Are Todays Daw's Making People Lazy Producers ?

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jancivil wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 4:17 pm The technology can't make you be any certain way if you want to be literal. I don't know what it encourages in a person other than apparently being able to import loops in place of laying down tracks yourself has created the "I'm going to produce some beats" monster.
Think I'm bit late to the party but I must say, I find this quite a mischaracterization at least compared to my past. Back when I started, I obviously had the average dreams and hopes of becoming like one of the "big names" on EDM. But it wasn't ever really "I'm going to produce some beats" type of thing at least for me, I just wanted to make something impactful (while I still thought that the sort of EDM mainstream music was in some sense "impactful").

Nevertheless, sooner or later a realization came that it just wasn't me, but at that point I had already a little experience at least (like a year or two?) and I got far more interested in doing other kind of things that still weren't about importing loops. Up until this point where what I have fairly clear and somewhat realistic vision of what I want to do in future which still doesn't involve "producing some beats" and merely importing some loops into a DAW. And even in terms of career, I want to become a mixing engineer in future (although still a long way from it unfortunately, tough enough to find an internship already because no sane person wants interns around expensive equipment)

Technology plays pretty important role in here because I don't think I would have ever really got to my path if it wasn't for DAW's. I would have never become interested in DSP, learned my mathematics out of it, learned at least some basic music theory, made any songs at all et cetera. I mean none of this is probably ideal as far as pedagogy goes, but I'd like to think its certainly of some importance

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<No True Scotsman> did anything of the sort, sure.

It's a thing. I don't get why you'd argue it isn't. You don't have to take it personally.

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I was more commenting on the categorical nature of your statement with an example of how that's not so in every case. As for how often / rarely it happens, I wouldn't make much of a statement since I'm not aware of any research on the topic. Being involved in various places of discussion among genres that are filled with bedroom producers (mostly in Discord & Reddit, for example wavepool community), I would say that it isn't that common. But my view on the matter is pretty biased, as I'm only in a small fragment of these communities.

I think it's just more of a case c'est le capitalisme; you get allured into the facade of stardom and become fixated with the idea of getting popular and quick. So perceived shortcut (that doesn't even work) to this is loops and samples with not much of an interest for actual music. This might develop into something better or it might just remain like this forever, with perhaps eventual fame by a chance or likely none at all. But I'd keep this sort of thing separated from people just starting out with DAWs.

And nothing was taken personally there, sorry if I gave that impression

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It still strikes me as a bit No True Scotsman fallacy. You and this band of people on some online communities, which thru your own characterization seems less than broad, being the true scotsman versus me having seen it at KVR for the last decade, you know.
I'm not writing an academic thesis on it here so I'm not that worried about teh research available.

Then you actually illustrate my point rather further than I even thought to while still objecting to the notion? You appear to rather agree with the statement in the end. "the categorical nature" of the simple remark, whatever, it's an observation and it isn't a very unusual one to make here I don't think. "It's a thing". I already got that you are saying this doesn't apply to you, so it's taken personally. Not as an offense, but you make it about you.

I'm certain I never at any time lumped all beginners of DAWs into this thing. I wasn't born using one, surely.

You probably, having nurtured a beef about this in the past, know that I think the path to creating music properly places with becoming a musician. So I'd have to see where starting out with that cosmetic quality of interest replaces that normative, for 'I'ma make some beats' said by people whose beats are in fact taken off a disc in a 'zine or a download to not be a thing. I think the idea there is embedded in the thread title, even.

So, yeah, as to where those folks end up in terms of teh commercial success, I admit I have no idea. They may well sound rather like they want to sound, like their heroes, to me. ;)

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Functional wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:20 am Technology plays pretty important role in here because I don't think I would have ever really got to my path if it wasn't for DAW's. I would have never become interested in DSP, learned my mathematics out of it, learned at least some basic music theory, made any songs at all et cetera. I mean none of this is probably ideal as far as pedagogy goes, but I'd like to think its certainly of some importance
So your answer to the OP is a no, then.

:)

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IMO, everything which makes creativity less cumbersome, and more direct and fast, is an enrichment, not something making you lazy.

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chk071 wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:21 pm IMO, everything which makes creativity less cumbersome, and more direct and fast, is an enrichment, not something making you lazy.
chisel that into a rock and i might believe you, you apathetic wastrel.
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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jancivil wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:10 pm So your answer to the OP is a no, then.

:)
Honestly I'm too afraid to make such a statement. As some other people have argued here, you can easily get distracted into all kinds of nonsense inside a DAW and I personally often do. In ways that DAW's are enabling, I'm sure they can be also detrimental and probably are to many, in particular those who aren't seasoned professionals. For me the biggest problem seems to be that I like to experiment with signal processing. A lot. Most of that doesn't result into anything, so it's not that productive. But then sometimes it leads to huge revelations, so who knows?

The net effect, so-to-speak, is something that one probably can't quantify. So to say yes or no would seem like mostly guesswork. Most of us seem to agree anyway that DAW's are great invention and I'll go along those lines myself

jancivil wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:53 pm It still strikes me as a bit No True Scotsman fallacy. You and this band of people on some online communities, which thru your own characterization seems less than broad, being the true scotsman versus me having seen it at KVR for the last decade, you know. [...]
I think one of potential pitfalls in your analysis on this subject overall is perhaps your reliance on what you have been seeing mostly here. Though I'm also entirely confident that you wouldn't probably be content with most other communities either in ways that they discuss music. I just think the reasons are bit different

And I do agree with the statement insofar as that sort of thing most definitively exists. I just can't share your rather cynical view where it appears to me that you seem to think that nothing good generally comes out of it (i.e. people don't grow out of it). And the particular case here are people who have no significant prior experience in music, not people such as yourself.

And no, it really wasn't personal. Your past takes I don't find disagreeable tbh, even for myself I wouldn't really say that I'm any good at creating music. I find myself far more better in the mixer window than the linear one. So there's no real compelling reason for me to think that autodidacticism through DAW's is the proper path. Hell, most of the music I listen to, have artists behind them that have had plenty of musical training with instruments. Some exceptions of course but they amount to nothing aside from cherrypicking.

But your ever-present cynicism of these "I'm gonna produce some beats" monsters, that's just something I can't agree with. You just see these people coming here in the forums every now and then, it's tad different than being engaged with them long-term* and seeing how they can grow out of that mindset and find their place in music (be it as mixing engineers, composers, sound designers, whatever really). Or say, hearing out stories about how they did grow out of it. That's something I think you'll find more in other places than in KVR (but again, I'm sure the other places would bore you to death anyway)

*this is the reason why I can't really speak broadly, the qualitative difference between huge and small communities is that in one you're far less likely to be engaged with many people and in other you're far less likely to be engaged with people over longer course of time. But I mean, these communities do still have between 500 and 1000 members in them, so not quite sure if I'd call them a "band of people" :hihi: though I admit, more like 10% of them are active in discord chatrooms etc

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whyterabbyt wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:33 pm
chk071 wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:21 pm IMO, everything which makes creativity less cumbersome, and more direct and fast, is an enrichment, not something making you lazy.
chisel that into a rock and i might believe you, you apathetic wastrel.
:lol:

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I mean we're all of us looking at a forum where we're inundated with products doing your scales, your supposed 'modes', your chord progression (not just quantize your time for you or make it possible to import someone else's work for a small fee (if that) in order to have any basis for Your Production at all) for you... so I would honestly find it self-evident that "Todays Daw's"/sic ;) attracts a type of personality that never will have gravitated to music when you had to stand on your own two feet.

But that's just Juvenoia, isn't it. Get off my lawn. Well, if you insist on shitting on the great big lawn of life, maybe.

If this were a matter of teh DAW'ses as a learning tool like for schoolkids, great, I'm all for it. But Producers!
Last edited by jancivil on Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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:lol:
Functional wrote:
jancivil wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:53 pm It still strikes me as a bit No True Scotsman fallacy. You and this band of people on some online communities, which thru your own characterization seems less than broad, being the true scotsman versus me having seen it at KVR for the last decade, you know. [...]
I think one of potential pitfalls in your analysis on this subject overall is perhaps your reliance on what you have been seeing mostly here. Though I'm also entirely confident that you wouldn't probably be content with most other communities either in ways that they discuss music. I just think the reasons are bit different
Pitfalls, my analysis, what? Because all that is is a characterization of a person you don't know at all and some business about 'ways to discuss music' on the internet (& which you would know more about) :zzz: . I'm not buzzed about what I'm seeing from you here, anyway. :shrug:
Mountain out of a molehill, what.
Functional wrote: And I do agree with the statement insofar as that sort of thing most definitively exists. I just can't share your rather cynical view where it appears to me that you seem to think that nothing good generally comes out of it (i.e. people don't grow out of it). And the particular case here are people who have no significant prior experience in music, not people such as yourself.
So again you actually agree with "it's a thing", but you're going to throw all this. A lot "appears" to you that I never said. It's a simple point: I think the path to creating music is best located becoming a musician. One can do that from any technological vantage point one finds, surely.
Functional wrote: But your ever-present cynicism of these "I'm gonna produce some beats" monsters, that's just something I can't agree with.
So they vanish now (after acknowledging "it's a thing" twice) thru the sheer force of your personal distaste for a remark you decided is 'cynical'. All I said was the availability of the opportunity to Produce, absent what was always the normative and the apparent requirements, "created a monster". It's a common figure of speech in popular culture for a century or so, following the idea of the book Frankenstein (the good doktor's creation/consequences) one supposes.

It's kind of a stretch, that whole rant.

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Functional wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:29 pm a "band of people"
band: narrow band, narrow bandwidth

Your argument was that given a broader base than KVR I would realize the "thing" is more than I said it was.
I read your points and found out you'd rather _actually_ produce than 'make beats' anymore. I'm still not convinced I never saw what I saw.

I don't like having to explain how I didn't say what I didn't say. I do not enjoy having my words twisted in an exchange, it colors the exchange for me. EG: I have no idea what any individual grows out of until they tell me. OTOH: when I see the exact same tendencies - widely - over a decade, it tells me something about the general landscape.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=495351

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Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTurfn7vvCk

Honestly though, the only people it was making lazy is people who're talentless in an area to begin with.
Steven Wilson is an example of someone who's incredibly talented, but still uses autotune on an off note here or there just to avoid throwing away an otherwise soulful take.

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Functional wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:29 pm As some other people have argued here, you can easily get distracted into all kinds of nonsense inside a DAW and I personally often do.
This is a clear signal of why I would say learn music first.

This seems somewhat generational as I look around.
Let me say here that I think KVR is probably enough of a cross-section of age, nation, disposition, experience to reflect a wider world. I don't think the special communities, very specific narrow bands of people you bring in as though to counter [/I'ma make some beats/] changes anything. You want to be right, so you are arguing your individual experience. I acknowledge it, ok?

I don't know why it's an argument that needs to be made, "as others have argued...".
I'm aware, we're aware, we see it all the time. Is it not a problem? Why promote it?

Coming to 'the DAW' having ideas already, using it as a workbench to craft ideas one has as a musician type of craftsperson and then artist is a focused modi operandi.

It's like you have a workbench and a supply of tools about. You've obtained tools you need for certain jobs in the crafting, the fabrication of the object you're about to make. You may find new ways to use tools they wouldn't seem to've been purposed for. You may realize you don't have a proper tool for the next bit, and you're weary of the workaround as a time-suck so you go to the hardware store and see what there is.

With no real purposeful work to be done, one may sit there and endlessly dick about with the tools, fascinated by having such beautiful tools and frequently acquire tools for tools' sake, and follow marketing closely in order to keep the most beautiful and up-to-date toolshed possible.
Functional wrote: In ways that DAW's are enabling, I'm sure they can be also detrimental and probably are to many, in particular those who aren't seasoned professionals.
First, I don't think the division of where you're coming from vs 'professionals' is very useful here. Amateurs or beginners can come to a technology from the notion of becoming a musician as primary. When that doesn't occur to one, they change focus or they're stuck. The thread I linked to reveals people that are doing the same thing they've done for years. Look for software which will produce an effect of musicality where they are pretty clueless about basics.

I will say, though, that the refusal to experience music before [in front of] the DAW Experience creates a situation where one thinks they need software to work out how lyrics span scan against a pulse/beat. It's a detriment, and it's an excuse.
So I acknowledge a problem.
Last edited by jancivil on Fri Nov 23, 2018 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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jancivil wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 6:40 pm I will say that the refusal to experience music before the DAW creates a situation where one thinks they need software to work out how lyrics span against a pulse/beat. It's a detriment, and it's an excuse.
All this talk about how you're not actually being cynical but realistic and yet you choose to performatively prove the contrary. Yes, I have huge issues with working memory. I came to ask whenever there is anything that could help me with that in one particular regard and you choose to make this as an example of... what exactly? Yup, as much as I respect your efforts to educate people like me here, I'll just consider that I was right about my original point: you're being cynical :hihi:

And in case you can't take my word over me having serious issues with working memory, then it can't be helped really. I don't really feel that there's any need to elaborate on that, rather I'll just concede

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