I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

And I think this can be a trap for some people. I hear a lot over and over people talking about the idea that one of the best ways to learn is to sit down and experiment on your own.

Like "what happens if I do this?" and learning basically through a blind effort.

But then I look at where I've made my biggest advances in music and its NEVER been by learning on my own. Its always usually when I push aside "fun studio time" and actually take time to watch tutorials and read.
And I see now, how much I literally despise tutorials.

Because I have to rewind/pause and go through it step by step trying to do it myself, and it sucks, but what I learn is usually something extremely valuable.

When I "learn" on my own, I really don't learn shit at all.
Everything happens by accident, then I don't know why it happened, so I can't replicate it when I need it.

What I'm curious about is how people here spend most of their time when their in the studio.
Like how much time do you find yourself basically "playing around" with shit and never really evolving or learning new things?

And how much time do you find yourself actually making the mundane effort to read/watch and learn things you could have known years ago if you just made the effort then?

I keep telling myself I'm gonna take like 2-3 months and do nothing but read on tweakheadz and browse youtube for the best tutorials out there, cause thats where I've learned some of the best tricks I know believe it or not.
Cause when I really look at it realistically, I prob spend about 95% of my time literally "playing" and 5% actually reaching out for useful knowledge, and it makes sense in that respect why I'm never satisfied with my skills.

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Sequencers: FL Studio 9XXL & Reason 3.
Main Synth Bass GTs - Pro-53, V-Station, Sytrus, Subtractor, Trilian, Blue, Sylenth & Z3ta.
Main Synth Lead/Pad GTs - Z3ta, Sytrus, Sylenth, Vangard, Albino & Nexus.
Main FXs GTs - Waves Plugins, Soundtoys, Volcano, FL Native FX.
Hardware - Truths, Echo Audiofire, Virus Snow, & Novation Xio Midi-Synth.

both feed off each other. Don't you think?

I watched everyone else's tutorials in the last 6 months. Those coming from sflogicninja and covert operators have been the most helpful ones.

On the other hand, this week I discovered how to make wavesequences in reason and how to quantize audio regions quickly in logic so I could adapt my loops to the global groove. I found those two on my own.

The most important is that you learn something new every week. Soon or late, it will help you out.

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Http://www.airwave-music.com is my new site. Djairwave.com is no more. A new era has begun

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo wavesequences in reason

What do you mean by this?

I thought I knew everything about Reason...

It generally takes a couple of months for the techniques I read about to pop up in my productions... It does happen, but generally I think my main weakness is practise rather than technical knowledge.

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quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles What do you mean by this? I thought I knew everything about Reason...

I would assume, like, using lfo's in Thor to change the wave shape from saw to square to ect, when pressing one note....
unless he means more like wavetable synthesis, there are many ways but, hopefully he will explain what he was talking about

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i've always just taught myself everything, stumbling through is more comfortable for me, and i've never had problems... i can't be fucked reading a million pages of tutorials/walkthroughs on DAWS just to figure out how to change the colour of a stem etc...

when i first started on new stuff (ableton and logic i know) i used youtube tutes just to figure out how to arm recordings, or use plugins etc...

how people use equipment is often really personalised to the sounds they make... so if you're learning off someone you'll more than likely be learning how to do things their way, rather than just how to do it... i find it more enjoyable and interesting just figuring stuff out
it's not rocket science...

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-Everything I Say is a Lie-