I used to HATE using computers for music making
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- Опубликовано: 18 июн 2024
- It took me a while to figure how to use a computer as a creative tool instead of a hindrance. Here are some of my primary takeaways from my last decade of trial and error, from complete beginner to... whatever I am now.
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Here are some of the composition concepts that have helped my computer music sound less computer-y: bit.ly/FREEcompositionguide
Excellent perspective on this video, bravo! Thks for sharing.
Having spent 10K hours playing Unreal Tournament defitinely helps;)
that's a really sad waste of time
@@i-never-look-at-replies-lol We all waste our time in different ways. its nothing new and definitely not a shocker
@@i-never-look-at-replies-lol but now he can navigate his DAW faster with his heightened reflexes
Is it a VST?
Checks all the boxes
Personally , my 2 problems with making music on the computer are the endless options ( spending literally hours scrolling through thousands of samples ... 🤢🤮 ) and the use of mouse and keyboard , sitting at my desk in front of a computer monitor makes it feel like a chore , i might as well do my taxes and answer to emails ...
Doing on any groovebox the exact same thing I would do on Ableton is so much more satisfying and fun , and feels more intentional , and feels like actually making music , instead of feeling like a boring work .
I can see the "power" of DAWs and all the amazing crazy stuff you can do on them , but i hate using them .
The flip side is how much harder it is to ever finish anything on a groovebox. Sure, it's much quicker and easier to get started but try arranging a track or changing the key on an MPC. Things that take 1 second on Ableton takes hours, assuming that it's even possible at all.
There's a reason every single professional music maker uses a computer.
What level did you get to with DAWs? I had the very same feeling coupled with being lost, until what I made started to pay off to my own ears somewhat. Not until I understood a some synthesis, processing, sampling, plugins, mixing and arrangement did I start enjoying it for what it was. Now I'm thinking of getting into modular!
But first and foremost I might have to swap to Ableton. Seems much more streamlined than FL. Fl is cool but I feel like an electrician laying wires all day. I guess that is also nice in a way, okay bye
@@kky10xz19 My music got "cleaner" using daws but became lifeless and tedious, especially trying to add groove and feel. Pushing through because "you can make good music in a daw" doesn't mean its enjoyable or the type of music you want to make.
@@daynemin It just depends on you and what you like so enjoy yourself either way
But I have a question. What are you alluding to, what platforms/tools/instruments do you prefer to make use of and what type of tracks are you producing?
@@kky10xz19 I like to make more downtempo stuff like Tycho, boards of Canada. But I've played guitar since highschool, and whenever I start with it I feel organic ideas come through fast and authentically. All the harmonies and basslines come out easier and better.
From travelling around etc I would just have a laptop and it just doesn't work for me. A big part is dynamics and subtle timing shifts that come out in natural playing.
When I make music in-the box I prefer to just make little jams and beats.
I use Ableton, right now I don't have any other instruments. Ideal setup for me would be bass, guitar, one mono synth, a digital poly and a few guitar pedals. Maybe a sampler/drum machine.
Computers do, in fact, suck for creating music.
But they're awesome for automation, mixing, and mastering.
Mixing? I think analogue mixer is kinda the epitome of the computer interface dilemma, their the og’s of 1:1 knob:function
@@bernardlindeman739 Until you need to repeat multiple actions, or tweak something for one measure, or...
The computer makes those things trivial. Just need a usable MIDI mixer interface.
@@JeffHendricks agreed mixers are woefully lacking what seems obvious ^^
My theory and practice is to use computers for what you want to do that your instruments and hardware can't. If you have a computer, but no other instruments or hardware, then do everything on the computer, including using it as an instrument. At least get some control surface aside from a qwerty and a mouse.
@@bernardlindeman739 they have advantages, but I’d rather build an analog front end for my recording so I can add mojo from there and then mix in the box with some good controllers. Maybe some analog comps/eq here and there but mostly in the box. Mastering too, there are excellent excellent plugins for mastering nowadays. But I’ll always want to run through something like a neve MBT for a good depth of sound that analog can have. Past that I don’t see the point of spending that much unless I really needed it
The first 2 mins of your video is me literally watching myself talk - music composition degree, cubase, no formal mixing/mastering training. Buying library after library succumbing to marketing. Excellent lessons learned.
Nothing wrong with computers if you can use them for music production.
About the first point, which is absolutely solid. Get yourself a DAW like Studio One that allows you to switch between Piano Roll View and Score View by a click of a button. Best of both worlds.
absolutely. life saver.
or just use dorico, notion, or sibelius.
@@KyleMcHattie Start by writing, yes, amen. My little colored blocks begin life as a Finale score (which is my product, for live performance). The blocks are for editing a rendering of the work - in Studio One I just toggle from scroll view to score view if i want to edit in notation. Logic Pro also has a notation toggle. (edit added a missing verb)
In Studio One, you can write the midi in traditional notation. It gives you the flexibility of a full midi piano roll with the flexibility of breaking out the og notation whenever it is preferred
And so can Cubase, it's called the Score Editor.
In fact, the original Cubase on the Atari ST from back in the 1990s had a score editor and it has been available on every version of Cubase since afaik. I'm surprised Jameson didn't take advantage of it since he mentioned in the video his first ever DAW was Cubase.
@@makaijin
Glad to hear Presonus aren’t the only smart ones in this regard
It was clunky at best when I tried it. Of course, I also had no idea what I was doing at the time.
Over the years I've found that I don't enjoy dealing with tech when I'm in the idea-sketching phase. Doesn't save me enough time to be worth the potential disruptions.
I know there is a way in Pro Tools where you can transfer midi info to notes.
I have found myself using very much a “hybrid” template.
Each of my sessions start with a “blank” DAW. But basically all my virtual instruments are saved with the settings I use most often so when I open a virtual instrument, it is already set up how I like it. The same happens with any of my hardware synths.
And I have a very similar setup for mixing. I have specific chains saved. So if I am mixing bass, for example, I can click the button for the Izotope Neutron->DBX->Mix Monolith chain or I can click a separate button for the Soothe->Neve 1073->1176 chain.
In the end, a computer is also an instrument, that must be learned. It only has no limitations, so you could easily be trapped in that endless learning process. Everyone needs to figure out, which parts of it are necessary and learn them well. And when it’s time, stop learning and start making music, which is the hard part to be honest…
I love that concept of using limitation to force a deeper dive to find something real.
Whenever I open a DAW on my computer I feel like I'm about to make a spreadsheet in Excel
then you're not using the right DAW
Glad to see you address this topic! I am know from too much thinking and trial-and-error that I am at most creative in the morning. I can't sing well, but it sure works for my song-writing. Typically, I'm just in the car after dropping off a family member at work, and sing into an iPad, iPhone, or OP-1. BTW, Scaler is a great chord tool on the iPad, but even that can feel too techy.
You make so much sense, I begin to feel I’ve misunderstood. Sad.🙂
Good idea. Put this on RUclips to confuse beginners even more.
what i like about audio is the production is lot tighter than midi
Yeah. That point about keeping track of your plugins and installers etc. is gold.
Kills me all the time.
One comment. long, long ago I played with a sequencer that turned the Piano roll 90 degrees so that it was like an actual piano roll from a player piano. I found that so amazingly intuitive, as a keyboard player, that I am amazed that no DAW has this as a possibility. Somehow, it just made more sense.
I too wish that piano rolls had this feature.
However, allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment: computer screens are that pesky 3:4 aspect ration (the longer being width, obviously). DAWs are primarily used by musicians who focus on hyper-specialized instrument cases instead of the 88 keys of a piano. Therefore, it's more beneficial for a DAW-based musician to see how a one-octave bassline unfolds throughout all 8+ bars (which the aforementioned width of a screen should be easy to accommodate). Also if you want the bassline to go WUB... WHAOoh... BRee (technical terms, ya know)... the automations lanes for format filters, FM modulation, and other doohickeys might be easier to understand if the graphs for said automations are horizontal instead of vertical (not impossible, just easier).
However my automation-lane argument breaks down when you consider that trackers exist and are widely loved by the users. Otherwise, there you have it: limited polyphony for most cases, AND automation lanes. Back to you, Bill.
[edit] more than likely... it's just the tradition of standard notation being a left-to-right reading ordeal that is shoe-horned into piano roll as a "gotta work the same" mindset.
VCV Rack led to bass guitar for me :)
i met people from college learning this, i found amazing because i thought everyoe learns alone this thing
such an interesting convo. i’ve recently been reworking my workflow after using the sp404sx solely. the limitations are really what make the instrument shine, it only samples. on top of that starting grooves with no grid and sound design is such a breeze when its hands on. going back to ableton can be paralyzing with the amount of options
I'm glad I watched this. I have fallen into many of the traps myself. Thanks.
Did the "one live player over a bunch of samples" thing last year when I made an album on a tracker, thought it sounded good, then jammed guitar over it and realised I had much more work to do. Great result though I thought
Funny how my experience was exactly the opposite, came as a developer, started on "sound" production by doing a few algos for sound generation. While studing on for the pitch I started playing with frecuency and Tamber, that led to downloading live and starting designing sounds. My sole entry point was math, chord and notes are essentially math but math cannot cuantificate the emotion on the chord so as you might imagine my music wasnt very transmiting but very design intensive.
I did had a background as a drummer (a few years of playing intensively as a child) and what took my away was reading notation. The encoding on music notation is simply awful, notes are the same but it depends on the line they are sitting which you need to see from a distance, and while drum didnt had intonation, complex rhythm its as difficult to read. I couldnt think otherwise that music notation was a mason code to obscure music to those who couldnt figure what the childish pictures on a line meant. Of course MIDI solved all this. It was simple and intuitive, notes are in their corresponding note, every note is pictured and note lenght and rhythm can be simply drawn at will. My mind would fill the arrangment with the most creative sounds I can came to imagine but I struggled to create a "musical message" a somewhat of a coherent musical piece. I still do. while math and sound have limits, music dont, you can just run your face on a keyboard and could be musical, theres no logic no sequence of thought that backs that.
It took me a while to learn the basic of music theory and im still a begginer on that field but as instruments goes, I rather have my computer but im leaning much more a humble keyboard controller after practicing for a while. Your videos help with the theory too, thanks.
Thank you. I appreciate the frankness and honesty with which this vid was made. Most refreshing.
The computer dying thing hit home. I made my first EP in the 12th grade and sold a bunch of copies. Then of course my computer got hit with a power surge and died. 20+ years later I haven't been able to find a copy. Granted back then storage was expensive (my hard drive was 2GB which was a big deal) but still. Organize your files and back them up regularly.
I just had a crash and lost a lot of work. Starting over, greater and better.
Very candid; true too. Well presented.
Thank you for this!
Thank you for being so honest! I totally recognise the process of how and what a computer can do for you. A computer can be everything you want it to be. Modern DAW’s like Bitwig are really great but they do have way too many options/possibilities. It takes a lot of discipline to not get distracted all the time instead of making actual music. For me, working with an IPad and a simple mixer like AUM really gets my creative juices flowing. Just some instruments and creating in the moment without worrying. Anyway, thanks for your always honest and authentic reflections. Much appreciated! Keep up the great work!
Best jam I ever had was with my electric guitar & the birds singing outside my window, felt like a legit call & response thing, recorded it and if I try hard I can convince myself the cars driving past sound like the crashing of waves 🌊
Always fascinating to hear your perspective on the technical side of things!
Could not agree more, even though I am mostly stuck in the box. I had a hardware synth once and sold it to buy a good electric guitar... however, I routinely find myself missing that synthesizer even though I have much more control in the grid to automate a plugin. However, if I ever have any disposable income, I would buy a different synth since the Roland JP-8080 is a bit pigeonholed in 90s trance (trance is good sugar, but too much yields musical "diabeetus").
There is something about a DAW that seems to give me laser-like precision and mixing mojo that I personally do not want to sacrifice *without alternative* . However, I would give up that laser-like precision IF I had access to a multi-track recorder and a lot of hardware, tangible plucked-string options and microphones (a very costly wish).
Would you rather hand-paint with gold or use a robot-laser on cheap metal? Personally, as I listen to some of the music by Mr. Jones, I believe he has chosen wisely.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your wisdom and advice with us! This was a good investment of my past 13 minutes.
They tried to tech music notation at public school found it so stuffy and boring put me off the idea of ever being able to put ideas into music, thank goodness for punk rock and affordable electronics, whatever works for you Matt.
Whats your opinion on a multitrack recorder like the tascam Dp32 as a daw.
If you turn off the click, take the grid out of view, you then basically have the same thing as a tape deck. If you use Reaper, you can do this, and then make a grid (if for some reason you need it) following your performance. You can also use MIDI like this, as you said it is just a series of messages, like your brain to your nerves. You don't have to sync to anything to record a MIDI peformance. Although, if you record both the MIDI and audio, you can have more options to change things later.😁😎
Give touchscreen laptop or monitor a try . For me its opening fun way playing vst instrument or dabbling with fx and daw
Where were you 8 years ago when I started to make my own music? Lol. This video would have been a real time saver. But it still is a good reminder of many important tips and ideas that anyone can benefit from. Thanks for your music and your ideas.
I was still trying to figure out why my first hardware synth couldn't send audio over usb :)
this is a great video. I want to learn how to make music for films. mainly because I am trying to wrap a sci fi film.
I started with an Atari ST, Casio CZ-101 and Cubase sometime in the late 80's but actually much earlier with an Atari 800XL and a little 6502 player routine, hugely inspired by Phil Price/Gary Gilbertson collaborations (Alternate Reality and their awesome music compilation disk), then years later the incredible music of the tracker scene, and to today where FL Studio is my main instrument but I'll use Renoise and Bitwig occasionally. I've also used Csound, MaxMSP, PureData, SuperCollider, FAUST, ChucK, and many other tools. There's so many cool ways to make sounds and I love learning them all, but ultimately the best way is the one that lets you get music in your head onto a computer with less friction as possible.
I used an Alesis MMT-8 loop sequencer to record my first album in 1993. I had that, a JV880, and a cheap keyboard, and a 4 track Tascam. I was so limited, but then again, no messing around with a thousand choices. Just do it….
I had a mmt8 as well and used to achieve so much with so little.
When you only have 8 tracks, you have to make each one count!
Too many options can and often will distract.
Thank you for this video man. I'm an older "genxer" and I can relate to your experience in music exploration.
I just bought an old small desktop computer to use as an instrument. I just want to use it as a VSTi host with a mapped midi controller. Use it like an instrument to record audio into a main mixing, arranging computer. Doing it all in the box leads me to pointless detailed editing, looking at a screen fixing problems that don't exist apart from boring ideas lol. I used to have so much more fun recording as audio with guitars and keyboards. Was a bit rough but so much more enjoyable and better.
The amount of time spent trying to make something "human" with in the box production is draining and forced. I know people do it but that micro editing puts me in tunnel vision.
Very interesting watching this video. It looks like your approach to DAWs and computers were pretty rough at the beginning! in my case was the opposite, I came from traditional teaching in the early 80's and in the early 90's I started using computers and by that time computers weren't that friendly as they are nowadays. I remember myself using a Amiga 500 computer with a midi interface using a 4-channel sequencer called ProTracker. I also had a notation program that I can't remember the name, sequencers were more precise than notation, now the DAWs offers things that I would't even been dreaming when all this started for me! I mean, I always was grateful from what computers gave me and helped me to do. Great channel!
I did audio production at university and still feel the benefits you have with collaboration and doing DAWless composition. Though the DAW is so much more immediate for me. I can arrange so much quicker with a DAW. Plus the DAW has allowed me to collaborate and release so much more with band mates and collaborators as life gets more complicated.
I play(ed) guitar. And about 7 years ago, I was looking at buying a looper pedal so that I could jam with myself. This led me to RUclips and then not long after I discovered "DAWs" and I had never heard of VSTs. It seemed, from my quiet place of naivety, that I could use a DAW to jam with myself and make music too! Anyway, cut a long story short: I now compose electronica (exclusively for myself). More often that not, I'll use the guitar to find inspiration and then use Melodyne to turn it into midi. I never saw any of that coming 7 years ago!!!
This struck a chord with me, and a lot of this is stuff I learned myself when I first started to make music. I came from playing traditional instruments - mostly keyboard and guitar - and only started to produce music to rival my older brother. He used FL Studio and I used LMMS, which is free. I still to this day a decade on from when I started use LMMS and all it's stock plugins and effects to make my music. While I did dabble in a few basic VST/LV2 plugins, I felt like I could create 99% of the sounds I wanted with the stock plugins. IT got a point wher I could hear a sound in my head and then just create it with a stock plugin. I even still record guitar parts in Audacity to a click track because it's distraction free. If it's out of time, I don't meticulously go in and change it like I did in ProTools in education. I'd pause and simple try harder for the next take. A DAW can build up a song, but it can't create a catchy hook. Spending money on plugins that sound great won't make your music better if your musical ideas are dead in the water.
Always back up!
I am a classically trained painter. Oil on canvas. Tools being tools, after 2 years of using Photoshop on one layer I discovered ...the other layers. I know.
It was 20 years ago. I still like to paint better, but well, the rent has to be paid, I got used to paint on a tablet, or even Illustrator 😅
I am an dawless musician. My brain is Akai MPC which I do all my work, compositions, sampling and mixing. The greats about is, the MPC is an Playstation for making music. I always prefer the hands on workflow, because for me feels like making music. Also, that can work with real knobs and play melodies and rythms on the pads. I could never make music on the pc only
I guess it's what you grew up with, I've been using Cubase for 33 years now. I can look at piano roll on the screen and instantly see everything, I still can't read notation.
"Adding a single live player"... Oh yes, I've always had a vocalist, and then added a guitarist in the mid 90's. And we were a band.
Yeah I definitely think whatever you start with/spend the most time with has a big effect on preference.
I apologize in advance if you've already disclosed this information, but I'm curious what film/TV/video games you've scored? I'd love to check those out!
I really struggle with this. I used to play guitar when I was younger, but am physically unable to play instruments well anymore. I have a really hard time connecting to any song I am working on and getting into the groove when I am drawing in the notes or messing around on a MIDI keyboard, but I don't know of any other options.
Good stuff 🤟
Subbed. Great content. Limitation is hardest for me. With all the gigs of sounds and effects etc. is a person with ADHD worst nightmare
Here's an easy solution: uninstall everything, then think it carefully and only install 1 VST synth and 3 effects on top of the stock options in your DAW and don't install any samples than the stock samples. If your DAW has tons of them, maybe restrict those as well. Make some music this way and only then start to gradually install something back, something that you feel you're really missing. Installing everything is a trap. I was there as well back in the days and it lead into me being really unproductive. But I can assure you, if you do this, you'll cure from the VST/sample option paralysis.
That's an interesting thing you bring up about midi notation vs sheet music. I'm very slow and clumsy with written music but I can identify patterns very quickly on the piano roll and work smoothly with that. But the thing is, at it's core, it's the same exact thing, isn't it? Just another language. Sheet music is more expressive though when it comes to details but it starts to struggle and get tedious when you go into intricate microtimings.
I don't think in notations of any kind though when I compose so it's interesting for me that you'd bring this up. Fun video
This is absolutely so true. Clicking a mouse is always work, whereas truly connecting with an instrument is pure joy. Instruments plus a NON-PC multitracker, then... 5 minutes in audacity to run a mastering plugin or two and... Done! No fancy DAW no nonsense or walking through presets and sounds, just sit down and compose what you hear in your mind. This is is the best workflow for me.
I wouldn’t say suck but I get what you’re saying being I play multiple instruments. It’s all in how you view it. Midi Capture has done wonders for making music inside a daw. I just play like a regular instrument and capture what I like. Leads, Chords, etc etc.
Now drawing in midi notes sucks. It’s not musical to me. It’s boring. As long as I have a midi keyboard 🎹 I’m cool with the computer.
Computers suck for making music. You mean someone.
Ther Germans have a saying: _If the farmer can't swim, the swimming trunks are to blame._
Computers are great for making music. I like to create music software and filters myself, and use original tools as much as possible. Tada: infinite synthesizers, that cost a little time instead of lots of money to obtain. Throw in some MIDI equipment for more physical interaction and it's a great experience.
thank you :)
Thanks for the video. I use Score Creator to write music. I’m old😊 so it is like scoring on paper, but easier and more efficient. It will play what you wrote with various instruments and the user can write with chords too. You can export your creation as a MIDI file.
Yes, the computer most definitely IS a musical instrument. You haven't been listening to it. Grab a little Japanese AM transistor radio, and place it next to the computer and turn both of them on. Music! Oh, am I date-stamping myself? Yeah, I saw Pong at a Sears store when I was five years old. I actually did use paper tape and real Teletype machines. My first tape machine was a Tascam 234 and my first synth was a lightly used Yamaha CS-15. You want backwards tape sounds? Flip the tape over and there they are. Great stuff.
Computers don't suck for making music, it's the software that's written for them sucks for making music. I haven't found a DAW I like. Too many features are not a feature, they're a hindrance. You don't need a universe of plugins and whatnot. There are a number of channels demonstrating great music made with basically trash. "After Cooking" and "Soaring Tortoise" are good. More music is made by banging on stretched hide and blowing on hollow pieces of wood than kvetching about a black box of bootlegging binary bits.
Computers suck for "making" music because there are only keyboard instruments for them… although recently much more usual instruments got some half-working capabilities to connect to a computer via MIDI\OSC but they are really poor in terms of expression, which is vital for making music ad not just chopping samples.
Yep many an interesting idea have been lost trying to put said idea into the box
Excellent, it sort of does not make sense but it is fun all the same, I vote for more piano vids!
Amazon aws storage is a great place to back things up as an archive
Yeah I was listening to all your private saved projects on my Alexa just last night. Lots of great hooks and ideas in there, man.
DAW is focused on quickness and practicality. Producers and musicians outsource their ears to visual and clicking, copy-pasting. It was fun 20 years ago but now I see that it almost completely destroyed my motivation for making music. Not to mention that 50% of my VST don't function anymore, I must be a slave to subscription and updates, Native Instruments and Avid are the worst! Spent over 2000$ in the last 5 years and half of that doesn't work. I spent my energy and time with support and emails, no wonder I lost the will to make music! I am selling now my Pro Tools and Native Instruments, I bought Tascam 8 track mixer, new amplifiers, guitar, piano... And final mix and mastering I will do in real studio!
...and just to add, I replaced Sibelius with pen and paper and my productivity and quality dramatically improved! I rely on my imagination and ears. I construct phrases in my mind and improving my musical memory.
Last time I made music on a computer myself was in the early 90s on my Amiga. Using a 68060 CPU and realtime software mixing this was still the most amazing machine at the time. Yet, I noticed and I am convinded up to this day, that there's no good music being made using DAWs!
Just from hearing music, seeing what music I like, and how it was made, I came to the conclusion, that the classic way of using a keyboard and a lot of racks or pedals for effects and sounds is a reuqirement for good music being produced. So it seems that it's about the haptics and the intution factor, which enables the creative process to grow.
i love producing on my computer. i love clicking in my melodies. it feels like ultimate control
You're right, you don't need 50 compressors...
However. *Not all compressors are created equal* despite the fact that a lot of them will be...
It's all about finding the correct tool that does a very specific job.
Finding that tool that does that specific job is part of the journey
Pro tip: Some of the best instruments and processors are free. However, master grade gear is not.
Thank you, I thought I was the only one
I want that harmony course!!
Thank you for your sanity.
I just got an Alesis HD24 and have been having so much more fun making music with a drum machine and guitars again.
My playing, tone et al went way down after getting into the music production thing just to make a few recordings. Many computers, hardware, licenses, and time to learn some of it...not worth it. I was better just picking up an acoustic and going into something as opposed to playing with a mouse and screen.
Free from computers music yes ,, Your I hope you dont mind this your a adorable little man ...
I guess having a full time job as software developer (or any job making long hours behind a computer screen) also "helps" for me to aim for anything other than a screen. No surprise I've developed a taste for stuff with buttons, sliders or other things to get my hands (or feet, mouth, whatever body parts) on. Especially if it's not too obvious to get a certain sound out of it, making you want to develop your own way of (ab)using it. And more recently I realized the value of being forced in a way of working that you're not familiar with and might seem odd. I was fooling around with a 303 clone, getting the hang of the somewhat awkward way of programming patterns in its sequencer. It made me look at composing from somewhat different perspectives than I was used to and with that triggered interesting creative ideas :)
I finally learned what midi is …. not! 🎉 Totally agree computer is not an instrument ….. iPhone is! 😂 Today, 5 analogue synths later and Mac Studio Ultra, I was playing Korg Gadget, again. Can wait for you discover Gadget convenience in your pocket and instant idea capture. Wherever it’s hits you. Incl (notinstudio) when you still can hear the world around you 😊
Imagine being a creative and at the same time being complicit with the tools' limitation to guide your process.
This is an entire skill issue, hoping for technology to help you out if you didn't sort your head out.
Yep. I mostly just use the DAW as multitrack with built in synths and Mixer. It fun playing everything in real time.
Playing an instrument = using emotions, feelings, not keeping perfect timing etc
Making music on a DAW = slave to a click track
I always failed to use a metronome 😂
The challenge I sometimes face is merging the above 2 points.
Jameson Nathan Jones just watching this now as I do some stuff in the background. good video.
Computers are fraught with problems when it comes to music, true. 101% agree though I'm only partically through your video.
You can you know, use a pencil and staff paper and still make a living in film music. If your name is say, John Barry.
Do you use spin drives? Or SSDs
I expected to push back with my somewhat recent discovery that I am more creative the more digital and non intuitive a piece of software is. This isn't to be a contrarian, I think it's because I started out with some really cryptic looking shit and that's what gets my imagination going, but I digress:
I agree with the main principles you've shared here.
I'm also the weirdo who keeps a computer going for 10 years or buys a 10 year old computer on purpose because I know how to take care of it and it runs that particular software to get that particular sound. In the long run, I treat it like any other musical instrument and get similar results.
I also wrote my charts by hand instead of relying on software to print sheets for bands because I can write faster than I can enter the note data into those things. I haven't had a need for it since the 90s though.
What is the music in the background towards the start
No they dont , computers are the future for.music, a mini pc, macro controller, a few touch screens, ultimate control
I'm fascinated that you identify "weak harmonic progressions" by reading scores.
Can't you do that by listening to the music? Or rather, what makes it weak if it doesn't sound weak when listening?
I can't speak for Jones, but personally I used to find weak harmonic points during passing playback in arrangements I created in FL Studio. Upon this miniscule cringe, I would then repeat the section over and over again and then start tweaking the notes over and over again and pretty soon I realized that I was spending a lot of time on one section. I did discover a tool in FL Studio's piano roll called "Scrub" in which I could drag it over the pattern or playlist to play back and even hold down the MIDI commands/notes in a given pause of time. This helped me identify either the weak polyphony much faster. However, since your ears can become accustomed to dissonance very quickly this scrub function is a double edged sword -- you still need to listen to the previous sections again to give your ears that context once again instead of a pigeon-holed block-chord. However, during the trial and error phase of deciding what dissonance is good or bad (or something recorded was out of tune), the piano-roll/playlist scrub feature has saved time.
I imagine that someone with a lot more experience reading scores of sheet music can identify the note intervals at a much more rapid pace than the trial and error or frozen scrubs. [sigh] I'm gonna miss FL Studio when I complete my Linux migration.
I identify it while listening, but can address it more efficiently in notation.
I like performing using gear like a sampler or multiple and synths and stuff, that seems more fun but tedious in the long run, but who cares, I’m most creative outside the daw and if I want/need to use it it’s there but mostly wanna just make and perform on gear, it’s the closest to traditional instruments and being able to have some sort of control is a BIG for me
i think using multiple generators and sound sources will always give better results soundwise, more life. With a computer you end up lost in over treatment to get the mix not to sound super flat... my opinion though, mayne it's just me... not for producing at least, but i could add a computer as an extra generator, like kontakt typically, or to use an fx chain i guess.
If you have Cubase you can use traditional score writing.
I reduce everything to a handful of options to make music, using presets and minimal templates whenever I can. I only buy gear if it will solve a particular problem. Keyboards and standard notation are key (heh) because they are the simplest ways to see what I'm doing.
Recently went full 5U MU modular and moved all the computer crap out of the area. Never better!!
Amen. The computer is not an instrument as you said. It is essentially a recording studio in a plastic box and you essentially become a producer. I must say that despite my love for the art of computer music production, I very much miss the sound of live musicians on a recording. Despite how advanced DAWs, etc., have become with randomizing and attempting to create the feel of humanization, it is still not there and perhaps may not be ever. There is something to be said when listening to a pop, rock, ballad, whatever from prior to the digital era and hearing but not hearing the essence of the human touch. Much of it on the surface is not actually noticable, but the brain knows. It puts it all together and can simply tell that what you are hearing is being played and recorded from live musicians. Now I am not, nor ever been a musician trained or otherwise. I simply loved producing using computers both because I always loved computer music and the avant garde aspect and the challange of piecing together bit by bit as if a puzzle. So, my comment is not one based on bias because of being a musician, but simply from perspective and honesty. There is and perhaps always will be the battle between musicians and computer based music production, and that is sad. They're are two different things, two different mediums, producing two different sounding outcomes. It is just sad that today due to profit thinking only that the art of live musicians has been replaced for digital mimicking. But sadly it sells, and that is all that seems to matter.
The DAW template advice is spot on. I made the exact same mistakes - no template > stupidly in-depth template.
An easy start is all it should be.
As a guitar and banjo player, I definitely like midi. We dont know anything about traditional notation!
Great Video:))
Don’t tell me this I’m desperately trying to climb out of the analogue domain & join the new world.
Having enough trouble just navigating complex routing possibilities on my interface!
Already find my self making less music and spending more time puzzling over a screeen 🤦🏻
My Best, Classical Music was on CUBASE 2 Nuendo Original, CUBASE 5 . Now I play live, I have more freedom and fast Workflow. I see Computer Mose Precision still I try to work with everything I have in Digital Media Data Pac, Audio, MP3 and literally any compression and RAW 192KHZ and I don't worry. I don't care. I and I are here to say that Life is Beautiful and it's really up to Artist not about equipment. But I appreciate your opinion and also for high score IQ you are talking about what I know and I agree with you 100%. It is your expression be Unison solution for just for the sake of Science , The Real one about Space Travels, Moon , Mars ( i don't know why).
My expression is complicate and looking for effort to understand and overcome, so I am trying to be the Best Resonating Tones i compose in Real time with Maschine Plus and I am blow away with how much I need to just let Go.