john

I found some things very easy, but many of my difficulties were because I was used to another DAW. Once I changed I realised a lot of it was not that Studio One was less intuitive. In fact most changes were an improvement, I just didn’t realise it at first. After all, why should Studio One work according to another DAW’s flawed methodology? My main issue with Studio One is more a lack of information, or obvious information, during mixdown. For example, during mixdown, you can introduce a level issue. When it comes to tracking down where in your signal chain you blew the level, Studio One doesn’t (or at least didn’t) tell you where in the signal chain you went wrong. It forces you to go through the gain-staging process, slowly. Really they could make that particular task much much easier. I find that Studio One actually improved and supported both recording and mixdown very well (other than that issue). Contextual menuing works very well. On a couple of occasions issues were more terminology differences than anything else.

It’s a great series. Cillian Murphy’s accent was great. The Scottish accent was pretty terrible!

More to the original point, having a way of working that takes into account your self-doubt and works with it, might be worthwhile. @GregB, you must have found a way to reconcile and work with self-doubt that works for you. It’s a shame you have to feel self doubt in the first place, but hey. It’s healthy to question our ideas and how we realise them. I imagine doubt comes from confidence in our decision, particularly in the “is it finished?”. I don’t really ask “is it good enough”.

For a process to work for you it has to be realistic. If it needs constant input from Tony, it isn’t the right process. It has to be something you can and will maintain. So, for example, a process, set of tasks that provides it’s own motivation. That could be where the results themselves provide enough motivation, helped by the tasks fitting with your likes well enough that they require low levels of motivation for you to actually carry out the task. Where there are tasks that you don’t like you can either adapt the tasks or replace the tasks, outsource the tasks or not do the tasks and accept the hit. One really common issue, for example, is where carrying out certain dedicated tasks may be important but it is hard finding time to do them. Social media activities are good examples. Creating dedicated content is time consuming. Finding ideas for posts can quickly run dry. If you know what your “content well” is, filling the content becomes pretty easy. For most musicians that could be time recording or performing, especially if they talk about making music too. They can hook up a camera to film themselves making music, performing etc. They do that to make their music anyway. If they can find suitable content for social media as an incidental output of writing and recording and chatting to other musicians and producers, then creating social media content takes very little extra time. If they can outsource that to someone who is responsible for sifting the content looking for suitable posts, it doesn’t necessarily need to be an inconvenience to the artist. It beats posting about their lunch that day. The point is, the business side doesn’t need to be unpleasant. It is, after all, your business. No one else’s. Do things your way, just as long as you cater for the fundamentals.

Hey there @Jimmy P, good to meet you. Welcome to Songstuff!

Yay! Ability to play and ability to run a business or market a product are all very different skills… though all do require creativity. I know loads of pro level musicians in terms of musical talent. I can count on one hand those who devote any real time to the business side of things… particularly the learning bit. To a degree I agree. For labels, they rely on gathering metrics and finding people who can reliably do the necessary and create hits. You are right the number is few, and that predicting entirely new trends is harder to do, however, good labels are experts at mining seams and it was more this aspect I was thinking of. At several points in history, songwriting or production factories have been created and been pretty successful in terms of commercial success of hit after hit after hit. Labels are also great at identifying and developing new music scenes. Traditionally this often revolved around cities. The Liverpool scene, the Manchester scene etc. It is one of the ways they build new trends. Another go to favourite has been “new sounds” largely built upon new technology. Occasionally there are other types of waves. Transferable celebrity, for example. Me too. There are many brilliant instrumentalists who cannot write great songs or who are really hard to work with. Yet again, how good you are on a musical instrument has no bearing on business skills. I define amateur as unpaid for that activity. Professional as full time paid for that activity. Anything in between is semi-professional. An amateur can play to a professional standard without being a professional. Yet, business repeatedly tries to do this. Some are pretty successful at it. In truth this is achieved partly by proposed theories and rigorous testing. Labels do exactly this. They have data from loads of releases. They treat audiences like patients. They employ creativity in the business processes and of course it exists within the medical processes. There are of course big differences, but both grapple with trying to manage and categorise trends (amongst other things). The big difference for indies is access to available data sets and a general lack of understanding when it comes to interpretation. True, though in the post I quoted and elsewhere you have made mention of judgement of good being one purely of taste, two people neither better than the other at judging good. Entire music schools, indeed music tuition in general, is almost entirely founded on the fact that one can be better than the other at telling good from nit so good and that those skills can be learned. Music appreciation is also a learned skill. We are conditioned from a young age what to look for. Some would argue it is a fairly inexact science. Others would argue it is more certain than people realise. I get that in terms of individual taste, we all have our own opinion. But in terms of predictably creating something that others will like, it is much more evidence led than people suspect. Very true. Yay! Thank you. In truth, you are not the only one who will read it, and emoticons can be useful indicators that save a lot of typing in an already large post! One thing about music, pretty well everyone has an opinion, and they tend to be more than happy to share it.

I think I am going to disagree Greg It depends entirely on what you measure against. The trouble is people often don’t fix down what they mean by good. When it comes to personal taste, both are right. There is an audience of exactly one. The issue begins when we try to expand personal taste and use it as a predictor for market success. The two things don’t usually correlate. In the industry, it depends on your job exactly what some of your metrics are, however for large amounts of comparison there are fixed measurements and people who earn large salaries based upon their ability to understand and predict results using their knowledge of the market place… just like any product in any market. The fact that you either don’t know or recognise the factors or metrics does not remove their relevance. Perspective is everything. Where most of us might be content with feeling out a “good” song, someone somewhere will have datasets that can be used to predict the chances of a hit, the scale of that hit and how long it will be in the charts. Are they always right? No. Are they usually right? Yes (within a margin of error - see what I did there?) Even informally this is true. Take music production. We informally assess something, comparing it with songs we know are popular. There’s a difference right there. If a generally good musician has knowledge of what is on trend is music currently in the pop charts and we are thinking if our knowledge of the general charting music over the last year, a good producer might have an in-depth knowledge of several related genres over the last 3 months. A great pop producer would have a map of detailed sound production right up to and including what other top producers are doing right now, music that won’t be released for weeks and months yet. More than that they understand the changing landscape of popular sound and production, they know all recent production critiques and s lot of popular classic techniques. Because they understand the direction of travel, the trends, they are remarkably able to predict what will be popular. They don’t just get that by feel. They understand the concept of units sold and money made. They have a vision of not just what is popular but also what will be popular and that popularity is measured in units, money, downloads, streams, weeks, likes, shares, comments, plays, etc. The mistake is to reduce everything down to comparing an amateur listener’s understanding of the music marketplace, with a musician’s, a top producer’s and saying they are all equal. People working making music every day study that field, formally or informally, just like any course at university or any job. Comparison based on like is something that is valid but limited. For people whose livelihoods depend upon their understanding and ability to project forwards there is a need to be more accurate. Exactly the same issues exist in book writing, painting, clothes design. True it isn’t all data, but data is a highly important factor. Our brains are great at comparing known tangibles and filling in the blanks. Experience is that essential component. To devour all that info and make sense of it takes a massive appetite. Insatiable. Data gives us the finite context to help us to make sense of things that seem immeasurable. Four people will listen to your symptoms, examine you and prescribe your symptoms. One has a hobby with a few years home experience treating friends and family, based on knowledge he looked up on Google and using his home bought medical equipment. By day he works in an auto shop as a mechanic. The second is an highly skilled neuro surgeon. He trained for a decade at a top medical school, he has a decade of on the job experience. The third is an expert diagnostician, who after being in general practice for 10 years, retrained in cardiology followed by 15 years focused on surgical intervention and currently involved in a 5 year study into optimal outcome recovery plans for post-surgical patients following valve replacement. The fourth is a guy you met in the pub, Bob. Bob like fatty foods, drinking to oblivion and has a strong opinion about most things. You tell them all “I have been getting chest pains following exercise and exertion. I feel light headed and break out in a sweat. Lately I have been getting pain and tingling in my left arm.” Who do you turn to? I bet it isn’t Bob. The idea that there is an equivalence doesn’t even enter your head. Sure Bob will have an opinion which may well include, “go see a doctor”. He’s not wrong, but he is far from the ideal guy. So why this idea that there is an equivalence in opinion about music, songwriting, production and music marketing? While there are plenty of amateurs on our boards, not all are. Not even all the amateurs have always been amateurs. Some worked harder at music, for longer, than others. Some have qualifications in music, song writing, music production, music technology and music marketing. Some work or worked in pro studios. Some are pro musicians. Some apprenticed in studios and worked their way up from tea boy to head engineer then production. Some sing into a hairbrush, posing in front of a mirror and attended their last sleep over 8 months ago. By all means ask questions to find out who they are, but don’t assume equivalence. Both are valid opinions for who they are, but who they are and what their story is, is important. That is why critique is not getting an opinion. It is having a discussion. Understand what opinions are based on and let that help you to put comments into context.

Funnily enough, during the entire process of creation, from idea until final edit, my ability or lack of it doesn’t enter my head. Never. It just isn’t a factor. I tend to be consumed by creating. I can be pretty focused! The closest to what you describe is when I play the finished song to people and I see certain types of reactions from certain types of listener. At that point I might question if the song could have been better or is it just differing taste? I don’t question my abilities or lack of them. I am straight into an analysis of what worked and why. I have to make mistakes to learn effectively. We all do. I don’t lack abilities. I just might not have had the exact abilities I needed at the time. That is not a fault or weakness, because the truth is… while a song may dominate the moment, it is not about the song. It is about all of the songs. Collectively. Mostly I believe I am the harshest judge of my songs. So I don’t fear the judgement of others. Just because they judge it one way does not make their opinion a fact. Even if it were, they can judge my song all day, but I am not my song. They can hold an opinion on me, but it is just an opinion. I used to feel that way on stage too. At least after the first number nerves settled and those nerves where about being rehearsed enough to do the songs justice. I didn’t care if people judged me. I was up there doing something most of them would never seriously consider doing. So what if they didn’t like my moves? At least I was up there! I will be interested in their opinion from a learning perspective, but that is it. All I am learning from most is some observations from their perspective. It’s interesting, but hey, their shit ain’t golden. Even if they knew everything there was to know about songwriting and performance, which they don’t, they too started less good and then with work they improved. It’s nothing to feel bad about. If they want to shame me that says more about them than me. That aside, as I say, I am almost always my worst critic. What I might feel bad about is if I feel I cut corners and made unnecessary compromises. It is a rarity because it’s not the way I work. I try to not instantly clamp down on my creativity by judging too soon, rushing to make poor decisions or repeatedly earlier mistakes. I do everything I can to encourage creativity, and you truly can’t experiment without trying new things. That means some things work better than others.

Tis a rare sighting indeed…. The lesser spotted Mahesh wanders the corridors of Songstuff softly singing to himself…

Hey Mahesh I think it depends on if I speak the other language, or at least how fluently I speak the language. Could I dream in that language without a conscious translation step? In Western classical music, it is pretty common for singers to sing in foreign languages. French and English speakers frequently have to sing in Italian or German (the two most commonly used languages in opera). Certainly my voice responds differently in each language, because I make different shapes with my mouth, I position my tongue differently, the tensions in my body are different. Where languages are close there are often large overlaps and small differences. In saying that, there are a lot of common things too. Listening to my voice. The skill of observing my body. The control of my voice. My control of breath. The relaxation of tension. How emotion is manifest within performance via interpretation. I have to prepare for different points of gymnastics for my mouth and tongue. Enunciation exercises are a little different. Breathing points can change. Entering the right mind-space is exactly the same though. Many of the same errors exist. The way the voice breaks. The way tension affects so many aspects of the voice. While you cannot ignore the difference, it is wise to build upon the lessons of singing in one language versus another. Out of interest… often singing in different languages can introduce idiosyncrasies of melody and technique because of common music techniques, such as melodic or harmonic norms of genres that match with one language or another. It can be interesting applying say Indian vocal gymnastics to say the English language, or Scots/Irish Gaelic vocal techniques to French pop music. Cheers John

Hi and a big welcome to Songstuff! I’m not home bound, but have been for extended periods, so it’s a familiar struggle. What is your ultimate dream for your music? Have you set some goals?

Hey Noi Resor, good to meet you!

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Geoffrey. What did you study at University? You sound like you have ambition towards becoming a music professional?

Nice job of that one too MP!

Hey Steve It has indeed bud! Nice to see you. What’ve you been up to?

Hey Rene I used to play this at every gig with one of my bands. Great song. Nicely done. Cheers John

Tru dat

Welcome! Awesome. I’ll be really interested to see what you make of it. It took me a little to get used to it post Cakewalk, but I found the process flows were better and several things were actually more intuitive. Context menus are better. At first mix down weren’t great because of poor visibility on the signal chain making effective gain staging really clunky, but it has improved.

Hey Rich Nice intro. Welcome to Songstuff! It's good to have you with us. It sounds like you have a broad range of influences. Tinnitus can be a blight. I have some at a fairly high frequency, but for me it is pretty manageable. I guess it depends on the cause and severity. So what are you looking to do with your music as you get back into it, or are you just enjoying exploring atm with no real intentions of anything other than a bit of fun? Cheers John

Reality bites. My plans as a young teenager modified with my own brushes with that world. I realised it could be a poison chalice, or at best, it didn't necessarily agree with me. That said, my life has completely not gone the way I imagined it due to health reasons. Now, I plan to be active in my own music (instead of just other people's!) to achieve much more modest and realistic goals. The biggest thing holding most people back, is themselves. With me, for example, self-belief, or the lack of it, was a problem. Add to that, fame did not appeal. It still doesn't. However I am comfortable with having a more modest following that enables me to be full time in music, without thinking I'll be in a position to spend this quarter's royalties on a private jet! It doesn't need to be all or nothing. It's amazing how prevalent that view is! Needs for ready money and serious obligations to provided it also made their demands, but life has changed and things that were limitations are no longer limitations. I still want to help others, but after years of avoiding pursuing my own career as a writer and performer, I'm back preparing recordings for just that. I am quite content that I will not be a sex symbol (lol) and that I doubt there will be any wildfire explosion of interest in me. The issue will be quite the opposite. My fear of loss of control of the situation as a younger man simply doesn't exist and I'm very happy about that. Not everyday issues for most artists who seem to want to be noticed and entirely happy with any amount of attention. Point is, do what works for you. If you want to be huge, it's not rocket science. Really. It's just not for me.

Hey gang Have you achieved as much with your music as you once thought you would? If the answer would be “YES”, what do you put that down to? If the answer would be “NO”, what do you believe is the main thing that held you back? Please be detailed if you can! Cheers John

And there in lies the magic. Realising what you see with your imagination, rendered for others to see, takes understanding your tools and using the tools with your creativity to solve specific issues. It adds another dimension to your creativity. A huge dimension!

Hey Regal Welcome to Songstuff! Good to have you with us. I love how creatives take their creativity to many areas. I look forward to hearing some of your tracks Cheers John

Hey Bill Welcome to Songstuff! Sounds like good fun at the time. Did you stay performing over the years? Out of interest, Cakewalk has a long history, as old as Cubase. I used to use Cakewalk back in the 1990s when it was a sequencer owned by Twelve Tone Systems. It evolved pace for pace with Cubase until Cakewalk was the company and they released Sonar, their first really modern DAW. It had some excellent features that I much preferred to Cubase and most DAWs of the time. I used through Gibson buying Cakewalk, right up until Gibson was in trouble and announced they were ditching Sonar. I did download and sometimes use the modern Cakewalk but I mostly use Presonus Studio One these days. Cheers John