MisterB

I never did. After about 30 years, I gave up performing. Although I loved playing, performance anxiety, and the resulting poor performance just ruined it for me. I'm not sure if this is the same for everyone, but for me, "stage fright" isn't exactly the right phrase. I'm not afraid of being in front of a large audience... it's literally performance anxiety... the anxiety of thinking I'm not going to be able to hit the notes, and I've proven it to be a real thing on very many occasions. The anxiety itself is almost completely responsible for it.

I work entirely in the box, and my strategy when I'm not inspired to write music, is to do something technical or educational. I mean do something like learn some features of my DAW that I've never used, or deep learn a VST instrument that I've previously abandoned. Something like that. I often find that doing something that is technical sparks something creative because I'm not trying. The brain is the barrier, and distracting it with technical stuff tends to fix the creative side, even if just temporarily.

I listen to less music than I used to, as my ability to multi-task continue to diminish. I used to listen to music all the time while I did my job, and that's easier than ever now that I work from home, but I find that when I listen to music, I can no longer concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing, so I don't do it any more.

I always end up with 44.1/16 or worse (MP3), but what I work in depends on context. Some plugin effects and some VSTi's work better at higher sample rates, and I always work in 24 bit floating inside of Cubase. I could change over to 32 bit floating now that its available, but I can't really see the point based on my content, which is always sample or algorithm based material from VSTi's. There's no need for anything to be pushed to the limit during the writing and production phase, and I don't have huge templates with masses of instruments, so 32 bit floating is kind of redundant to me. Since I'm 100% in the box, if someone asked me for a file at a really high sample rate, I could just convert my project. Whether or not it would make a difference would likely depend on the VSTi's I'm using, but I sure as hell can't hear a difference on final output. I've used all kinds of audio sources on videos in the past with all manner of conversions to meet an output spec. No one cares. No one ever comments on the "low sample rate" of a source.

I don't consider myself to be a performing musician these days so I'm coming more from a theory side. I usually start out with Toontrack's EZ Keys 2 to get my chord progression flowing and to start a stylistic path. I usually start out with my own basic chord progression rather than taking one of the built in progressions. I feel it's more my song rather than Toontracks this way. The ones that come with EZ keys are great, and i think if i start with one of theirs, i'm likely to end up using it exactly as presented and that kind of diminishes the feeling of writing my own song. Then I'll add Synthesizer V to start noodling around a lyric and melodyline to get the basic tune for the various sections. I'll add other instruments as I feel the need and build my song in a pretty random and haphazard fashion. I sometimes work on lyrics inside Google Docs so I have them no matter which machine I'm on. I have in the past used Chorus for lyric writing too. It's pretty good really, but I'm not a fan of the subscription model so I don't keep my account paid up every month. I add effects as I write as I find that a kind of produced sound is inspiring.

Your DAW of choice Cubase (currently v.13 Pro) Why you prefer it (specific features, workflow advantages, etc.) I've been using Cubase since the mid-90's (back then on an Atari ST). I've always been MIDI based in my personal work, and Cubase worked for me at the start. I used a few other DAW's in my job as Music Technologist (ProTools, Logic, Ableton, Digital Performer), mostly for audio work, but with some MIDI stuff too. I also tried a few different DAW's after I returned from a multi-year break from making music (Studio One, Reaper). Nothing has felt intuitive like Cubase. It's really small stuff like how you interact with the piano roll editor, and bigger things like the Logical Editor which I have grown up with and use a lot for dynamic and rhythmic nuances in particular. Even though I still feel like I've only really touched the surface with it, I don't feel the comfort level with any other DAW I've used/tried. Your favorite plugins or instruments within that DAW I think Synthesizer-V is the most significant plugin development this century. For people like me who can't sing, a vocal synthesizer that actually sounds human is a great production tool, and an even better song writing tool. Synthesizer-V is not Cubase exclusive. It's a standard VST instrument, made by Dreamtonics. Any tips or tricks you've discovered that might help others using the same platform Preferred DAW is a very personal thing. I think all of them are amazing, and the journey can end when you find one you click with... that feels intuitive to you. There wasn't a ton of choice when I started out, so it was an easier decision to make than it is now, but take your time to evaluate, and I would recommend that you stop looking when you've found one that works for the way that you do. Even if there appear to be features missing, there are almost always work arounds. As I said above, in Cubase I use the Logical Editor a lot. I have set up presets to select rhythmic selections... that's all the presets do, and it gives me a lot of flexibility to use them to create rhythmic interest in a number of different ways. I also use the Logical Editor to add randomness to velocities and other data to make lines seem more human. The Logical Editor can look intimidating on first look, but give it the time of day, and it will save you plenty! Also, the Quantize Editor is a lot more comprehensive than it first appears, giving you the ability to affect not only note position, but also note length and velocity to add real groove to MIDI parts.

In terms of rhythm, I think the word I was missing is cadence. Still not sure about the melodic side of it, but I think that's more... um, something. 🤔

One of my faves is Sammy Rae and the Friends... not sure what genre you would put them into. Here's a recent song of theirs. Personally, I prefer some of their stuff from a few years ago (they put out an EP called The Good Life - you can find it on all the regular platforms), but I think they are still putting out great, very original songs and Sammy Rae is a great singer.

This is a really old thread from a one time poster. But hey, just because they're not around, doesn't mean discussion can't continue. I worked as a technologist in a university music school for 17 years. I've known people leave with their degrees going on to all kinds of things. Music, if not for the obvious performance, composition and teaching occupations, is considered one of the most valuable stepping stones to much more lucrative careers like lawyers, accountants and many medical fields. These days I work for the same university but as the campus photographer (yeah, I took a pretty radical change in career at almost 50 years old), and I often do photoshoots at the hospital that is attached to the university. I frequently bump into people I knew in the School of Music, who are now surgeons, genetics researchers and anesthesiologists. Music has taken a back seat for them, though they all seem to still pursue it in some way, but it was their stepping stone to getting to where they are now.

It's not for me, no. I don't really like the playing style, but I think they're marketed in a very specific way... I'm not sure how they fair for what they were designed to do. I hear some weird transitions in some of their demos, but its hard to know whether that's programming, or playing. I'd never heard of them until I saw your post.

Thanks John - I'll be reading through that site (for other reasons!), but I'm looking for some specific theory around writing - in particular - pop vocal melodies that are memorable because they are, I guess to some extent naturally placed rhythmically, and melodically. Here's an example of what I mean... compare the two samples here. They use the same backing and more or less the same pitches, but different rhythm. The second is much more memorable has a smooth natural flow, and would be much easier to sing accurately. Its the term for the kind of writing represented in the second sample that I'm trying to think of (and to be clear - this is one video, with two samples on it - having trouble with uploads on SongStuff again, so can't add them directly to my post).

Yeah, I'm not one of those.

In composition and arranging, there's a term "idiomatic" which is used to vaguely describe writing for the strength of the instruments you're writing for. It has multiple components like writing in a comfortable range, with scaler intervals, and sometimes writing in such a way that makes for easy movement of whatever generates the musical notes (eg, fingerings on strings, valve combinations on brass instruments etc...). What I'm trying to figure out, is a similar term that is used for voice when song-writing, that gives rise to a memorable melody - in particular, placement of syllables on obvious places rhythmically to give natural emphasis, and also using regular scaler intervals that are easy to sing. As far as I'm concerned, idiomatic does it, but when I try to research it, I can't find anything on it. So, I'm just wondering if you know what the hell I'm talking about, and is it known as something other than idiomatic?

$374 is almost free.

There are a couple of challenges on the go for February, and one of them is the RPM Challenge. It's been on the go, I believe since around 2006, and is a worldwide movement. You don't give them your music, you don't have ot pay anything and there is no prize. There is a listening party at the end of it, where you can submit one of your new tracks to, but you don't have to. Its a fun challenge to do for the month of February - basically, produce something during the month of February. It can be a single, EP, album or box set (who has the time for that one?), and must be previously unreleased material, but doesn't have to be stuff that you only worked on in the month of February. Everything is in their FAQ - https://www.rpmchallenge.com/faq and you can sign up at https://www.rpmchallenge.com/. There's no pressure, nothing bad will happen if you sign up and don't complete it. It's all intended to be a fun way to motivate yourself to finish a product.

I've just started a YouTube channel on MIDI production. I've been dying to do a channel for years, but always got bogged down with editing for perfection, so I've changed my model to more of a livestream vibe. Minimal to no editing, and try to release a show every three weeks or so. Released my first episode at the weekend, and I'm here working on the next one at the moment. Definitely learned a lot from releasing the first one, which was much too long, too much umming, too much muttering and not enough explanation on what I'm doing. I will get better as I do more (I hope!). I have a bit of work to do to finish off songs I've been working on with SongStuff member Nelly20. I'm hoping to do an RPM production in February (likely just two or three tracks), and hopefully produce a bunch of new material of my own during the year... for my own enjoyment, not commercial release.. Planning for a very packed 2024 musically. Lets see what happens.

I mistakenly got an NI M32 keyboard to use with my laptop, and I couldn't believe that it has these 8 hardware knobs that can't be used outside of Komplete Kontrol. Any other keyboard, you would be able to assign a CC to it, but not in the M32. Last time I buy NI hardware, no matter how nice the build quality (even the M32 is nice hardware). I'm planning to get an Arturia KeyLab Mk2 to replace my aging (and dying) Novation SL2 at some point this year. Just got to stop spending money on VI's. I got into roasting coffee because you literally can't buy freshly roasted beans here, and I got spoiled with them when I could. They make such a difference in the quality of espresso. I bought a Behmor roaster, which is pretty much as low end as it gets, but it does a great job, I must say. When I do it right, its as good as any roasted beans I've had commercially.

Roasted my weekly 12oz of Indian Monsooned Malabar this morning. Its the only thing I make my espresso from these days and I feel that what I originally thought was an endless quest to find the perfect recipe (I change the temperature 7 times at key points in my 17 minute roast) seems to be coming to an end. Sadly, that's probably only the case for my own taste. When you start out with roasting a new bean, your recipe is pretty random because of the massive diversity of equipment that people roast on, age of beans, and the impact of things like ambient temperature and humidity, which changes the recipe for everyone. Not only that, but each bean needs a different grind setting and absolute quantity per shot to make it pull in the perfect time for that bean. There's actually something of a parallel here with NI Komplete. The journey to find the perfect sound seems endless, and who really has the time to audition all those snare drums that come with Battery? Or the patches that come with Massive? They should change the name of Komplete to Khaos... or even Komplete Khaos. They give you all these expansion packs, but finding the content on your system is mind-blowing because its so fragmented. It's like going to the coffee store and being given a box of random products with no labels and only a generalized marketing sticker. You have to figure out what needs grinding and what gets infused, and most importantly, what you like and what you don't. I have Komplete, and I've spent hours looking for usable 808 hats or snares inside of Battery. It's a real exercise in frustration, and I've ended up going for a third party 808 Kontakt instrument to give me a better chance of creating what I'm looking for. They give you too much stuff, and its just too badly organized. Lots of names are on this quest to overload you with stuff that you'll never have time to properly audition. Quantity over quality is rife. And even when you do find something of quality (personally, I think the Electric Mint sounds spectacular), they've somehow managed to cripple it enough to make it worthless (their pattern system). I still spend way too much money on this hobby of mine (VI buying, not coffee... and no, I'm not giving that up any time soon!), but its certainly more focused than it used to be, and I favour those developers putting in the time to create an interface or system that is relatively easy to use, and gives the flexibility for me to use their products the way that makes sense for the music I make. Even when their products have a very limited sound palette in themselves. Of course, sometimes you have to go the route of quantity over quality because you haven't yet developed your tastes.

None. I bought a used electric once to learn on, but I couldn't get my fingers into those weird positions so I gave up pretty quickly. At the time I thought I had arthritis... turned out to actually be fibro myalgia, so technically there's not really a reason I couldn't play the guitar, other than my terrible coordination skills.

The only instrument I ever studied formally, was the trumpet. I have two of them here, and haven't played either one in 12 or 13 years, though I did play it for 30 years. I also have a couple of MIDI controller keyboards and an EWI (MIDI Wind Instrument). I don't have good coordination skills, and although I can kind of hack around on the keyboard and EWI, I wouldn't perform either in public these days (I did a couple of concerts with the EWI years back, but they were free improv, so there wasn't really such thing as playing a mistake. I'm definitely not a singer either, so I guess I wouldn't call myself a musician at all. I use virtual band mates to get my creativity out there.

Happy New Year everyone. Can't imagine 2024 being any worse than 2023. I don't do New Year's Resolutions because they are doomed to fail for me... I'm a great procrastinator, and if I made a NY resolution, it probably wouldn't happen until 2027. I have however finally got a YouTube channel on the go. I've been wanting to do this for years, but always got bogged down by the editing required to make a polished show. So, I decided to take a different route, and go for more of a livestream vibe. After a week of putting together the set up and doing rehearsals, I did my first show yesterday, and have learned a lot from it already. It was way too long (1 hour... to the second!), with too many "um" moments, brain freezes, etc, but at least I got it out there, which is further than I've ever got before and I did have the decency to put in markers so folks don't have to sit through the whole thing. 🤣 No intention to make money from it, but just use it as a learning and teaching experience, and to push myself to do new things in my little home studio. I'm lucky to be able to leave the set up permanently, so I'm ready to do the next show as soon as I have nailed down the content, which I'm working on now. Hoping to do a show every three or four weeks. I'm also hoping to do an RPM challenge in February, and write at the very least, an EP of entirely my own material, in 2024.

I agree about upgrades not being very interesting. I suspect I'm done with upgrading it until they include Kontakt 8. I really dislike their current architecture for sample pack add-ons, and never use any of their own Kontakt content other than Noire. I never use Reaktor any more, and Massive and Massive X get less and less used by the project. I think a lot of these "package deals" that just add something very minor for the upgrade price of $199 are in for a bit of a shock as people start to tighten the purse strings. Arturia is kind of the same for me.

Korg Synth Collection - unless you have/had the hardware originals and are dying for the nostalgia of the presets that came with them, there is nothing special about the architecture or operability of the synths in this collection. There are a couple of gems (I picked up the collection because I wanted the Electribe drum machine and the Prophecy mono-synth (I always wanted one since the day they were released), and it was as cheap to do this as it would be to buy the two plugins individually), but the variability in quality is surprising from a giant like Korg. Some of the plugins come with no documentation at all, some you have to do a real deep dive on their web site to get hold of. The UI of the M1 is dreadful, as is the preset search functionality. Other than that, they just don't sound special at all. Half of them were digital synths originally anyway, so you're not going to get any "analog warmth" or quirks from them. Unless you're a keyboard player of the 1990's/early 2000's, skip it and learn to use a modern synth like Arturia's Pigments, or if you want more flexibility, Kiloheart's Phase Plant. I could say the same for Arturia's synth collection, but at least the variety is better, they are made with more love, all come with excellent documentation, addtional functionality, and have a good sound, at least in the analog recreations. AudioModeling SWAM Strings - SWAM instruments are wonderfully playable/expressive when using a set up with lots of live controllers (keyboard with pedals as well as mod wheel/aftertouch, or EWI). The problem with the strings, is they always sound dreadful. I don't feel this way about their brass or saxes, which are exceptionally good. They just brought out section strings too, and I think their implementation is dreadful too. It doesn't sound like groups of individual players like a sample library would - its more like a synth patch. In 2024, this isn't really good enough. Waves Harmony - this was a great idea, and executed pretty well in every way except the most important one - audio quality. The result is just dreadful. Got this cheap, and it might have its uses in working out harmony vocals, but its unusable in a final product.

I disagree with Stutter Edit. I can't say I use it much because I don't write much in the electronic/rap/hiphop kind of range, but its good at what its designed to do. While the UI might not be the best out there (version 1 looked a lot better than version 2, even if it wasn't half as functional), it does what it does, and has a logical flow to it. It's quite a complex plugin, but if you figure out its flow, it does work. I agree, not worth $200 (never seen it for this tbh). I picked up v.2 for $10 too, can't remember what I paid for v1 all those years ago.

I went through a phase of designing watch faces for Android (WearOS) watches a couple of years ago. I tried to make them unique and interesting with working mechanisms (which tended to drain the battery pretty quickly). Here are some of my works... Inspired by watches by Ulysse Nardin Working Version: https://www.facer.io/watchface/D9IxsPK8GV Steam Punk Working Version: https://www.facer.io/watchface/Z17Y0pNqFe Concentricity Specular Working Version: https://www.facer.io/watchface/wWuyIgZuMX Digital Flare Working Version: https://www.facer.io/watchface/v0KelBh3N1 Slow Burn Working Version: https://www.facer.io/watchface/GaA1HgthPf The entire collection - https://www.facer.io/u/rich709 Other than this, most of my design work has been logos, and my real job is taking photographs. I could never get used to Adobe Illustrator, but I did discover Affinity Designer which I click with quite well. I'm definitely not an artist, but this software really helped me get my creative art out there. I use Photoshop and Lightroom for photo editing. I used to have a web site portfolio, and my latest version was abandoned, but has some of my older work on it... https://richb.myportfolio.com/. I'm lucky to be a salaried photographer these days, work mostly 9-5, and don't have to look for work, which was the part I hated the most.