I think the title is so clear. I selected these two opposite views posted in another thread by @black.afrika.zulu.x .

Guys do apologize for copying your comments without your permission.
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View one
By @LuckySevens
Keep dreaming... it's not an art form to take/use other people's work (beat loops, MIDI loops, one-shots, doesn't matter) just like rearranging toy, wooden blocks isn't an art form either.
In both cases, someone else created the items you use to assemble your "idea". However, a child playing with building blocks isn't trying to convince anyone they are legitimate...

Sorry to burst your thin-walled bubble... but I didn't study music all my life to compete with lesser "musical individuals". Just because a computer can make you sound intelligent, it doesn't hide the fact that you still do not possess true musical skills to CREATE art. I create my own loops, samples, MIDI files, one-shots, tracks, songs, and film scores. So yes... there IS a huge difference. Can you survive with your "product" unplugged and without a computer? I doubt it... I can play several acoustic instruments to feed my family, if needed.

Just remain in your bedroom-studio, wishing for Santa Claus... or other "realities".
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View two (opposite to the first one)
By @mewoingtons
Look at this guy.
Hope you realize the average listener couldn't give two shits that you make everything from scratch. This argument that everything needs to be hand made doesn't even apply to sampling. Sampling is it's own thing, it's just a method of making that final result that your audience hears, nothing else.

And jesus christ, you don't need to be so excessively negative, critical , and presumptuous of the original poster. This is a community. Audiosex doesn't have room for musical elitists like yourself. We all try to make music and work towards our goals. We don't need shit like that.

So how about you lighten up, try and make a good beat from sampling, and come back and try and degrade the method some more. I bet you'll actually enjoy producing it, and maybe even get a fresh perspective on how you produce.
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1- What's your viewpoint?

2- If your answer is positive, so is it a bad thing or not?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 19, 2017

Loops are tools, just like a violin is a tool. Do you need to build the violin yourself to be considered an artist playing one ? I don't think so. It's about creating with whatever you have at your disposal, being in the moment.
And just to clarify, i don't even use loops, but the point #1 makes is pretty narrow-minded.

 

No... you don't get it. You have to play the violin to create. Not to mention learn how to play it. A loop has already been created. Just pasting it into a track is NOT creating anything...

 

As long as the song is good, I really don´t care. I do use samples, mostly sample myself, and if I can´t find the one I´m looking for or the sound is bad, I play it myself.
For me this(first argument) would be the same as someone is playing another ones song, be it Bach, Beatles or Metallica.
So pointless to say so.

 

A violin has already been created; you have to play a DAW :\

 

Bruh, check this out. I sampled Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do"

And this is what came out:

 

Violin is definitely a tool, used it just the other day to open a can of sardines.

 

I don't know what is worst thing to do : to use loops and beats to create your own music or to use a conversation from another thread to create your own???

 

I for one think Computer based tools made life a lot easier. Kontakt libraries saved me from having to learn how to play several different instruments (orchestral sounds) and (Drums/Drum set). With the use of a small keyboard and Guitar Midi, I have been able to create music I could only imagine.

 

Is a picture "painted by numbers" Art? ... Lies in the eye of the beholder.

 

I think there's a distinct good feeling to playing a real live instrument from scratch that cannot be emulated from MIDI or samples. There is also a distinct sensation I get from writing my own songs. But when I copy someone else's song or samples, I feel rather demotivated to go thru with that song due to the absence of that feeling when I make something original and sit back and say "Wow, I made this all myself!!".
I'm not gonna lie, I still use sampled MIDI guitars here and there. But then I go home and pick up an actual guitar and start playing, it's like coming home to an old friend after being at work with fake friends. If I put down a guitar and go right to using say, MusicLab stuff, I feel like I switched out a great interactive friend for an aloof stranger. It's that chemical connection between the instrument and the person playing it that makes playing real instruments special. You hold it close to you and you play and you play and a beautiful sound comes out. It feels even more great, because you took the time to learn how to play like that. You didn't just pick it up for the first time and sound like that - you put effort into learning it. It's like a friend whom the more time you put into them, the closer you get to them.
It's not just the lack of originality or effort that makes the use of midi and/or samples seem bad. It's the absence of that sentimental stuff that comes with real instrument playing. It's not that I feel superior to those who don't play those instruments, it's just that I love what I do. Some of the most stressful and darkest times in my life were eased just by sitting down and strumming guitar for an hour or so.
I won't lie though, sometimes I use Midi or samples because I'm away and want to make the basis of that song before I forget it. Other times I'm just too lazy to do the studio setup and just wanna lay down the track fast lol... sometimes it actually ends up sounding pretty good and I'm like "Ooh I like that! I should definitely keep this in there!" and there it stays lol.
So while I do use samples/loops occasionally, it doesn't mean I would be lost if I were to stay with acoustic instrumentation. I can make music with just about anything if I try. I think the only real limit in music is your own creativity/imagination.

Just my opinion, though.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 19, 2017

As you've heard my music, it's completely impossible to be done outside of my DAW by any instrumentalist. Not just mine but most people doing other genres too. Till now I've not used any sample or loop from other producers because I've always wanted to learn how to do them by myself. From the profession perspective, the kind of music dictates the tools and methods of composition we need but from the fast-to-the market and person's laziness ones, the situation is different.

Cheating has always had a bad meaning to me not because I'm using another person's work but not being able to do it by myself. Anything that is an impediment in front of my learning must be ironed out otherwise using pre-made everything unknowingly just as it sounds good is cheating to me.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 20, 2017

I often use software programmes like ChordPulse to sketch out some chord progressions which I then use as a guide track. I also find it's a good way to construct the main melodies, by adding some piano lines to these chord structures.

Naturally I remove the guide track later on, so there is no trace of it. Using this method I can generally come up with a verse, bridge, chorus idea in a couple of minutes. Don't knock it until you have tried it

BTW I've attended proper art classes, so this is akin to sketching a scene before you transfer it to the canvas for painting.

 

Last edited: Nov 20, 2017

As my signature says, everything before legitimization is cheating but after that and getting use to it, is not being considered cheating and instead, called art. You see, cheating is a fluid term.

 

Plagiarism will get you nowhere

 

everything is just a tool to make music.
we can just say words and create art by poetry or stand up comedy, art can be anything.
each listener can determine how valuable each piece of music is.

to me music that is played by musicians is more valuable to me in certain ways that the skills come into play.
making beats or loops or other types of dj'ing and beat-making is creative in different ways. still art to me and i enjoy it.
i can see objective ways that it is less talented that learning and playing real instruments, but also theres a way the loop based music sounds that is unique and cant sound like that playing live instruments so it has a different sense of art even though less talented.

 

Hasn't this subject been beaten into the ground – and after having been posed less sophomorically – already?

 

Actually the worse is never having an opinion. Endless threads in which one asks for input without ever providing one's own point of view...

 

So when a classical composer writes shit on a sheet of ledger lines, he isn't arranging sounds?... u that retarded?

 

ALso... when you use a loop and completely twist it and mangle it into something unrecognizable, that simply turns that loop into a can of paint if you will.

You take a can of paint and brush onto canvas... what if you could take a picture already made, and dice it into a ton of pieces and use those pieces as a paint. Oh wait, that's been done.

That makes using simple paint sound boring as FU2K and almost caveman-esqe... though, to use ALL those things would be the most creative thing to do... to utilize ALLL tools/methods of coloring a canvas.

Another thing, what if you told your friend, a guitar player, "hey man... play me something..."... and then you record it, sit down to a drum set, bang out a beat, track that... then pickup a bass and throw down a line... track that... and THEN, add your own guitar stuff etc.

So in that situation, THAT is creative cuz the original guitar part wasn't from a song already?.. but instead of your friend starting the "track building process" off for you, you grabbed a lick from an old James Brown song... that THAT is now no longer creative?..

wow... now that is retardation at it's fullest.