5 music production truisms that are actually nonsense
- KVRAF
- 2110 posts since 5 Oct, 2015 from Swedish / Living in Hong Kong
Funny that they mention DAWs and their sound engines. I use FL studio 12 and it is a very capable DAW. But often I get the feeling that FL studio is the bullied DAW among other DAWs. Its like the unpopular fat kid in school or something. But the article is true. There is no major difference in sound quality that is related to the DAW itself.
Win 10 -64bit, CPU i7-7700K, 32Gb, Focusrite 2i2, FL-studio 20, Studio One 4, Reason 10
- KVRAF
- 14838 posts since 13 Nov, 2012
2. "Creativity and originality are the most important aspects of making music!"
Nonsense...?
Creativity and originality PLUS hardwork = Results
BUT hard work is a very important part of the equation.
Nonsense...?
Creativity and originality PLUS hardwork = Results
BUT hard work is a very important part of the equation.
- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 4590 posts since 7 Jun, 2012 from Warsaw
^Didn't you read the article? The most (commercially) successful tracks are all the same and by no means creative.
Blog ------------- YouTube channel
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)
- KVRAF
- 14838 posts since 13 Nov, 2012
Brilliantly stated!synzh wrote:Yea that's why most of the stuff that's on radio is all similar and mostly crap
-
- KVRist
- 275 posts since 22 Sep, 2013
There were maybe 1 or 2 things that felt like common sense, but the rest was utter bullshit, probably written by someone who doesn't want to view music as a form of art...
-
simon.a.billington simon.a.billington https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=341278
- KVRAF
- 2365 posts since 12 Nov, 2014
There's a difference between seeing music as a creative art form, as it should be, and just making general observations about what is commercially acceptable.
It's not just inherent of this day and age, simple forms, simple chord structures, familiar songs have been around since the 50s at least, the beginning of music as a commercial industry.
Yes you can dare to be different, but if you're too far off the mark there's a very good chance you won't be commercially successful. Music is a business as well. Those who fail at music as a business are usually those who fail to treat music like a business, generally speaking.
It's a simple premise really. If someone wants a to eat fish, you don't give them beef, you give them what they ask for, fish. There are all sorts of varieties of fish, but if you try to sell that beef you risk not making sales and you risk failing at your business.
Supply and demand basically.
Success has a price, but if you're clever and skilful enough about how to do it, that price doesn't necessarily mean your self respect.
It's not just inherent of this day and age, simple forms, simple chord structures, familiar songs have been around since the 50s at least, the beginning of music as a commercial industry.
Yes you can dare to be different, but if you're too far off the mark there's a very good chance you won't be commercially successful. Music is a business as well. Those who fail at music as a business are usually those who fail to treat music like a business, generally speaking.
It's a simple premise really. If someone wants a to eat fish, you don't give them beef, you give them what they ask for, fish. There are all sorts of varieties of fish, but if you try to sell that beef you risk not making sales and you risk failing at your business.
Supply and demand basically.
Success has a price, but if you're clever and skilful enough about how to do it, that price doesn't necessarily mean your self respect.
-
- KVRian
- 1349 posts since 30 Mar, 2011
I'd say modern popular music is 90% craftsmanship, the rest may be creativity. First of all you have to fulfil certain standards of your craft, like a carpenter who would not be very successful if he'd try to build a table with only two legs (or with legs of different lengths). And of course not every table is a piece of art per se.
-
- KVRAF
- 2267 posts since 9 Mar, 2009 from Copenhagen, Denmark
PatchAdamz wrote:Brilliantly stated!synzh wrote:Yea that's why most of the stuff that's on radio is all similar and mostly crap
True but then again, producers may have too much earwax
- KVRist
- 129 posts since 26 Mar, 2005 from Berlin, Germany
The point is not being original/obvious, highly skilled or a noob or anything in between.
The point is getting stuff done.
If you get enough stuff done, expertise, quality, personality, originality, whateverality WILL COME - mind you, even money.
Somebody I don't remember said that if you do something for 10.000 hours you become an expert, no matter what.
Now you know the secret go ahead and get things done. If you don't succeed it's because you didn't spend enough time on it, so do some more (of course you'll have to cut time from other activities like going to the cinema or playing videogames since time is finite, that's where 98% of "artists" fail).
Have a nice day.
The point is getting stuff done.
If you get enough stuff done, expertise, quality, personality, originality, whateverality WILL COME - mind you, even money.
Somebody I don't remember said that if you do something for 10.000 hours you become an expert, no matter what.
Now you know the secret go ahead and get things done. If you don't succeed it's because you didn't spend enough time on it, so do some more (of course you'll have to cut time from other activities like going to the cinema or playing videogames since time is finite, that's where 98% of "artists" fail).
Have a nice day.
Cubase 10 / VPS Avenger / Zebra2 / Hive2 / Line6 Helix
i7-4800MQ / 8gbRAM / Win10 x64 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M
http://www.facebook.com/punktronix
i7-4800MQ / 8gbRAM / Win10 x64 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M
http://www.facebook.com/punktronix
-
- Banned
- 3946 posts since 25 Jan, 2009
What a pile of crappy truisms about production truisms. A raid against strawmen that no one with more than two brain cells believes in. Author should get a dayjob instead.
He obviously mistakes amateur forum BS for professional advice. Epic fail.
He obviously mistakes amateur forum BS for professional advice. Epic fail.
-
- KVRAF
- 3186 posts since 18 Mar, 2008
+1IncarnateX wrote:What a pile of crappy truisms about production truisms. A raid against strawmen that no one with more than two brain cells believes in. Author should get a dayjob instead.
He obviously mistakes amateur forum BS for professional advice. Epic fail.
In all fairness, he does talk about EDM to same crowd that actually reads musicradar, so guess some of this stuff applies to them and he intentionally misinterpreted many of this truisms to make a point (or he still doesn't get them, no wonder really), disregarding actual questions on which this answers correctly apply.
This entire forum is wading through predictions, opinions, barely formed thoughts, drama, and whining. If you don't enjoy that, why are you here? ShawnG
- KVRist
- 149 posts since 28 Sep, 2006
Well I too noticed long ago that there is a lot of nonsense in advice that some pros give. More self pointed pros than real engineers actually.
-
- KVRist
- 52 posts since 21 Jan, 2007 from NJ
I'm not sure what point they're trying to make with #3, but mix engine algorithms and bounce engine algorithms are different. About 15 years ago, the owner of the studio I worked at and myself did a lot of testing with the ProTools TDM engine and found that the bounce engine algorithm was in fact not the exact mix that was created with the mix engine. We notified Digi about it and went back and forth with their techs for a while and they eventually wrote a new code for the PT bounce engine that came out around PT9 or so.
- KVRist
- 140 posts since 27 Jul, 2015
That was 15 years ago. At this time DAWs used fixed point audio, so a lot of things were much more complicated. Now every DAW use at least 32 bit floating point, which makes any algorithmic difference completely irrelevant.