quote:

Originally posted by Kysora He's saying dismissing his entire post by saying he's not focusing on making his music as "good" as it possibly can makes very little sense. Robbie's trying to improve one way or another, who's to tell him he's doing it the wrong way?

A mix which sounds great can be pushed as loud as it needs to be. If it has significant deficiencies (such as too much bass), it can't be pushed as loud.

In theory, either way may lead to the same result. However, the "way to loudness" can also lead to a whole bunch of strange decisions based solely on how it will impact on the overall loudness of the song. Focusing on "will this make my song louder" rather than "will this make my song better" can be dangerous. I've gone through this, choosing sounds for their frequency content rather than how they fit with the other sounds.

I'd also recommend going for "good" rather than "loud". Loud will come as a result of good.

Robbie hasn't written a song for like 5 years IIRC. If the dude wants to become a loud bassline-making robot, let him for fuck's sake.

Aha. It gets confusing when engineers, producers, composers and musicians are all in the same forum.

From an engineering perspective, removed from good music, the quest for loudness is fine. At some point in the future, if the goal becomes good music, the approach can be scrapped and a new method learned.

Carry on!

Never tried that technique before, will give it a crack

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quote:

Originally posted by .JEKL. your 'good' can be much different then someone else's 'good.'

True...

But it can be easy for creative people to become blinkered and use the "they don't understand me" defence for making rubbish.

Take good production quality for example. We all know that a load of really weak, tinny drum sounds and really thin General MIDI synths sounds rubbish. Conversely, we can all name producers who 99.9% of people would agree certainly aren't bad from a production quality point of view. How good those 'good' producers are then becomes the topic of debate... and there's certainly a grey area in the middle, where some people will say 'good' and others will say 'bad' (but let's not confuse an uninspiring, unoriginal producer with one who essentially has little control over the sound they're making).

But a new producer hearing "it's all subjective" too often can be far too quick to decide that people don't like their track "because it's different", rather than "because it's nearing the same end of the spectrum as the General MIDI shite".

And we all know what good production is, because we talk about it all of the time: a clear and transparent mix, everything in its place, all of the sounds working together... so it's clearly not totally subjective, or you'd have people saying "your tunes aren't muddy enough mate!"


All of the above also applies to musical content in a track. The qualities which make something 'good' or 'bad' are much more complicated, but they're still there.

A 'melody' which just plays a random note on each beat will normally fall into the "shite" category and just about everyone on here would agree... unless it's done with a really cool sound and the percussion underneath is weird enough to make it work - as I say, the interactions are complicated.


The truth is, I don't know where the parts of these concepts of what we find pleasing to the ear which everyone seems to agree on have come from, but it's engrained in all of us (some more than others). I expect a lot of it comes from qualities which would have made us more efficient hunters: if you can hear each sound more clearly and there's lots of stereo detail, you're more likely to get some dinner tonight.

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quote:

Originally posted by derail Huh? Are you saying all musical quality is subjective, and the majority of people won't be able to tell a good song from a bad song? Beethoven's 5th from fingernails on a blackboard? And in the absence of being able to separate bad from good, all we can really do is to compete on level, since that's not as subjective?

Well looking at the original post robby made and the post from morvan, the subject at hand was mixing/finding the right sounds that work together and how robby put to practice a few things which actually helped him get his tracks closer to the ideal sound HE WANTS to achieve, regardless of the fact that he (and many if not all of us) got this ideal sound from tracks he enjoys listening to. If he's one step closer to HIS goal of a good mix of sounds then more power to him. I don't think it's necessary for someone to put what his goal 'should' be because I'm sure robby knows what kind of sound he's going for. Maybe a bit more constructive criticism on morvan's end would have helped.

I'm pretty sure the music we listen to sounds like nails on a chalkboard to others in the world but you wouldn't take them seriously if they came up to and said 'your music is no good,' would you?

Besides, today's loudness is just another way for an artist to express how he or she wants the tracks to sound like. Look at Wolfgang Gartner's tracks. Some of them are the loudest out there yet I think they still sound amazing. If someone told me otherwise I wouldn't mind cause I enjoy listening to it. Yet at the same time I can still enjoy tracks produced by phonat, a producer who's not into the whole loud thing. Whatever floats your boat, yah know?


@Stu Cox - You're right about that 'they don't understand me' thing. lol. But if someone is making 'different music' then hopefully that person realizes that at first listen (or for eternity) people might not catch onto it. If the producer has a goal of making music that is different yet still satisfies to the tastes of listeners then as time goes by the producer will be able to find ways to do that....hopefully

That engraining you mentioned is also (along with the example you gave) probably derived from the earliest forms of music and how early musical makers saw fit to connect with different notes and chords. I wonder how it would have affected us today if they thought and felt random note progressions from time to time meant a happy go lucky feeling and really pushed the matter. lol. It could've happened cause look at how far minimal techno went and there's still a lot of people out there who ponder and are confused about the whole thing. I know a few, lol.

Great post!

quote:

Originally posted by .JEKL. Well looking at the original post robby made and the post from morvan, the subject at hand was mixing/finding the right sounds that work together and how robby put to practice a few things which actually helped him get his tracks closer to the ideal sound HE WANTS to achieve, regardless of the fact that he (and many if not all of us) got this ideal sound from tracks he enjoys listening to. If he's one step closer to HIS goal of a good mix of sounds then more power to him. I don't think it's necessary for someone to put what his goal 'should' be because I'm sure robby knows what kind of sound he's going for. Maybe a bit more constructive criticism on morvan's end would have helped. I'm pretty sure the music we listen to sounds like nails on a chalkboard to others in the world but you wouldn't take them seriously if they came up to and said 'your music is no good,' would you? Besides, today's loudness is just another way for an artist to express how he or she wants the tracks to sound like. Look at Wolfgang Gartner's tracks. Some of them are the loudest out there yet I think they still sound amazing. If someone told me otherwise I wouldn't mind cause I enjoy listening to it. Yet at the same time I can still enjoy tracks produced by phonat, a producer who's not into the whole loud thing. Whatever floats your boat, yah know? @Stu Cox - You're right about that 'they don't understand me' thing. lol. But if someone is making 'different music' then hopefully that person realizes that at first listen (or for eternity) people might not catch onto it. If the producer has a goal of making music that is different yet still satisfies to the tastes of listeners then as time goes by the producer will be able to find ways to do that....hopefully That engraining you mentioned is also (along with the example you gave) probably derived from the earliest forms of music and how early musical makers saw fit to connect with different notes and chords. I wonder how it would have affected us today if they thought and felt random note progressions from time to time meant a happy go lucky feeling and really pushed the matter. lol. It could've happened cause look at how far minimal techno went and there's still a lot of people out there who ponder and are confused about the whole thing. I know a few, lol.

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quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox True... But it can be easy for creative people to become blinkered and use the "they don't understand me" defence for making rubbish.

That's not really what Robbie is doing, though. He's usually the first to admit his previous efforts don't sound as good as he thought they did.

It's rather strange the direction this thread is taking, haha. Someone talks about trying to improve a purely technical skill and somehow it turns into a debate on the subjectivity of musical appreciation.

Who the fuck is Robby?

quote:

Originally posted by Kysora That's not really what Robbie is doing, though. He's usually the first to admit his previous efforts don't sound as good as he thought they did. It's rather strange the direction this thread is taking, haha. Someone talks about trying to improve a purely technical skill and somehow it turns into a debate on the subjectivity of musical appreciation.

In fairness, I think you kind of started that turn, or at least fed it.

I'm personally bored with the subjectivity argument, as whenever I see criticism for someone's piece of music or a genre, I take it with a pinch of salt as it's all just someone's taste, just like my own.

The same can't be said (to at least a larger degree) of production, engineering or technical skills that can be judged on qualitative merit.

quote:

Originally posted by Kysora That's not really what Robbie is doing, though. He's usually the first to admit his previous efforts don't sound as good as he thought they did. It's rather strange the direction this thread is taking, haha. Someone talks about trying to improve a purely technical skill and somehow it turns into a debate on the subjectivity of musical appreciation.

btw, very curious you and that robby have same ip