Auburn

The interface looks like this. ^ The quote button is just text that says quote, and is easy to confuse with a text input box. I generally think that having so much member information next to and below every single post is redundant - if I wanted to see all that info, I could just click on the person's profile. It could at least be trimmed. The challenges boards are both pretty underutilized. I feel like conglomerating them into one broader "Challenges" board would be a good idea. I still don't know what is actually meant by "Music Marketing Challenges", it doesn't have a description. I could make more suggestions, but ultimately they would just be a showcase of my very subjective taste. I prefer minimalism, and prefer more tag-based categorization: makes it much easier to find sort through stuff, filter out stuff, find posts, etc. A "Resources" board would be appreciated, assimilating the VST and VSTi board. Along with that, maybe an "Analysis" board for talking about existing music made by established artists, and a "Gear" board too.

The forum's pretty quiet at the moment. There's also some problems with it that I think need resolution. I have made a list of suggestions. 1) Replies to posts often have a ton of empty space due to profile details. I think these could be condensed or hidden until hovered over. In fact the actual profile details aren't very nicely laid out, as you can see in this example "Band / Artist Name: Auburner" is formatted awkwardly as "Band / Artist Name:Auburner" There also isn't a space between "Name:" and "Auburner". Some UI improvements could be made here. 2) The homepage's layout isn't great either. The banners on top of each board only add clutter, I think simple icons next to each board's name would keep them visually readable while removing unnecessary clutter. 3) There are a lot of unused boards, and some boards that I think the forum is lacking. Some sets of boards could definitely be consolidated together. I'd also like a board to discuss and analyze tracks by well known, successful artists - to try and learn from what they do right and what they do wrong. 4) The text editing window for making posts is pretty ugly, and once again has a lot of redundant empty space.

I agree somewhat, but there are plenty of recent acts that are legitimately quality and fascinating. In my opinion there isn't any more trash than there was before, but thing is - we don't remember that shit. There was plenty of filler garbage in the past, but it hasn't really been preserved or cherished. We're just more exposed to the modern stuff. Definitely more complex than that. The modern music scene is drastically different from what it was 50 years ago, but we do always need to aware of survivorship bias.

KILL KRYPTO is a great name, haha Welcome to songstuff!

While the technology is impressive, I haven't seen a single instance of AI art I actually liked. I don't think it's replicating human creativity, and I don't think it ever will get to that point, no matter how much data we feed it. It's something else, something we don't really have the words to describe just yet. Art without a creator, without perspective. And art is ultimately all just perspective - knotted, convoluted human perspective is what makes art interesting. The worst art is the art that doesn't believe in anything, that doesn't mean anything, art with no soul. That's what category AI art falls under. Along with that, AI is just terrible for making music in general. I've tried to work with it and found the process deeply unsatisfying. Even if it could produce finished pieces of any artistic merit, it's depriving me of the process of creation, the feeling of strumming the guitar chords, of adjusting synth parameters, of attacking the drum kit. Building an idea and following it through to completion, discovering the song as you make it. The flow. The catharsis of finally getting something *perfect*. If I could use AI to just do that part for me... why would I? Why would I want that? Sure, it's difficult, there's definitely a desire to skip past the painful part, but skipping past the relief part too? Skipping past the satisfaction and joy? No. Making art with AI completely removes me from the creative process, I become an editor and at the end of the piece I feel nothing. People like making art - so art will always be made. Unfortunately this only proves that AI is useless for musicians and music fans. For the industry though, I'd probably agree with you. Some rich f*cker in a suit now has another person he can discard, and he absolutely will if he can make a profit off of it. People already endlessly consume empty art to fill the space in their lives. That's a problem with the culture, and a problem with capitalism (though one that I think people are already becoming increasingly critical of). The value of art is going to drop. Art made by humans will always exist, it is incapable of dying, but less people will demand it. That might mean I can't make enough money to live, but this is a hill I'm willing to die on: I love people. I love art. I love connecting with people through art.

Unfortunately, with limited resources and very little free time, things are progressing at a snail's pace. It will be a while before I have anything to show for my effort unfortunately... but when I have something, I'll be sure to post it.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I'll stick around for a while, see how it goes. Cheers!

I do record and produce my own work. Still in early stages, but I'm scraping together a workable setup. And yes, limitations have seriously influenced the music I've made. I'm trying to make music that benefits from the rough edges that I can't smooth out, rather than suffer from them.

New user here, wondering how active the forum is. It seems there aren't many users online, the ones who are all being guests. Is this forum generally frequented by people in a specific timezone, or is it dead? What kind of styles of music are most common here, and what boards are most active? Along with that, what other general music forums are there that I should join alongside this one?

Hi, I'm Auburn, I'm starting my career in music under the name Auburner. I'm here to ask questions, ask for critique, and share my art. I want to explore hip-hop, experimental, and rock music. All done with punk abrasiveness and political brutality. Inspired by bands like clipping, Merzbow, Death Grips, and Boris. Yes, I do indeed have something wrong with me, some kind of worm in my brain I reckon. I'm a skilled writer and I can play guitar fairly well, as well as keys. I have a basic grasp of music theory and a fairly good intuitive understanding of my instruments, I can also sing and rap. Quite busy at the moment, and not really a good pick for collaboration. However, I may ask for some collaboration from others for my own project later down the line. I love music for its ability to tell stories, and as such I enjoy many different genres. From hardcore, to rock, to indie, to dream and art pop, to jazz, to hip-hop, to harsh noise and industrial - I find that all these genres have important stories to tell. I do tend to gravitate to the more extreme and violent sub genres, probably cuz of the brain worm. I'm on a low budget, and have a DIY attitude towards music. Also extremely lacking in gear. I want to learn, and as long as you're constructive about it, I appreciate all criticism.