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How did you learn how to produce?

I was wondering how good peoples production skills are comparing whether they had lessons or not.

the stupidly over-excessively hard-way...(self-taught with a dash of mixing help from TA)

and "good" is a relative term...Probably comes down to the person's talents, not the way they learned...

Although yeah, you'd learn faster with someone else teaching you I guess...although at this point, I'm fairly confident I could pick up any kind of Audio textbook and learn from it without the need for a professor...

Youtube videos!

teached myself from scratch and used the interwebs for production knowledge their is some self gratification in doing this and music theory helps to

quote:

Originally posted by MichaelHaber I was wondering how good peoples production skills are comparing whether they had lessons or not.

Exactly how do you plan on making that correlation, particularly from this unscientifc and inadequate poll? And, what are your criteria for defining something as subjective and arguably meaningless as "good", who will be the judge, and how do you plan on ascertaining whether you're listening to a given producer's best work, worst work, or somewhere in between?

Most people learn production skills from a variety of sources and I'm quite certain that most experienced producers could answer "all of the above, and then some" to the options you provided. And, you left out some obvious options (e.g., books, forums). But, most importantly, you failed to realize that the amount and type of experience that a producer has had generally has a much greater influence on how good he/she is than the manner in which he/she learned to produce does. There are a ton of great producers who learned primarily through self-instruction and there are a ton of excellent producers who learned primarily through formal training, but most learned the fundamentals through a variety of methods and developed those skills further through years of experience. This poll is not going to differentiate between them or give you any sort of quantitative distribution of "goodness" by instructional method.

I don't think he's trying to draw a scientific correlation I think he's just trying to draw a personal one.

Like he might see that some of the better producers on this forum have all had lessons than mistakeningly interpret that he needs them too or he'll never get any better.

Look at Lolo, M4B, and even you Cryo. I'm not saying M4B is one of the better producers as he doesn't even seem to produce anymore but I still think he has the full potential if he ever desired to actually make something good in the first place.
Then look at people who haven't had lessons lol, atxbigballer, me, and a whole host of other people who seem to never be improving.

I definitely see that a 5 or 6 person sample size has no power (power is actually a research term ftr) but most scientific studies start exactly like this thread. You can't design a study in the first place untill you have a direction to go in. Otherwise you run out of resources real quick. For all the research I've done for my uni, we always go out before even designing the experiment to ask useless questions like he is now. Its the whole preliminary process.

I think overall this thread is worthless, and in the end it doesn't answer anything, but genuine research also doesn't "answer" anything either. So for the sake of his curiosity I'll do my part.

No I haven't had lessons, and although some lesser people may consider my skills good or ok, I don't think they are anywhere that they could be if I DID have some formal training. I think you definitely have some self taught animals who have mastered the fundamentals w/out proper training, but I tend to think the larger majority HAVE had some form of training. Thats my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

never had lessons for production.

I learned everything by myself including the classical stuff for the most part. Of course I started producing when there was nowhere to learn and I was the only person in my city doing it. As far as the classical stuff, I just learn better by myself. The courses probably accounted for maybe 5% of the stuff I know. I've just spent on average the last 26 years 5 hours a day working on music. That is accounting for times I spent less and times I spent more.

I don't buy that you really never had lessons or training?
I see you spitting facts around here like you live with a music encyclopedia hardwired into your brain.

I mean 26 years is a lot of time though I guess. So that means most of those earlier tracks I heard (like pressure) was like 2002 or something? When you had 18 years experience?
That actually makes me happy now cause thats another 10 years for me, and if I'm not making better music than pressure by 2020 I will inject cyanide directly into my eyeballs.

Oh shit, am I the only one who took online courses? Hahaha I'm sure there's others.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I don't buy that you really never had lessons or training? I see you spitting facts around here like you live with a music encyclopedia hardwired into your brain. I mean 26 years is a lot of time though I guess. So that means most of those earlier tracks I heard (like pressure) was like 2002 or something? When you had 18 years experience?

2 years experience in production.I started circa 2000 and stopped EDM production around 2004 ish. Not to mention that was back when there were no aids and no sample libraries to speak of except for the euberschall techno trance library. There were no forums and everything was kept very secret. Nobody shared anything. Learning edm now is so much easier.

Not everything in music is completely related. Being great at piano isn't going to make you a good EDM producer. Production is a skill unto itself. Also understand that I was never fully immersed in EDM like with my other musical endeavours. It was an experiment. I made about 10 tracks and moved on as I was bored.

EVerything pre 2000 was in performance which although develops a part of the musical brain, does not really have anything to do with production. Well not EDM. It pays off now in that I can play drums, piano,guitar and violin at a session player level and I suppose I did learn alot about music and how it works but I wouldn't say it really helped in lets say mixing or synth design. Things like score reading, sight reading conducting, all things i've spent alot of time on will not in any way help edm production.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Then look at people who haven't had lessons lol, atxbigballer, me, and a whole host of other people who seem to never be improving.

I am self-taught and learning and improving every day.
Sad because I Really got my 1st piece of kit in 1999 which was a Roland mc-303.

The Reason why I got it was because I was a Miami Bass music fan and I want it some thing that would give me some Drums, Bass and Quad!
I got my Roland MC-303 as a steal at the pawn shop! (long story)
When I 1st heard the MC-303 1st preset and it was Trance and I was hooked on Trance from then on, Love it!
I had to steal The manual at mars music so I can learn how to use it.
Took me some Time to master it and all the other groove boxes out at the time.

The Manual of the mc-303 helped me a lot!

The year 1999 no Reason FL Studio No LIVE!

BWT less is more!

Self-taught via the Bible. Just gotta know how to interpret it. I recommend all indignant euro-atheists read it for its educational value.

Endless hours messing around in the sequencer, watching online instructional videos, reading tutorials, reading production forums, and - every once in a while when I've been lucky - learning directly from more experience producers.

But ya, definitely self-taught overall

trying things on fl studio and sometimes watching youtube tutorials, learning how to sidechain i think isn't very intuitive in a daw

Taught myself, though I probably still don't know how to produce which would explain it

Trial and error.

Mostly error.

I've been producing...actually the idea of me producing flashed in my head 6 months ago , since then , i learned how to use my daw , how to arrange and program , and i already got 3 or 4 finished tracks that worth some air time . For my benefit i had about 7 years of experience as a dj , as really good dj actually , and this helped me alot , knowing what the final product should sound like , what good arrangement is like , and what is cool and what is not .

youtube videos contributed alot , really , i downloaded everything i could find and watch them all ...don't know if this is considered self learning , at least there was no payment...

i was born with it.

Source files from others, trying to recreate stuff, video tutorials, trial and error.

quote:

Originally posted by Dj_Kile youtube videos ... downloaded everything i could find

youtube has a download option???

If you know where to look, then yes.

you should look between the lines , as real player would

quote:

Originally posted by Kenny Rogers i was born with it.

Maybe it's Maybelline.

Trial and Error

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