for ages, and then eventually used my student loan to buy an audio interface and a shure SM57 microphone. These are two of the best buys I’ve ever made. I could suddenly record things that were pretty much in time, and also everything I recorded sounded way way better. When overdubbing you don't actually need to minimize latency: as long as your latency is constant, you can adjust for it. For example, if your end-to-end latency is 200ms you can tell your music program to adjust, shifting everything you record 200ms earlier.

michaelgrafl 4y ago
That's playback latency. But if monitoring latency is too high, you get sloppy playing. That's only relevant if you monitor through your audio interface, of course. Also, I'm not sure if all DAWs have always compensated playback latency the way you describe. But I agree that it shouldn't be a problem in general.
- thraxil 4y ago
  > Also, I'm not sure if all DAWs have always compensated playback latency the way you describe. But I agree that it shouldn't be a problem in general. Ableton definitely does, and that's what they say they were using.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    My guess is their low-end usb mic did not accurately report its latency, and so the Ableton wasn't able to automatically adjust. It's still a possible to adjust manually, though.
    - 4y ago

amznbyebyebye 4y ago

Nice blog post, to the point.

abcc8 4y ago

One part of my personal creative process I didn't find discussed or mentioned in the post is about having a goal for one's creative endeavor. I've found the idea of sitting down to simply 'write a song' or 'create something' doesn't work for me. What does work for me is having a specific goal and working towards that goal. The goals don't have to be overly complex, but I need at least some nugget of an idea that I can consciously refer to during the process to keep me on track (I'm easily distracted by 'possibilities' and 'choices'). An example of such a goal would be that I wish to write a song that has a verse with a more minor feel, use the I–vi–IV–V progression for the bridge, make the chorus upbeat, have a Joy Division meets the 50s vibe, and write some lyrics that tells a story that starts with driving somewhere. This method isn't foolproof and sometimes I have ideas that don't work or result in bad songs, but occasionally the final product is good enough that I can introduce it to the band and incorporate the new song into our practice/performance setlist. Having a goal that I write down gives me an idea of what I want the final product to look/feel/sound like while still leaving room for spontaneity, as I'll edit the goal if I think of a better idea. A side benefit of this approach is that it makes it easier to communicate the gist of the song to other musicians when they ask what it sounds like and/or what it is about.

fuckofff 4y ago

homonculus1 4y ago

The point about equipment is a really important one. A lot of people have a very stupid attitude that art is some kind of special domain where the tools don't matter--a true artist works beauty with whatever he has! Leave that nonsense at the door. If you were learning how to do landscaping, you'd buy a chainsaw, a shovel, and a blower. Anything less would leave you unequipped to do the job. I guess some guys have a gear fetish and can't stop from buying their 20th shiny guitar. Well, ignore EVERYTHING they have to say and get yourself the equipment you need. It can make the difference between waffling with no purpose and iterating productively.

smrq 4y ago
Hell, if you want 20 guitars and can afford it, get 20 guitars. Ideally each one brings something new to the table for you. I had a sudden uptick in creativity immediately after buying #6.
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
True up to a point. There's a difference between content and production values. Production values are the frame. But you have to put something strong in the frame, otherwise the frame looks empty. Give Paul McCartney a shitty USB mike and a shitty guitar and he'll still sound like Paul McCartney. Whatever he creates will be unusually musical, even if it's not polished. Give most people world class studio time with a top engineer and they'll produce something mediocre at best, no matter how how much effort goes into it. Good tools get out of the way and sound right without much effort, but all that really does is remove one layer of distraction/excuse. The gear fetish market is driven by people who are mostly just collectors. Some musicians are also collectors. They will buy special vintage guitars, synths, studio processors, and so on because they're useful and the sound works for them. But mostly it's middle aged middle class professionals - dentists, doctors, lawyers, some software developers - buying equipment as a hobby in itself, because buying is a lot easier and less stressful than creating.
- filoleg 4y ago
  > But mostly it's middle aged middle class professionals - dentists, doctors, lawyers, some software developers - buying equipment as a hobby in itself, because buying is a lot easier and less stressful than creating. This hits a bit too close to home. I thought that it was a nice touch in Silicon Valley (the TV show), for their corporate lawyer to have a fancy Gibson Les Paul guitar (with a bunch of autographs on it) in his office that he touched exactly once on camera. All while having no amps or pedals or speakers or anything else to use it with at all.

AlbertCory 4y ago

I like the Christmas Music thing. People's expectations are massively lowered. With respect to putting things out there, a very common question on Quora is "how do I protect myself from getting ripped off?" I always think of what a fairly well-known web personality at Google said to me: The risk on the Internet is not that you'll be ripped off. It's that you'll be ignored.

kcindric 4y ago

Great post! Nowadays I struggle a lot with creating music. I mostly WFH and most of my job equipment (laptop + monitor) and my music equipment (guitars, synths, pedals etc.) with my music recording equipment (laptop + monitor) is in the same room. I don't have the luxury of another hobby only room so I mostly finish my day job and never return into my office until the next work day starts. Also there's the recording medium problem, which is the same as my work medium - a laptop. I would love to hear some suggestions how to turn this around.

kamranjon 4y ago
I just recently purchased a Tascam DP-008EX which is a small, portable (even runs on batteries), 8 track recorder that is entirely self contained. I love it. I want to completely remove the computer from my music process because I find it distracting. This is a great way to do it which harkens back a bit to the older 4 or 8 track cassette recorders but this has some nice built in stuff like phantom power, reverb knobs on every track, etc.
jerrysievert 4y ago
> Also there's the recording medium problem, which is the same as my work medium - a laptop. I would love to hear some suggestions how to turn this around. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. work is on the work laptop on the couch, personal is on the personal laptop on the couch. desk goes mostly unused at the moment, but music gear is surrounding the desk. here's my current line of thinking: * work on work laptop on the couch * personal laptop moves to desk, where monitors and music gear live * personal couch work gets moved to iPad Pro to be purchased, so different form factor I think I'm stuck on the iPad Pro right now, because FOMO in 5 months, but otherwise I think I have my next steps figured out.

tgv 4y ago

I had experienced the modular trap with sample libraries. I've got a bunch, and they're really good, but setting things up and adding modulation tracks and getting the reverb right and all that, and then getting the mix to sound really good is so frustrating...

jancsika 4y ago

> For months I thought this was a deficiency in my playing, until eventually I discovered some latency setting, read about what latency was and realised what was going on. It's a good idea for anyone doing things related recording audio: ask someone how to measure the "round trip latency" in the software you're using. Ask on forums, HN, Facebook groups how to do it. If someone responds with simple arithmetic to calculate latency, or responds with the term "latency" that isn't preceded by the words "round trip," or does anything other than tell you a surefire way to measure the round trip latency for that software: go somewhere else and ask again. This will get you a baseline measurement of your system: one that that you can use to ask future questions and get practical answers. If you don't do this you'll get spammed with "help" from people who write before they measure.

bartread 4y ago

> At some point I became a software engineer, had more disposable income, and had discovered the concept of modular synthesisers. Obviously this is a terrible combination. Good grief but this made me laugh. I partially fell down that damn rabbit hole myself, although managed to avoid modular thus far. I decided to get back into making music during the 2020 lockdowns, spent a lot of time kitting out my office to double as a studio. Spent too much time watching gear reviews on YouTube, and Studio Time by Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL). Bought a Polybrute, and a bunch of second hand kit: couple of acid boxes, an old Akai sampler (actually two of them from which I built a single "monster" rig), a DX7 (which I can confirm is very hard to program, although Dexed helps), a couple of drum machines, and some other stuff. This is on top of kit I already owned. I also repainted and refloored the room, added 72 sockets, routed power cables around the walls, and fitted industrial cable conduit to route signal cables over the ceiling. I fitted floor to ceiling shelving around 3 sides of the room, and added guitar hangers to the fourth wall. I then fitted a 1200W equivalent LED ceiling light cluster for working, a few other LED lamps, and added a 57 metres (really) of coloured LED strip lighting. Bear in mind we're talking about a room that's 2.5m x 2.5m so it's possibly in the top 10 of the most excessively lit rooms in all of human history. And how many tracks have I finished since I started all this? None. Point 3 is, at least for me the single take home message I absolutely needed to read from this: > 3: You need to find ways to force yourself to finish things. Arbitrary deadlines are actually sometimes good. Number 6 is also an absolute gem: > 6: Making your own work is a good thing to do, even if no one else is interested in what you are making. To create is to be human Great article.

malthaus 4y ago
I feel you! Before lockdown i shared my home with some music gear; now I more or less have a bed in a music studio and my actual, finished musical output has approached 0.
justinlloyd 4y ago
I've struggled with releasing music for years, because the music, in my mind, has to be a finished product. Polished. Perfect. Flawless. For years I felt the same way about art too. I come from a video game background, and games have to be "done" before you start showing them off. Two things changed in my recent past: 1. Getting an art mentor who encouraged me to show off partially completed artwork, showing my working progress. 2. Joining a company where we encourage each other to show off our work that is incomplete, broken or "not even a functioning prototype" with no expectation of criticism or feedback other than an acknowledgement that you have progressed. And then in December of last year I resolved to release stuff, no matter it's state. Once a month I had to release a music track. And so far, I've done pretty well. I slid a little in March, and April came in a little later than I would have liked, but so far, it has been working out well for me. And yeah, number 6 is the gem. I've always held the belief "I create for me, even if nobody else is paying attention." So if I am creating for me, why do I care if it isn't ready to show the world? Just put it on a virtual shelf for display and be proud that I did _something_, _anything_.

analog31 4y ago

>>>> 3: You need to find ways to force yourself to finish things. Arbitrary deadlines are actually sometimes good. That's one of the joys of live performance. You show up, play, then it's gone forever. The other is not having to keep up with technology.

58x14 4y ago

Here's where I'm at in my musical endeavors: - I have world-class equipment (a Nord Stage 3 among other things) that has radically changed my perception of sound, which is both a good and a bad thing. The positive is I'm becoming much more precise and subtle, and the negative is I'm often distracted by the new depth of sound and technology - I'm aware of when I feel inclined to practice, when I feel inclined to compose, and when I feel inclined to improv and have fun - I crave novelty and variety more than consistency As a result, my current strategy is to build a library of simple patterns, like a chord progression, a melody, a beat, a specific sound. When I feel inclined to practice, I'll choose a key and find a pattern to repeat and explore. Maybe I'll change the sound or the tempo, and explore that pattern. Maybe I add a layer, which branches into its own pattern. I also do this with lyrics. Over time, I expect that many of these patterns will converge into actual tracks. It's happening already - I'll combine some lyrics with a melody and a beat and suddenly I'm inspired to create more layers. I'm in no rush to produce or publish anything; I have only a handful of hours a week set aside for music. But I know those hours are well spent, and in the future, I know I will continue to grow and develop as a musician and a writer. At that point I'll certainly experience the inevitable loop of "is this good enough to publish?" And once I reach that point I suppose I'll release a Christmas song and probably call it "my antithesis."

maydup-nem 4y ago

> If you change your processes too much it is hard to built up an identity other than as someone who is inconsistent. nah and why should consistency matter across songs anyway, unless you are writing a concept album?

bobbiechen 4y ago

Incredibly relatable on the Christmas music. I did this in 2020 with my roommate and it really was a lot of fun - I wrote that up here: https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2020/12/22/the-making-of-christmas-in-this-economy https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2020/12/22/the-making-of-christm...

logbiscuitswave 4y ago

> I’d start pieces, make reasonable progress, and then spend hours making irrelevant changes no one would notice getting more and more confused about what I was doing, and whether the piece I was working on was any good Even the greats can succumb to this. The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson got caught in this trap when working on the band’s Smile album in 1966. He intended it to be a entire album in the modular cut/paste vein that Good Vibrations used (which was still pretty novel at the time). He spent nearly a year experimenting, tinkering, and retooling to the point of creative paralysis. Having to release something, the entire project was scrapped and the original project became something of legend among aficionados. It wasn’t actually “completed” until 2004 when Wilson was finally able to revisit the project. Funnily enough the big motivator to finish the project was a deadline — just like the article recommended. In Wilson’s case, it was a commitment to perform the material at a series of sold out live shows. While I’m not a musician, I certainly understand the desire for some measure of perfection in my software or hardware projects — many times to the point of creative paralysis and eventual abandonment. It’s said that “shipping is a feature” and sometimes you just have to settle for “good enough” if you ever want to share your creations with others.