quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Actually, hell, forget the vocals and reverb, just make your track 7 layers of kicks and sidechained basses.

I actually kinda wanna try that now. lol.

because when someone finally gets something right, they believe it's the way it should be done, therefore they send that message over to fellow producers who are having trouble/asking for advice on where to improve upon their

the best way to learn how to produce (imo) is by experimenting and fiddling around with things, instead of asking others for input on what they should do to improve a track, at least that's how i learned the bulk of what i know now.

i like when people ask for simple advice, like, 'tell me what you think' or 'how do you like the direction this pad or pattern is going', but without actually changing the way they layered the track to their liking in the first place, more so just trying it out and deciding whether it sounds good to them

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Actually, hell, forget the vocals and reverb, just make your track 7 layers of kicks and sidechained basses.

I for one welcome our new musical overlord, all hail kickstyle!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by david.michael I actually kinda wanna try that now. lol.

lol snap! didnt even see ur reply

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quote:

Originally posted by G-Con If a certain area of a track is wrong and needs to be fixed, then telling the producer what they must do is perfectly okay. ...the artist should never be told what to do, but in areas that are clear technical or mixing errors then I don't see a problem with it.

This is my point exactly. There is no right or wrong in producing or mixing, just as there is no right or wrong level or sound for your kick drum, snare drum, bass, pad, etc. These are all subjective calls and are entirely up to the artist's/producer's creativity. Just because you (not referring to you, G-Con, ), as a listener and producer, would prefer a different sound, a different balance of instruments, or a different processing technique does NOT make it technically or artistically wrong when someone does it differently. If there was only one 'proper' way to mix, or a narrowly defined set of standards by which to judge a production, music would get boring pretty quickly.

The problem here seems to be that many of the people making these types of comments seem to assume that every producer is striving to sound exactly like Paul van Tiestau5foldDyk & Beyond, or whatever their particular image of EDM perfection happens to be. That's not always the case - sometimes people are looking to break the mold, go for a new sound, go for an old-skool sound, slow things down, speed things up, etc. That's why I get so annoyed when someone posts a trance track that grooves with a totally chill vibe and some douchebag chimes in with the old "needs more drive" cliche.

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quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik This is my point exactly. There is no right or wrong in producing or mixing, just as there is no right or wrong level or sound for your kick drum, snare drum, bass, pad, etc. These are all subjective calls and are entirely up to the artist's/producer's creativity. Just because you (not referring to you, G-Con, ), as a listener and producer, would prefer a different sound, a different balance of instruments, or a different processing technique does NOT make it technically or artistically wrong when someone does it differently. If there was only one 'proper' way to mix, or a narrowly defined set of standards by which to judge a production, music would get boring pretty quickly

I disagree.

I think its the relationship and balance between all the elements that counts, when a for instance a pad is very loud in the mix, it creates an unbalance which i can be heard by the majority of people. (except the producer that made it)

Very rarely, i would say, that you ever hear something unbalanced in a track that is released, even if the producer manages to create and unique snare or kick drum.. it will in most cases be on spot with the rest.

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quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik This is my point exactly. There is no right or wrong in producing or mixing, just as there is no right or wrong level or sound for your kick drum, snare drum, bass, pad, etc. These are all subjective calls and are entirely up to the artist's/producer's creativity. Just because you (not referring to you, G-Con, ), as a listener and producer, would prefer a different sound, a different balance of instruments, or a different processing technique does NOT make it technically or artistically wrong when someone does it differently. If there was only one 'proper' way to mix, or a narrowly defined set of standards by which to judge a production, music would get boring pretty quickly. The problem here seems to be that many of the people making these types of comments seem to assume that every producer is striving to sound exactly like Paul van Tiestau5foldDyk & Beyond, or whatever their particular image of EDM perfection happens to be. That's not always the case - sometimes people are looking to break the mold, go for a new sound, go for an old-skool sound, slow things down, speed things up, etc. That's why I get so annoyed when someone posts a trance track that grooves with a totally chill vibe and some douchebag chimes in with the old "needs more drive" cliche.

Yes, but if something sounds wrong it is wrong. If the kick is clearly distorting the entire mix or if it sounds like it's coming from 50 feet under the ground you can't just shrug it off and say "oh, that's just him expressing himself".

Breaking the mould and expressing yourself is fine (and I very much encourage everyone to do so). Breaking everyone's speakers, however, isn't. Everything is not subjective, as noble as the thought may be.

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Cryophonik, yes, it's a good point. It's up to both the person giving and the person receiving the feedback.

When I provide feedback, I'll make sure I explain (numerous times) that I'm basing my opinions on my own viewpoint, stating my preferences, but ultimately the responsibility for how to use my input rests with the person who's song it is. They can take the feedback and decide whether to act on it or reject it. Fortunately, I appreciate many types of trance...not everything has to be driving, anthemic, all that stuff. Not every kick needs to be super loud/ hard hitting. It's all about appropriateness to the song.

As I stated before, I sincerely hope that people offering songs for review/ criticism understand that everyone has a personal viewpoint and that the feedback can be accepted or rejected. If someone tells them their song needs more drive but that wasn't their intention, I'd hope they simply say "that wasn't the feel I was going for here" and let it go. If they consistently, from a number of different people, get the same feedback, that for example their kick drum is too quiet, then how they process that depends on their level of development. If they're creating amazing sounding music with quiet kick drums, they will likely have made a conscious decision in this regard, and they can disregard people's opinions since those opinions are based on a more "usual" sound.

However, if someone isn't as far along in their development and hasn't learned how to gauge appropriate levels yet, I don't think it would help them if no-one commented on how quiet their kick is. If everyone said "well, it's all equally valid, it's all about artistic decisions, good luck with that - but I won't listen to any more of your songs...good luck with your artistic decisions", the person wouldn't develop that quickly. It takes a while to learn how to put sound together in a pleasing way - yes, one is making artistic decisions from the start, but one also makes a lot of mistakes at the start, which can be corrected via receiving criticism.

OK, apparently I need to clarify. I'm not talking about the one person in every thousand who failed to check his mix before posting and somehow mistakenly cranked his kick drum up to +6dB or down to -30dB. I'm talking about the everyday, run-of-the-mill comments that you can see by perusing the Songs forum of any EDM forum, where better-than-average mixes can receive the exact same kind of comments that I'm referring to.

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quote:

Originally posted by derail Cryophonik, yes, it's a good point. It's up to both the person giving and the person receiving the feedback. When I provide feedback, I'll make sure I explain (numerous times) that I'm basing my opinions on my own viewpoint, stating my preferences, but ultimately the responsibility for how to use my input rests with the person who's song it is. They can take the feedback and decide whether to act on it or reject it. Fortunately, I appreciate many types of trance...not everything has to be driving, anthemic, all that stuff. Not every kick needs to be super loud/ hard hitting. It's all about appropriateness to the song. As I stated before, I sincerely hope that people offering songs for review/ criticism understand that everyone has a personal viewpoint and that the feedback can be accepted or rejected. If someone tells them their song needs more drive but that wasn't their intention, I'd hope they simply say "that wasn't the feel I was going for here" and let it go. If they consistently, from a number of different people, get the same feedback, that for example their kick drum is too quiet, then how they process that depends on their level of development. If they're creating amazing sounding music with quiet kick drums, they will likely have made a conscious decision in this regard, and they can disregard people's opinions since those opinions are based on a more "usual" sound. However, if someone isn't as far along in their development and hasn't learned how to gauge appropriate levels yet, I don't think it would help them if no-one commented on how quiet their kick is. If everyone said "well, it's all equally valid, it's all about artistic decisions, good luck with that - but I won't listen to any more of your songs...good luck with your artistic decisions", the person wouldn't develop that quickly. It takes a while to learn how to put sound together in a pleasing way - yes, one is making artistic decisions from the start, but one also makes a lot of mistakes at the start, which can be corrected via receiving criticism.

Nicely put derail!

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Yeah, it can take a ridiculous amount of time before one learn to be objective on their own work.

Its something almost unexplainable behind the psychology of not being able to hear your own mistakes, because YOU made the track.

Just making something remotely similar to an element of one of your favorite tracks can be blindly deceiving and totally satisfactory.

Making you think that you even made something really great, while its really just a major improvement of what u previously made, but still far off.

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quote:

Originally posted by flutlicht junky I for one welcome our new musical overlord, all hail kickstyle!!!!

Waiting for "Lord of Kick" to join forum.





If a snare is hurting my ears, I'll say so. If I think a pad is a bit quiet, I'll say something along the lines of "I'd like to hear that pad a bit more". I think it's a bit out of line to say things like "you should change the melody, It sucks"

So yeah, I agree.

if ur posting here to get feedback anyway ur probably already pretty unsure about yourself and might need or think u need some directions, then its up to the person looking for directions/feedback to qualitycheck the persons leaving comments, its quite easy to check out whether or not someones comments are worth anything by checking his tracks. if u dont like another ones productions you should probably reconsider taking advice from him.
but ofcourse u have obvious things like mr. mystery said on distortion, extremely bad balance between lows/highs, bad stereo panning etc, that will probably come out clear in your threads caus everyone will say the same, then u should obviously take it to consideration. this can also relate to your monitoring and not that your not hearing the problems.
i remember i learned quickly whos comments to take into consideration and who just thought they knew everything. this comes to everything in life, stick up for yourself and believe yourself enough but also be humble enough to take good advices on the way.
i hate to see people making awesome music not liking it themself "no im not good", and "i could fix that better". stuff like that is realy sad

Last edited by djpalm on Jun-29-2008 at 21:01