Making Music, how do YOU do it? Options

[tacoboy]

There seems to be a lot of o topics about the technical side of music production. I'd like to know more about the methods.

How did you start out?

What effects has it had on your life and way of thinking?

How have you progressed and where you would like to see yourself in the future?

[Presto]

Sorry folks this is long.

I only bother with audio (don't record midi). I use two c.500$ mics through an Mbox (phantom power + preamp + audio/digital conversion), into a simple ibook600.

I can record live stereo for groups during the day (barn loft in the country). This gives a much better sound than mixing lots of tracks using lots of mics. Its their stage amps that provide the balance. OK you get mistakes but they can rerecord and the sound is live and real stereo. Live recordings in simple stereo don't often need data-losing calculations, so I now record using 16bits only.

At night (no unwanted sound from outside) I can record me and my bits of compos. I just record bits and stick the audio files together in protools on OS9. I use nearly no plugins, and just convert from 44.1/24bits to 44.1/16bits at the bounce. For what I want to produce its usually better to produce two completely different mono tracks, one panned left and one right. So I record mainly multi-mono as just about everybody does. With multi-mono and pottering with bits here and there, you get quite nice sound technically but the musical result is rather dead, which is also the case for just about everything you hear on the radio.

>How did you start out?

I bought an imic and used a Sure stage mic in my ibook. The result was dreadful.

I then found macmusic.org and got loads of very good and enthusiastic help which decided me on my present equipment. I did realise after a while that most people on here give advice from either a professional sound engineering point of view or from the amateur and midi point of view. However, what I really needed was advice from composers recording their own stuff using audio and not much midi. The priorities are different.

I have a feeling that nowadays most composers using computers use mainly midi and have no idea what real stereo audio recordings sound like. I hope to find others in my position but I think I must be marginal.

Oh, I started composing yonks ago - guitar/voice - but I don't know how.

>What effects has it had on your life and way of thinking?

My present project has caused an almost total drain on financial reserves (I gave up most other work to concentrate on it) + the chance to raise my younger children in a more fun musical environement. Don't think its changed my way of thinking about life in general.

>How have you progressed and where you would like to see yourself in the future?

I found that only composing and recording my own "inventions" caused my imagination to gradually fade out. I found I needed to record other musicians, and myself doing other people's songs faithfully and then with my variations, also discovering loads of other peoples stuff on CDs. I don't get much help from most radio stations as they are not interested in much else than run-of-the-mill multi-mono recordings and are in a style rut - boring!! (I'm in France. Exception: FIP). I also need to perform with other musicians if I want to keep feeding my composing enthusiasm.

In the future, I should like to find my teaching CDs pirated alot (sign of success) - er well, not too much as I'd like to make my living from it. I do have hope as my market is huge and there is no real competition. I'm months and months behind partly due to the input drought I stupidly imposed on myself.

I must add that I'm now quite certain that the sound engineering (the desire for technically perfect recordings) and radio (monotonous high volume and no "risk" music), and midi (unnaturally perfect rythmn etc - not live) approach to music seems to dampen out all the wonderful variations that musicians can produce. They push composers and musicians into a rut of flattened-out music. Give me a scratchy, dirty, recording of a great live performance with all its imperfections and bits of genius anyday.


Thanks for asking - its good to look at where you've been and where you're at from time to time.

Ce message a été modifié par Presto - lun. 5 mai 2003, 20:58.