Why so many „quantised“ music stuff on youtube

On a more serious note, many people in electronic music have copied tracks or moods created by tracks. But because their execution is different they can often bring something new, or inspire something completely new.
I believe this happens in most areas of creativity…

I have a young family and very little spare time.
My process for creating and recording tracks makes against the clock look like a six month docu-drama.
Everyone’s got a different workflow. Some of my best tracks have been knocked out in less than 10 minutes. Now, granted, I’m not very good and I don’t make any money from music (well, £7.50 so far…), but I do think people attach too much importance on long-winded, super considered music production, which is cool if that’s your jam, but how long music takes to compose/arrange/record is not necessarily an arbiter of whether or not it is any good.

A lot of the against the clock videos are shit, but I’ve found them very helpful in the past, especially when I started moving away from using computers and into hardware.

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Its not to say its always shit. The problem is the premise under which all those guys are showing their process. I bet few of them would go for speed. So its sad that all those formats have such a lame premise to begin with. Looking at the process from different people could in fact be inspiring and interessting.

4/4 kick is the main characteristic of a club/house/techno track
I don’t think that is what makes a track boring
it’s all the drums together and everything else around it that is what will make it boring…
Something with standard trap/hip hop rock whatever beat can also be uninspiring and boring…
I wouldn’t blame the 4/4 kick pattern.

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Its also the most simple pattern you could ever create. So if 500 against the clock videos start with someone who shows how he installs his 4/4 kick…I would say thats boring…sorry😐

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Like this?

Or this?

To be fair to Fact, they put out a lot more content that just AtC and a lot of it is excellent. How to make a Legowelt track was one of the videos that really helped me get my head around a lot of music production ideas.
Telekom have started putting out much longer, more in depth videos lately too.

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Maybe you just don’t like house or techno music…

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I agree, it’s not that we should be going for some meritocracy based on time. It’s just that I personally have found that I need time to iron out kinks that otherwise will annoy me two years from now. It tends to show when artists have thought things out, but it’s not universal, inspiration or just a case of pure balls can strike at any time. Noisia composed The Tide over 6 months and Diplodocus over one evening, they’re both good but I prefer the latter.

I’m also time constrained like you, so I have to work even slower, but I prefer to split things up rather than rush them to fit the time schedule. I will spend one evening making patches, the other shaping & writing drums etc. The actual multitracking tends to come in much later. That’s what I like about dedicated units like Digitakt, I can work out a lot of elements on a tight schedule without having to hook up and record anything.

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That might be a big factor​:smile:…but I do like a lot of electronic with 4/4 simple beats. For example rival consoles. So don‘t hit me too hard :relieved:

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Studied musicology, jazz, classical and what they call “modern” for more than 10 years (conservatoire in Paris and Geneva). As for every tuition you follow in life, it only results in what you make out if it: I mean it is not because Mr X or Mrs Y is telling me I have to hold my drumsticks in a certain manner that it will actually fit me.
On the subject of 4/4: well unfortunately, as we use very little of our brain capacity and the fact that every natural thing in life goes by it (walking, breathing for instance) we have a tendency to relate more easily to this.
Again, that is what I was thought… Therefore not true for everyone :slight_smile:

Those against the clock videos are normally just bad attempts at making house techno…
that’s basically what it is, I would recommend watching something else or listening to good music you like to get inspired :joy:

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I agree with you OP! That’s why the Knob Twiddlers Hangout and their weekly Live Streams are so nice. They tend to need some time to pick up, but that lack of hurry gives so much back. Also the Ask The Producer series mentioned above is nice like that.

I do sympathize with all family people who can’t fit that in their schedule

Social media is about quantity and continuity of uploads, not about quality.

Short videos with direct satisfaction works very well.

I hear dj’s these days releasing old unreleased scatches, changing their ideas into 2 minute songs, works very well on spotify and other social media

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It has similar elements but who did Randy Wolfe steal from. Traditional Celtic Folk Music perhaps?

There seem to be two major factors leaning towards this format: economics and interest.

Video production costs money. Whether you’re going for a team of sound-person, videographer and editor (or more), or for a ‘one man band’ who does all three, you’re going to be paying the day rates for those people. For an ATC video, you’re likely talking a day on site and then a day’s edit. Depending on size of team and day rates, you’re already talking £400-£1500 or more, just for a 10-minute video.

Turn that into on-site production of a week or a month, then the editing of a feature-length video, and the costs spiral. Balance that against the kind of income you’re likely to get from YouTube, and as the size of the project increases, the economic reality becomes harder to justify - YouTube viewership skews towards the short, so the longer the video, the less it’s likely to make.

Regarding interest, a lot of music production - especially bedroom electronic production - is very boring. For every producer going out into the woods and recording the sounds of rocks hitting each other for drumbeats, you’ve got another 99 producers spending five hours scrolling through prepackaged sample libraries in their DAW. For every producer hopping around joyfully amidst their all-hardware setup, you’ve got another 99 sat silently at a computer screen clicking a mouse while the same 4-bar loop plays so long you’d think they were making interrogation tools for the CIA.

Keeping things short-and-sweet allows us to avoid some of this tedium, and puts producers in a novel environment that (sometimes) makes them a bit more interesting to watch than if they were in their comfort zones.

This loops back to the economics, too - there’s not a large market for ‘tedious and relevant only to a select few’ :rofl:

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Being a person that has a tendency to take too much time, i find it interesting to see what other accomplishes with a time constraint. Not least a really tight time constraint.

(On a side note, i have a lot of respect for Andrew Huang.)

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For me its entainment not so much inspiration. That as you said i get mostly from listening to music.
But I want to see good content. Even thou I find Stimmings music absolutly boring I like to watch his videos because he really tries to explain and showcase his process which is interessting.
I always love it when there is a talk after an against the clock video because that is the interessting part.

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I could watch Stimming talk about music, mixing and gear all day long even though I have absolutely no interest in his style of music. I still respect his opinion as a competent musician and the man’s hilarious every now and then.

Edit: Another great one is the Scandi who does mixing/mastering videos under White Sea Studio. But damn! The tracks he uses as source material are the lamest, most watered down, commercial shite ever haha. I don’t know how he can bear to listen to them

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Second that :smile: and he has this slight amount of sympathical arrogance sometimes… aaaaaaand his gear reviews are some if the only ones you can watch. Paid Bo reviews on one end of the spektrum stimming not giving a fuck on the other end​:smile:

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My YouTube viewing tends towards content that is generally interested in processes, how things work, how people work or what things do.
Channels like Fact and Telekom seem mostly interested in conveying these ideas, though sometimes in fairly contrived formats.
Channels like Andrew Huang just seem like adverts to me.

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