Battling GAS or legit hit a dead-end?

The Lounge General Discussion
#21

Buying gear can’t teach how to make elektronic music. No matter what box you buy.
I had in the last 4-5 years similar thoughts.
I made 2-3 relatively good tracks with box-combos…
You know how I ended up?

I have a microfreak on my table und use only this (I sample it!) and other samples with Renoise. Done. Sometimes I grab a groovebox or another synth out of my collection, but… not really.

There is nothing wrong with it, just with: you buy one after the other box in hope you can make music with it. You could make music with a xylophone alone, thats not the problem.

You have gas.

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#22

Lots of wisdom here, again. You all are too good. Stop it. (But seriously, to whoever’s reading this, good lord thank you.)

It’s not so much that I’m having writer’s block, I’ve been experiencing anxiety about sunk cost regarding my workflow. The further I go into depending on a DAW and “working with tape” so to speak, the further away I go from my dream of it all being live. It sucks that electronic music has to be so different from, say, indie rock in this regard.

That said I’m ditching my pursuit of the ultimate groovebox for me, and will enjoy the Ableton-based workflow that I am very comfortable with, although it “violates” a principle I don’t know if I really understand. It might be that I want the synths to be in the room. I don’t want them trapped in an audio file in a computer. But it’s just not tenable, I have to make choices and I can’t bring my whole studio.

It’s useful to take a step back and realize which elements of the various genres of EDM that I like are the ones that actually mean something to me, and which ones aren’t.

I’m not trying to impress anyone with my tech, for one.

So a bunch of synced boxes isn’t important.

You can try to make it like 3 boxes are one super-box, trading patterns, but it seems I’m not that kind of artist. Been tying myself in knots trying to make the square peg of one mode of making music go into the round hole of another. It is a totally different way of thinking than mine - the repetitive, meditative qualities of EDM are an ingredient for me with my more conventional mode of thinking about music, rather than the main course. That is, I get why EDM is the way it is - it’s easy to make, you can dance to it, talk over it, not really pay attention to it or be compelled to receive any particular meaning from it, it just sounds cool, makes you feel good. I look underneath the beats. I don’t care if people talk over my music and I’d rather not steal TOO much attention, but I want to reward close listening. Because of that I don’t “need” patterns and better start sequencing whatever I need to in Ableton, not force myself to do it all on the gear.

To state the most original thought ever, I would like one instrument that could do everything I’d like the way I’d like. Then I could create most of each track, and my sounds, on it and control it with a keyboard and drumpad. There’d be no question of what to bring to a show, and so simple. That’d be nice, but it doesn’t exist.

For example, I love the presets I’ve made on the M:C, but it has no keyboard nor polyphony. So I have a NL3, which I plan to play live because I want to play pads, organs, expressive leads, jazzy FM. But then I have to use the sounds on that - or deal with hooking up the M:C as well, and deciding how I’d control that. I got a MPK261, which is the best MIDI keyboard I’ve ever used. Maybe I’ll bring that, and the M:C, and a 2-tier stand to put the MPK and the NL3 on.

(I don’t know if I’m really gonna do that, it might be I pick one over the other, this is just something I had to process and form a stance on.)

And now I have a rig that I know what to do with. I was avoiding this because I’ve never seen anyone do this kind of thing. Just a guy banging on some keys over a pre-recorded track, basically. It’s not the big sexy of playing a sequencer as an instrument that I’ve still barely scratched the surface of.

Could’ve been just a couple devices on a table and maybe a laptop. If that perfect groovebox existed, or my music was okay with the current limitations. But it’s not. I know what I want to do and I know how to do it and setup/teardown is the smallest factor.

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#23

The original post is the longest I think I’ve seen on this forum ever.

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#24

There’s this striving for perfection shining through many of your posts. This idea is something you could probably start to work on as it might be the root “evil” of your struggle.

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#25

Ahaha, you don’t have to tell me. :laughing:

But isn’t striving to be less of a perfectionist just another form of perfectionism?

Oh god, now I’ve done it. Shut it down. The singularity is growing…

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#26

That’s nothing to strive for. You can embrace acceptance that perfection is either a) a dead end and/or b) impossible to reach. Imperfection is perfect. :wink:

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#27

Try not to let the anxiety of creating music take away from the joy of creating music. We all get caught up at times in searching for the perfect workflow, gear, and finding inspiration throughout. Though that can easily detract from why we got started in the first place, the simple desire to create tunes. Keep creating, you’ll find a flow with your gear and over time will know exactly what you need to sell off / keep / shelve. Artists go through ups and downs, it’s natural. Be easy and learn to live with a bit of dissatisfaction.

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#28

if you´re internalizing sequences vs. samples… the listener wont know the difference.
and none of those things are LIIIVE live. both sequences and samples are prepared beforehand, the differences is your own construction.

in this matter i truly love Octatrack. prep som stems and set them up in projects, set up a remix track and a transition track and then you can have all the fun in the world… the actual most fun ive had with this is when i transition between two stems and start remixing the pattern, all of a sudden a completely new track is starting develop. it mixes the best of LIIVE live and prepared sets, its a bit of both.

I dont want to tell you to buy stuff. but it sounds like you want something to use for live play.

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#29

Can I ask, @Roger, is making music your living or is it a hobby? Sorry if I missed that detail.

If it’s just a hobby (albeit perhaps one that’s important to you) then just try to not put pressure on yourself. It’s supposed to be fun. And nobody is forcing you, you can stop and start as much as you like. If you’re not feeling it then just go and do something else, go for a walk, watch TV, whatever floats your boat.

I also think that, if it’s a hobby, then there’s no need to feel under pressure to actually finish anything If you enjoy the process of trying to create sounds, create music, jam with friends, whatever, then that’s a good enough reason. If there is no “finished product” it really doesn’t matter! You don’t have to actually crate something, the process of doing it is the enjoyment.

You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, including yourself!

I appreciate that it’s different if it’s about making a living. If that’s the case then all I can suggest is that you try to find a process that has as little friction as possible that generates the needed outcome. I have known producers/musicians that have the same computer setup, software and other same gear for 10 years or more because they knew it inside out and it worked for them. If it’s a job then approach it like a job. I’m a software developer and I just use the basic tools I need to get the job done, there’s little to be gained by constantly searching for something new or trying to learn every programming language or every so-called “cutting edge” technology. I’ve been through that process and it got me nowhere and caused a load of stress!

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#30

I think about OT a lot. I had one for a year, and decided my brain wasn’t big enough for it.

I think I’ll get one again after I have a much more solid foundation of all this “electronic music” business under my feet. The way you talk about it … it sounds like fun.

#31

It’s kind of an awkward transition from hobby to living that I can’t tell if it’s jumping the gun or not, partly because my skill is way ahead of my experience in the scene/business. And yet I always feel hopelessly behind no matter where I’m at compared to anyone.

I would like to make some extra money this year doing shows and selling albums and merch. That would feel great. I think I can do it. But yeah pressure is there that kinda wasn’t there before … well, it was, way worse actually, but I beat that, and now it’s kinda back. The thing is I have a pretty clear vision of what I want the end product to be, and I had a vision of what my shows would be like, it’s just the production and the preparation of the shows have this crazy rift! When you produce you should have no care at all how you’re gonna perform it but it seems like for so many people those things are one and the same! I know nothing about that, every attempt so far is lackluster and I depend on Ableton to make it all sound good.

I don’t even know what it’s gonna be like when it’s my “job”, if that’s what the future holds. Somehow I gotta find space to be free to try things out, enjoy. Then I guess do the job part of polish, promotion, performance, poopoopeepee, all that jazz.

#32

First of all, nobody cares. Majority of people dancing in the clubs still think that the job of DJ is to load track from USB stick and press PLAY. Secondly, the whole premise of Ableton’s Session view is exactly that: play prerecorded patterns and jam live over them. It actually might be useful for you to go through your tracks and decide which parts you would like to play live and which are ok to stay prerecorded. Or broadly speaking what gives you joy: the sound itself or the control of the sound? You can record some of your favorite M:C patches, layer them to fake polyphony. And at the same time your M:C is free to be used as a sound module.

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#33

I kind of went through the same thing, even owned a machinedrum for awhile and feel the same about tweaking kits and working post. I recorded one album And learned a lot. Eventually everything after that sounded the same, I was using the same gear. The digitakt sounds dull to me, the MD sounded dull, and everything kind of just bummed me out.

I realized I was trying to force songs out instead of having fun and recording with no real goal like the first album. I ended up selling most my gear and have taken a break over the last year exploring other hobbies. I still have a creative itch to scratch so I have been reading more about ableton, practicing composition, and synthesizing sounds with PD & SC. Eventually on Octatrack will be on my desk with weird samples in it, but for now just learning is a great break.

I had an MPC One and MPC live, I don’t like them. They’re not for me. Couldn’t jive with them. I agree with you on that. The touch screen is fiddly, I’d rather just use a computer.

I was very against DAWs besides mastering and whatever, but over the last 3 months I have learned to love computers for their vsts, inspiration, free stuff, design capabilities, etc.

That feeling of hitting the end of my electronic music hobby has slightly disappeared as I relearn and learn new methods of creation. I dislike a lot of electronic music, so it is difficult to make something different than I have been making. Not giving up though, just enjoying a swim in knowledge atm. Have no fear! There’s hope for you brother!

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#34

You’re seriously undervaluing the A4 here: it can run circles around a lot of the things you list here. And I expect that’s due to being bogged down with too many choices; guilt for having all this gear and not using it.

If your interest in this is to explore new boxes, by all means proceed as you are. But if your interest is in music, sell it all, focus on two, at most, three. (I suggest get the Octatrack, study (it’s honestly not that complicated when you commit to it), sample A4 drums, make music.)

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#35

I’ve hit this wall before. I’m sure many of us have.
You want it to feel live.
You kind of wish you could play keys, manipulate beats, etc., all at the same time.

You know the truth: two hands. That’s what you’ve got. And that isn’t changing.
So: You either accept that you’ll be playing back stems and doing something over the top of it - at which point you might as well go laptop - or you minimise your setup and focus on manipulating one, maybe two instruments, and compose accordingly.

Composing for one or two instruments is a serious limitation. It rules out certain genres. But as you know, it’s also possible to do great, fantastic stuff that way if you embrace the limitations. But maybe you don’t want to make the compromises that will require, which is totally fine.

You already know all this. No one else has solved the problem. No one else will. Make your choice. (Or decide you’re doing two totally different projects.)

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#36

In terms of going from hobby to professional/working musician - I was a self-taught “bedroom coder” when I was young and then I studied software engineering at university. When I then went into the job market I had a pretty uncomfortable time for a few years. Being a hobbyist may well give you false sense of security/ability or, at least, you may realise that there are new things you have to learn or bad habits to un-learn to make that transition.

I’m not comparing coding with music, just to be clear, but I would feel certain that many people in all sorts of disciplines have to make a difficult or awkward transition when they decided to go “pro”. It’ll be a learning curve but you’ll improve and learn some new skills and how to “play the game” along the way.

If it’s something you feel strongly about then you’ll figure it out. We’re all learning on the job. I’ve been working in the same profession for 15 years and I still have to figure stuff out every single day. To some extent you just make it up as you go along, I’m sure we all get that feeling sometimes.

Regarding using Ableton - go for it! It’s just a tool in the toolbox. You’re no less of a musician for using some technology for convenience and if anyone gives you any trouble just ignore them. Anyone who wants to criticise your process is just projecting their own issues.

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#37

You’re overthinking it. No piece of gear will ever fully satisfy you and feel complete. Accept that instruments have deficiencys and work around them. In the end, you can make a bitchin song with just an 808 and a 303.

My solution: lots of sound sources and an Octatrack. Best of both worlds: brilliant sequencer, loads of tools for sonic exploration and mangling and a bedrock to build my setup on.

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#38

This may sound like an odd question, but, you ever do a 303 with single cycle waveforms on OT?

#39

Haven’t tried that no, but have messed around with single cycle waveforms. Should really do a deep dive into the OT again, been a while since I messed around with the more advanced (less obvious) features.

#40

So, you’d just sequence a bass on another box and sample in loops from that?

I’m already mourning the death of the author. You can’t change the filter envelope or distortion once it’s become a sample.