Mistake(s) you made over the years?

The Lounge General Discussion
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MISTAKE(s) YOU MADE OVER THE YEARS

Your story in mind, what do you get out of it

> Here I propose you to take stock of your relationship to music. Without going into the details, or about you today, have you achieved any goals that you may have set yourself, what do you think were the mistakes that you may have made and that you can relate as a tip or advice to do not do when you start.

:rotating_light: Thank you for copying the questions and answering them. And then expand, if you want to add something else about how you feel after writing your answers

  1. What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ? :thinking:
    (whether itā€™s computer-based, machines, or hybrid setup)
    Be honest and give advice to others if you have learned from these bad experiences and have turned it into something that works best for you.

  2. In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ? :no_mouth:

  3. If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which ā€œsubjects orderā€ would you suggest to him/her ? (like music theory, sound synthesis, mixingā€¦) What equipment included software eventually ? :man_student: :woman_student:**
    (slightly modified to include both interpretation of what I wrote initially)

  4. Are you still happy in what you do ? :roll_eyes: :heart_eyes:

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What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ?
Not focusing on getting things done enough, spending too much time ā€˜learningā€™, also focusing too much on others opinions.

In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ?

Once again wasting time being concerned with others opinions. Worrying about ā€˜whatā€™ to produce or how it should be done instead of simply finishing tracks and getting on with it.

If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him ?

  1. Right now? An Ipad and a compatible midi controller. Software wise, Gadget. If they are more inclined towards experimentation AUM and a good handful of effects, and groove box toys BM3 or Cubasis to put it all together in.

Are you still happy in what you do ?

getting a lot done this year. So yes?

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Spending too much time on web forums, and too little on music.

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I was going to say similar. Since the internet has came along itā€™s been great for tutorials and reviews but it has also impacted negatively. I rarely lusted after gear before, I had my tools and I learnt them inside out and made music I wanted to make. Now Iā€™m finding myself being influenced too much by what Iā€™m bombarded with online and thinking I need new things when I donā€™t.

My advice would be buy something and stick with it, make it yours and create music. Ignore trends and clever product placement disguised as jamming and reviews.

Love what you do and donā€™t measure it by likes or download counts

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One thing that took a long time to overcome was this strange obsession of the kick being analog. Also, speakers and headphones are much more important of an investment than any other synth or gadget.

I mostly make techno and I have lost a lot of time there, in a good and pure way. Time just floats away so quickly, because itā€™s so straightforward to pick up a groove. Stringing together the atmospheres is the hard part, I guess.

Use DAWs and ā€œbig softwareā€ if you want to be flexible and free with your music, use ā€œfocused hardwareā€ if you want the machines to talk back to you show you their limits. Both paths really have their own creative force.

Oh yes!

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Im very new in making electronic music just grow up playing piano but i can say for the beginning get you a ipad and a midi controller its just fantastic i have 15 synth a lot of drum machines and cubasis as daw on this everything you need

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  1. What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music?
    I wanted to be something Iā€™m not for a long time in my youth. It was more of a process than a mistake. I thought I didnā€™t need to give credence to various concepts, that I circled back on later.

  2. In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ?
    This is similar to the above ā€œmistake.ā€ Iā€™m a sax player, and wish I spent more time hammering extended scales and chords when I was a kid. There was a time when it held me back, and I had to go visit the woodshed.

  3. If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him or her ?
    Garageband is free on something you probably already own. Necessity is the mother of invention. Make something cool with what youā€™ve got. Also, practice the boring stuffā€¦ find a way to loop it into the fun stuff.

  4. Are you still happy in what you do ?
    Oh, gawd yes. Hands down.

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There are no mistakes. Only happy accidents.

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  1. What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ?
  • A lot :confused: but by the means i learn a lot tooā€¦ First mistake i made, is to buy a Lamborghini when i actually donā€™t have my driver licence. (metaphor, but itā€™s exactly that)
  • Think that looking and buy a machine or a VST something miraculous was going to happen.
  • Always question what I have based on the new things that come out in musical instrument stores.
  • Buy and try next. (small priority problem)
  • There may be a big difference between what we like, what we want to do and what we naturally do
  • When you do not like the music in the shops, itā€™s better to do yours. I think itā€™s the same with sound synthesis, which better than you can make the sounds that will eventually please you. Error: do not learn the sound synthesis faster in the process, to me itā€™s essential (at least for music electronic makers). It is also demystify the practice, because in the end it is not so difficult but it seems like a mountain.
  • Spend money thinking to save time, ending with not much use of itā€¦
  • we are never as well served as by yourself, no really itā€™s a truth
  • Do not isolate : collaborate, share, meet people like you
  • Know yourself well and know what you like as a type of sound. And find how to make things your own (a personal vision in relation to your tastes and convictions)
  • do not be too eager to immediately be in the image of what you want to be, because it becomes over time with the force of producing pieces of music
  • tell something with your music, do not just make a collage of elements from collections of samples (this leads to problems for me, to finish the construction, to mix, many other people have the same elements and you hear them when you browse the music stores)
  • Finnish tracks, and move on (eventually send to label but well choose them before) And donā€™t stop because you didnā€™t have any reply :wink:
  • Donā€™t try to make which is in the fashionable cycle, precisely because the cycles are turning and you will be close perhaps when it will pass to something else

  1. In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ?
    Itā€™s more me the problem, watching too many tutorials on too much different topic rather than watching one or two tutorials on the same topic, practice this topic before moving on to another. As a result, you can watch a few things that require watching if you accompany it with the practice that allows you to remember.

  2. If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which ā€œsubjects orderā€ would you suggest to him ? What equipment included software eventually ?
    Learn frequencies, a survival kit in music theory and rhythm, groove, learn sound synthesis relative to sounds you like, Take time to analyse track you really like and how itā€™s built. Find your own arrangement tricks. Pay a sound engineer and forget about mastering yourself.

  3. Are you still happy in what you do ?
    i still have faith to give birth to something that is important to me and this idea of getting there is enough for me. I have made progress this was long but I am not far from being able to produce what I have in mind with a satisfying match. So yes i am more and more satisfied. And to pass on what I have learned to other people I like it a lot.

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  1. What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ? :thinking:

Investing lots of money on softsynths and sound packs thinking theyā€™ll make me sound better when I should have learned how to better compose and sculpt sounds with what I had.

  1. In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ? :no_mouth:

I lost the most time trying to market myself, honestly. I put so much time into my YouTube channel and my Instagram this last year that I hadnā€™t actually improved on making music.

  1. If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him ? :woman_student: :woman_student:

Iā€™d say start off with any free/reasonably priced DAW, and some headphones. Going through this phase is a huge part of todayā€™s production. This will always help you decide what workflow you want to build in the future. As for learning, just YouTube it. Paying for education in production can be tricky, very few programs were actually worth my time at the end of the day.

  1. Are you still happy in what you do ? :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

Yes and No. Iā€™m happy that music lets me express myself in a way that graphical media didnā€™t, but Iā€™m not happy that I always circle back to how ā€œunsuccessfulā€ and ā€œbadā€ I am when Iā€™m feeling low. But you canā€™t have the highs without the lows! Generally though, music is something Iā€™m passionate about and plan to keep up with for the rest of my life.

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  • What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ? :thinking:

phobia of music theory that lasted for decades. iā€™ve learned it only recently.

of course, there is an excuse. iā€™m from former soviet union, where all music theory books were (and still are) written in extremely human-unfriendly manner (a strange tradition that still exists). but on the other hand, i had non-dial-up internet and english sources since mid 2000s.

tip: learn at least the minimum of music theory if youā€™re going to compose. this affects your productivity greatly.

  • In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ? :no_mouth:

trying to do everything with csound/supercollider.
wrong tools for my goals.

  • If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him ? :woman_student: :woman_student:
  1. a good second hand groovebox. (modern inexpensive grooveboxes are too limited.)
  2. debian/ubuntu installation with KXStudio repositories. a lot of music production software for free.
  • Are you still happy in what you do ? :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

are you kidding me? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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  • What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ? :thinking:
    Not paying as much attention or continuing with the learning when learning music when I was 12 years old. Gave it up too quickly. However it is something I have returned to in later years. There was about a 30 year gap in between.
    Going through the 90s as an attendee of events rather than trying my hand at making music in those years.
  • In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ? :no_mouth:
    As above.
  • If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him ? :woman_student: :woman_student:
    Start with a lower cost solution to begin with, i.e. with a DAW. Hardware can become a very expensive hobby very quickly. If starting with hardware, use an all in one device where you can lay something down holistically, i.e. circuit or similar.
  • Are you still happy in what you do ?
    Getting happier as I start to grasp a usable workflow and control of instruments, and force myself to give more time to music. Still lacking music theory and general creativity though.
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  1. What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music?

A lot ā€¦ I mean it ā€¦ but I think that itā€™s also true that we can learn from our mistakes. It only takes enough honesty to admit that we are making mistakes :wink:

For me this would be for example: to be too impatient, to go too quick sometimes, sometimes to try for hours something by myself, but not RTFM ā€¦

  1. In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why?

Not RTFM, if I got stuck and tried to figure it out by myself instead ā€¦ and that manual was just in the same room :wink:

  1. If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him?

If there is any opportunity to start with a musical instrument, donā€™t go for the computer at all at the beginning. Learn to make music with your fingers, your mouth, your voice, your ears, your heart and soul, dance. Learn to feel the music.

I know, this was way off-topic, but a GUI and mouse interface is in my opinion the least intuitive way to learn about music or even make musik. Sometimes it may generate a quick success to put some clips or samples together ā€¦ and there is nothing wrong about it ā€¦ but itā€™s also very limiting, if itā€™s not amended by the experience of playing a real instrument and by some music theory.

For more rhythmic music a hardware groove box would be a good start or much better, learning to play drums. For melodic work a keyboard, a guitar, a bass, a flute etc. would be fine.

A good start on a computer could be something like Ableton and Push, or Maschine, or MPC, because they are physical instruments too, not only a DAW.

For recording audio only, I would suggest to buy a good audio/midi interface and use the bundled DAW or GarageBand etc. There is no need to spend much money at the start and there is too much distraction by a flood of new functions, if a newbie launches a full pro version of a DAW. There is quite a risk that most of the time will be spent on learning all those new overwhelming features and to make some real music will be forgotten.

Summary: Take it easy, start simple, and upgrade, if what you have is no longer sufficient :wink:

  1. Are you still happy in what you do?

Of course, I am :smiley:

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Selling my mpc1000

Still hurts.

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great thread, hot potential resource for newbies here;

1: iā€™m not gonna mention music theory or software/hardware, iā€™m going with volume and frequencies. the first thing most peoples brains engage with when they first hear your music is whether they can endure it. if the loudest frequencies are 4Khz itā€™s gonna hurt ears! analyse your favourite records, whats the loudest thing in the mix, the kick or the hi hat?

2: not having fun whilst iā€™m doing it.

3: keezy

4: thereā€™s a moment coming where youā€™ll be entirely comfortable with all the technical processes needed to achieve your creative ideas, and if you can balance that with the naivety and unconstrained exploration of when you first started youā€™ve hit the sweet spot.

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  • What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ? :thinking:

Plenty. Started on classical guitar, but switched to bass after 3 years. Mostly because I sucked at guitar :slight_smile:
Played a lot of art rock and difficult muso music, but also played punk rock and was deeply into electronic stuff (industrial/experimental/avant- highbrow crap). Started desiring to quit my job and play music full time, but electronic stuff was just a hobby. I mostly got hired as a rock bass player. Even though I made most of my living playing pretty contemporary stuff on bass, I wish I had kept developing my experimental electronic music more seriously, if only as a hobby. Iā€™ve kinda popped in and out of it over the years and feel Iā€™d be a bit further along had I been more consistent with music I really wanted to do, not just the stuff that pays the bills .

  • In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ? :no_mouth:

I kind of lost faith in electronic music in the 90ā€™s. When I was a kid, listening to Einsturzende Neubaten, Throbbing Gristle, Foetus, etc, I thought ā€œthis is the new punk rock.ā€ You can go as outside the norms as you like and itā€™s all valid. Sampling and field recordings was the most punk rock thing ever to me. I donā€™t mean other peopleā€™s records, I mean washing machines, traffic, appliances, any sound could be a form of expression. By the 90ā€™s it felt like there were too many rules and dumb sub genres with even stricter rules. I donā€™t care what synths Iā€™m supposed to have to make ā€˜real acidā€™ or whatever, if that makes sense. Things just felt too rigid and uniformed, so I ditched the whole thing for a long time. Really stupid reaction. I couldā€™ve just stuck to my own path, but I was also playing a lot, so I went in another direction. Happy with a lot of that stuff, but wished I wouldā€™ve stuck more with experimental music too.

  • **If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him ?

Someone mentioned an iPad and controller, which makes sense for bang for the buck, but who knows? Iā€™d say buy hardware thatā€™s not the flavor of the month so you can experiment for less dough than all the new/shiny stuff. I wish I woulda started on Ableton in many ways. May do that eventually, but Iā€™m pretty good at Logic and prefer hardware anyway. Thereā€™s a good reason so many are shying away from computers and iPads for making music. But Iā€™m sure tons of kids are making amazing music on phones. Whatever makes you want to create

  • **Are you still happyā€¦?

Giddy :slight_smile: I still make my living making music and when Iā€™m not doing it for money, Iā€™m working on my noisy, artsy crap for fun. Life is good

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U

  • What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ? :thinking:

Trying to create setups that give ever increasing ā€˜controlā€™ over audio. Overrated

  • In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ? :no_mouth:

Adding sounds that donā€™t need to be there.

Trying to sync devices. Overrated

  • If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to her? :

Iā€™d ask why you havenā€™t already ā€˜startedā€™. Maybe youā€™re not that into it.

Get hold of anything that can make recordings and make some.

Top tip = Boss BR-600, multitrack, built in mic, lots of effects, drum machine, sampling drum machine even, can transfer wavs out & is cheap

  • Are you still happy in what you do ? :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

I just feel compelled

Listen to what youā€™ve made over and over and over

Oh and collaborate, and expect that to be hard

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  1. **What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ?

ā€¢ I wish I could play an instrument well. More specifically, I wish I would have established a regular practice routine, taken regular lessons, and learned music theory when I started playing guitar in high school. I lost a lot of years.

ā€¢ I got a lot of bad advice on forums about gear when I didnā€™t know any better.

ā€¢ For electronic music, I should have stuck with learning one machine instead of switching up gear a lot. In my case, I should have stuck with my MPC1K. I plan to remedy that now by focusing more on the Digitakt.

  1. **In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ? N/A

  2. **If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him ?

I would suggest learning an instrument (or two): guitar, piano, drums, etc, in addition to learning studio gear. I would also suggest focusing on learning one piece of gear inside out instead of the basics (or less) on many pieces of gear. I think the DT or OT or MPC or Maschine are good choices if you like samplers. Above all, keep things simple if possible, donā€™t take on too much.

  1. **Are you still happy in what you do ? More excited than ever.
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One more bonus piece of advice that is based on a mistake I have made more than once over the years, particularly when I was just getting started:

Donā€™t buy two pieces of gear at once. The learning curve is way to steep, particularly with Elektron machines. Get one thing: focus on it for a year, learn it well, and then consider getting another piece of gear to go with it.

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What are the mistakes you have made since you started making music ?

Early on when I was starting in the 80ā€™s believing that I needed a certain piece of gear, I donā€™t believe that any more, now I believe I donā€™t need the gear, the gear needs me.

Early on I allowed other people to influence my musical output and direction, friends, family, other artists, record labels and so on, now I donā€™t do that. When it comes to my music I am only primarily interested in what I think of it, and if anyone else likes it I see that as a nice bonus, but never a requirement.

In which field concerning music making, do you feel that you have lost time and why ?

None, because I believe that in order to learn, mistakes are necessary, so I donā€™t view it as time lost, but lessons learned.

If someone wants to start and ask you what and in what order to start. Which program would you suggest to him ?

Program as in software? LSDJ or Nanoloop on Gameboy, Iā€™d say learn either of those (or some other similar limited ā€œclosedā€ platform) before anything else, and if after a little while you canā€™t make something you are happy with you should probably give up. Because it isnā€™t about the gear or the program it is about the ideas and discovery, donā€™t get hung up on this sound or that sound or trying to sound like anyone else, do your own thing. A limited platform is still an unlimited way to express yourself, but without too many distractions.

Program as in structured learning? None, whilst those kind of thing can be useful in some cases, on the whole Iā€™m mostly against most structured education as I believe it can do more harm than good, it can shoehorn people into thinking only in a certain way, can stifle creativity and lead to being the same as everyone else, or worse comparing yourself to everyone else.

Iā€™d say learn from a variety of sources, those which interest you, and disregard those that donā€™t, and most importantly learn from yourself. For me music isnā€™t a destination or something to reach/master, it is a journey or something to be continuously fluid and evolving, just like life itself.

Are you still happy in what you do ?
Yes, if I wasnā€™t Iā€™d do something else instead. The whole point is enjoyment.

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