Technology is for aiding people in making music so fast, sometimes without knowing exactly what's going underneath.

1- Are you still striving to know how everything works exactly?
2- Do you think by knowing how the things work exactly, you can produce better music?
3- Is your aim music production or just acting like virtuosos mainly for showing off?

Thank you!

 

"Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing." -Baruch Spinoza

Sums up my view on the subject.

 

for me, having some fundamental knowledge about how certain things work has given a wider perspective on hows and whats to do's/not to do's
it's so to say to balance creativity and what's actually going on under the hood that is the point i wanted to achieve, know i can say that i do know how to get to a certain place but how i work is very decisive and not so much intuitive as when i knew nothing about producing within the box. it's like waiting for a happy accident just that i know what the accident is and how to achieve it, but what's the best way to do it. you work within a computer there are physical boundaries but unlimited room for creativity.

"Music has endless learning curves in its all aspects"

 

let every painter paint, and poet sing
and all the sons (and daughters) of music ply their trade
machines are weaker than a beetle's wing......

 

It's hard to break the rules meaningfully if you don't know them.

 

never fear the increase in doorways to information

 

1.yes but it's not just a music thing, i see a painting i wonder how it was made, unless u mean everything down to how a DAW is programed
2.yes but also knowing more means you don't have to rely on someone else say for mixing & mastering

 

bottomline: you don't HAVE to know how everything works to create good music!

 

But you need to know much more to create a good sounding track. Mixing and mastering *properly* is very technical and demanding. My take on the subject is that in the best case you need at least two people to collaborate, to make great sounding music. One technical and one artist. One that knows a lot about the tech, mixing, mastering, sound design and one that is creative and musical. I'm a tech kinda person generally and I miss someone more creative than me. But I make do somehow and it feels great!

Still, I've been out of collaborations for about two decades and I've learnt how to deal with it. I've kinda developed a split personality and I keep myself from mixing the two when I make music. I must say that my tech side is what I prefer, but my creative side is more important since you can't mix music without having any tracks to play with.

Being a self-produced musician is highly complex. You also need to possess songwriting skills. That's kinda like a third person.

Does knowing everything I know about mixing and mastering makes it easier for me? Of course it does! Learning tech has always been the easier part for me and I suppose for all the other people, too. The hard part for me was to let go of the tech person and just be creative. I still often struggle with it.

My rules: when you're being creative, be creative. When you're mixing and mastering, do it the best you can. Superstitions are for dumb people. Be smart and knowledgeable. Know your tools well, minimise the amount of tools to the ones you like the best and use them fully. Try to be the best at everything. Learn how to separate your creative side from your tech side.

Or learn how to collaborate with people. It really pays off to be able to focus on just one thing, I think. You should be able to decide what's right for you. I'm rather anti-social, so I kinda didn't have a choice.

Cheers!

 

Last edited: Mar 5, 2018

Do you really think the essence of math is materialized in a calculator?

Then please show me the ape with a calculator solving a single mathematical problem (mathematical operations don't count as problems).

Of course it essential everywhere in live to know what you are doing when you want to be efficient and have a goal in mind. But that doesn't mean you have to know everything down the single electrons moving. The mechanical, plain and receipt like stuff can be left to the machines. That's what they are built for.

 

i think that was wrong, but i also could say something,
if we have math and calculator, where the equations need to be solved?
iv found the true problems there, its aesthetics of the listener's and market investors.
everything not about music itself.

 

I’m building a bass guitar and trying to calculate the tension on a single lower E, 1.1mm in width with a round wound nickel plated core, tensioning one end on the nut with a tensile strength of 531 (MPa)at the bridge.
I have calculated an amount of allowable slip of 2mm using the formula X= (E A s/p)^0.5 which of course accounts for torsional loading not transverse loading.
But I’m confused, because if slip is the same as elongation while tensioning, the formula gives a value more than the length which is not possible.
Moreover the effective force after slip should be nil as slip = elongation and the corresponding fatigue will violate the basis of all Newtonian laws pertaining to rigid body dynamics.

PS. Don’t worry. I’m using fishing line for the strings after all.

 

When I do mastering I better know how everything works or at least have a good experience or intuition about it. As for the mixing the other day I was with a new talented producer, we were talking about how to make a track in a nutshell. I wrote him a a quick paper about regular arrangement tips , music theory, mixing tips, examples of creating tension/resolution, structuring by volume, frequency and so on. He was like a sponge cause he really wants to improve. Later he suprised me with a good track he made, and we were amazed how some of the typical rules and tips I gave him were already being followed in that track he structured by heart.

So you do not need all rules, tips and patterns to create a good draft, a good idea, but music still follows rules and patterns. There is this motto "if there is a rule break it", the problem is often ppl do not know any rules, so how can they break them and push things forward.

I am very passionate about music, so for me learning every single bit is a pleasure, even dsp math. What I like about music is that you can check if something works almost instantly. So, when knowledge works use it, if not drop it, but creating a good sound doesn't happen by accident. At some point of the process of a good song there is someone who knows what he is doing.

 

- these are my rules too.

 

No intention to offend, but I'd aim back the 3rd question to you; what's your intention with this post exactly?

To answer;
Knowledge is the path that is required to gain skills, and skills are what makes you better at production. Be it, theoretical knowledge, or physical; With every repetition of what you do, you aquire a form of knowledge even if it's not academic knowledge (as would be music theory, mixing strategies, etc).

For the academic-specific, knowing how things work, and how are made, and what's the theory behind it allows you to know what would be convenient for a given circumstance, and what to be broken for a given experimentation or for seeking the "out of the norm".

So, to the questions:
1- Yes, every bit of knowledge I can aquire is well recieved, be it if I look for it or if I come across it just by accident
2- A problem of definitions with the word "exactly", but yes, knowing do result in better music
3- I have many aims and music production is one, not so acting virtuous, that is not -and should never be- the purpose of knowledge

In footnote I'll add that there'll always be outliers; that is, people who can tell you exactly what happens but cannot produce - those would be people who don't put into practice their skill aquired (which is fundamental, theory in itself comes as useless if it's not used). And in the other hand, talented people (that is, born with the talent) that don't need the knowledge, it just comes natural to them... but even then, they can expand by knowing.

Hope the answer helps

 

It doesn't do any harm, and I would rather have some knowledge instead of no knowledge. Besides, knowing the rules allows me to write song outlines in 3 minutes

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2018

Your analogy is incoherent. Mathematics and music could not be more different. Music is an art form, mathematics is a tool. Music is material, math is abstract. Music is subjective, math is objective (when applied to the real world, at least). Comparing the two is meaningless.

 

Last edited: Mar 6, 2018

Of course knowledge of how music works also allows you to conduct in-depth analysis on the the work of others, which can be very beneficial when it comes to making your own music.

 

didn't you leave

 

You 're talking about yourself obviously. The rest of us either know what they 're doin' or are in a learning process. How's the weather in Hamsterdumb, Trolland ?

No, i'd rather stay ignorant and illiterate for all my life. Oh sorry my bad, then i would be you and this ain't possible...

Not at all, i think i can drive without knowing how to shift those gears and use the steering wheel and accel/brake pedals etc. Of course i will kill a few hundred people in the process but that's alright. Now that i think about it, perhaps in Trolland your species fly ?

It only takes a kindergarten song and a 5 yo to look like a virtuoso when compared to your "music production".

Perhaps you should try to forget you learned how to speak altogether, because this ain't helping one bit mate. Not by a long shot. People learn theory and tech to better themselves as musicians and humans. Apparently, you have no need for such petty knowledge since you have mastered the art of trolling and you continuously try to prove the unprovable just because you exist as the most vocal troll in this forum with a myriad of nonsensical threads. I am surprised people still answer lol. You may seem immune, but you 're just the person who 's been spat upon and says it's raining. And if you are wondering why i answered is just to troll back atcha. Fight fire with fire, an eye for an eye and all that lol.