Ableton Forum

It’s the ears, not the gears. (trademarked)

good one

Nice tips Tarekith, I also like your new website.

cheers

Good advice.

My take on #10

10. Slim down your studio. Kinda ties into #1 above, but the less gear you have, the easier it is to learn it, and the farther you can take it. Especially with plug ins.

Shameless gear slut here, but even though I use a lot of plug ins, I have a new rule with gear lust:
When looking at a new plug in or FX to add to my system the question has to be am I using what I have right now to it's full advantage?

If the answer is no, then I don't buy.

If the answer is the plug in fills a gap that can't fully be realized with what I have, then the question becomes does that gap need filling?

To that extent my last gear purchase wasn't any of the awesome synth plug in sales going on, but to replace the FCB1010 and Rig Kontrol 2 with a single unit, Rig Kontrol 3, boring purchase, not at all exiting, but entirely practical; replaces two pedal boards with one. Falls into less is more!

So basically it's not the over abundance of gear or lack of gear that's important, just whether there are real reasons for that gear, imagined or otherwise.
The trick is to know when something is actually going to be useful or going to be a distraction or sit on your computer not being used.

Thanks for the tips.

Excellent, common sense points. I especially like point #9, reading interviews with engineers is the best source of production advice, especially from different genres than you. I've always gotten the most out of this kind of information, and it's just interesting reading.

Sound on Sound's series Secrets of the Mix Engineers is a favorite, as well as the interviews in The Mixing Engineers Handbook by Bobby Owsinski.

Dude, Tarekith. Your website is friggin awesome. Lots of good information. I might consider your mastering services soon. Just out of curiosity, are you using a separate setup from your producing setup for mastering/mixing down for your own tracks and your clients' tracks?

How do you have so much time to work on music production, DJing, website maintenance... etc.?

Dude, Tarekith. Your website is friggin awesome. Lots of good information. I might consider your mastering services soon.

>>> Thanks, glad you found it useful. <<<

Just out of curiosity, are you using a separate setup from your producing setup for mastering/mixing down for your own tracks and your clients' tracks?

>>> Yes and no. Same monitors, soundcard and plug-ins, etc, but if you've read my mastering guide you'll know I don't really believe in 'mastering' my own tracks. I put all my focus on the mixdown, so for my own tunes the mastering stage is really nothing more than a slight volume boost with a limiter. Unless I'm not understanding your question? <<<

How do you have so much time to work on music production, DJing, website maintenance... etc.?

>>> Well, we bought a house last year that let me spec out a studio where I could work from home, so I'm more or less always "working" as it were. I'm like anyone though, I have periods of writer's block, sometimes they last weeks. So when I'm not in the right mood to focus on my own music, then I'll maybe switch gears and focus on DJing, or doing the website, etc. My career and my passion/hobby have so much overlap that there's always something that needs to be done depending on my mood. At the end of the day I LOVE doing all this too, so it's not hard to get excited about writing a new article, working on the site, or making new tracks. <<<

Very good list, I like your writing on production, but I'm not sure I think this one is universal

4. Don’t force yourself to write if you’re not feeling it. Go outside, take care of your errands and BS, and come back to it when it’s fun again. Even if that means a month long hiatus (or longer).

If I followed this rule I never get stuff done. Fighting my reluctance to work when a deadline looms leads to me getting into it at least half the time. (The other half I end up doing something else, true) As a designer mate said to me "if you're a samurai you need to be a samurai on demand, not just when you feel like it"

If I don't enjoy what I'm working on I usually find there's something production related that I should be doing but that I'm avoiding because it's 'boring'. I think requiring creativity to always be fun is a trap for me anyway. I took a six month hiatus and was pretty horrified when it was even harder to get back into it afterwards.

I don't think any of them are universal per se, but that one has certainly had the most detractors. I think my main point was just to not let it get to a point where you aren't enjoying the process. IF you're hammering away at something trying to work through a block, don't get to the point where you get burned out from it. Take a break, give your mind and ears a rest, and wait until you're excited about it again and then dive back in.

Tarekith wrote:I don't think any of them are universal per se, but that one has certainly had the most detractors. I think my main point was just to not let it get to a point where you aren't enjoying the process. IF you're hammering away at something trying to work through a block, don't get to the point where you get burned out from it. Take a break, give your mind and ears a rest, and wait until you're excited about it again and then dive back in.

Yeah burn out is possible, now I think of it I've noticed plenty of times when I realised that I'm not enjoying what I'm working on and starting to think it's crap, and I'm trying to fix it, but what I'm doing is ruining it because at that moment I couldn't enjoy any piece of music. When I realise that I step away. There's other days when I'm just plain lazy, and this is what I was talking about fighting through.