This is very true. However, many of those people can show you how to learn it in half the time it took them. Or more.

All the shared software, videos, pdf books, are an anti-gatekeeper situation. You do not need to be famous and getting every NFR you can shake a stick at to try everything out. If you want to learn something, you generally have access to it without getting out your credit card, just to check things out before getting ripped off by fake hyped-up "pro audio products". People will keep information to themselves, but not if you ask them. How many times have you been using something wrong or whatever, and when someone shows you the right way; of course you ask eventually "And you knew this the whole time?" only to get a reply like "Oh, I assumed you knew that ". Like that recent guitar guy video of him input clipping his line in audio before it ever hits the processor of an amp sim. " Why do none of these compressors work like you guys say?". "Well, we assumed you were not overloading your channel before your plugins can even do anything." Nobody here would watch you do that and think it is funny. Gearspace, KVR or VI Control? They very well might just do exactly that. Maybe even suggest something else to buy.

 

Apart from all the options people are saying
Usually, you can find decent books in your native language that are not expensive.
And they are really really cheap if you buy from thrift stores.
i am one that still order books on amazon occasionally

 

Not to burst your bubble but you can't be anywhere close to having heard almost everything in two years

 

Sure.

And that's why I don't get why this OP is talking about "gatekeeping".

There has never been an easier time in the world to learn this shit the non real hard long way.

YouTube and sites like this and others exist.

No one is gatekeeping here or elsewhere.

It's pretty easy now to figure out shit.

Certainly a lot easier then it was in 1991 etc.

 

I'm not taking much of the original post very seriously. No-one is doing this for 2-3 months, not weeks; and on here asking about the gatekeeping of information. So I just assume it is another bored user thinking they are clever with a new trolling alias and a question they somehow guess will be provocative. Toss in a grenade, put your hands into your pockets, and whistle a happy tune style. Passive aggressive maybe. Come back to a ten page thread by Monday and check what hijinks has ensued. Pretty low effort stuff.

 

"Journey." Sheesh.

 

Recommend me something new that's good, I'm bored.

 

Sounds more like a desire to inflate their perceived value. There's most probably nothing in there at all, or some simple concept one can discover on their own like 64th swing or parallel compression+soft clipping combo.

 

gatekeeping = im not doing everything for you

 

Idk, Tisziji Munoz?

 

I listened to Goodbye Sweet Mother. It's Decent, Started like Coltrane's Ascension but not as refined as coltrane, neither as chaotic as Cassandra Gemini. Then it got boring. It feels like cheap Mars Volta with Jazzy Elements, not much of "new or good". Any fav. track you recommend?

 

Foreword to mods : this is a bit off topic, if asked I can delete it and send it via PM.

Lol okay I understand where you're coming from and why you consider you've heard everything : you've probably listened to one free jazz album, therefore anything remotely free jazz-ish has to be compared to it

Goodbye Sweet Mother, and the album it's on, or anything else by Munoz, for that matter. are pretty distinct from Ascencion. They are improvisational avant-garde free jazz, but the similarities end there. Even Coltrane's other free jazz records are distinct from Ascencion -which is FAR from being his most refined moment of his avant-garde years, btw.

Munoz played on Phraoah by Pharoah Sanders, who played on Ascencion. And it sounds very different from both Ascencion and Munoz's solo albums, and from Mars Volta (who I love, but are nowhere near being the most chaotic music Omar Rodriguez Lopez produced).

I don't want to sound patronizing or anything because I understand your position (as I was like you once ). It's good you're hungry for every type of music out there, never stop looking for new things. I know I still discover new stuff, and I've been actively searching for new music for almost 20 years now. My only advice is to try your best to avoid the "this sounds remotely like X and Y which I know, therefore I'll compare it to them". It's tempting, not only because every kind of music is influenced to some extent by every other kind there is, but also because it feels good to feel like you're a walking musical encyclopedia

But then, sometimes, you come back to some artist you thought you knew, and dig deeper in their discography, and realize that you hadn't even scratched the surface.

For example, I suggest you look into Keith Jarrett and his immense body of work.

His solo piano concerts? Improvisational skills beyond belief, nobody did anything remotely similar (the Sun Bear Concerts boxset alone is worth two decades of your life). His American Quartet? Some of the most spiritually deep yet intellectually challenging music ever created (give The Survivor's Suite a chance, then don't stop listening until you're 70 years old). His Standards Trio? Be amazed at how jazz standards can be re-imagined in ways nobody thought possible before (then listen to Inside Out and Always, two live albums of fully improvised music that sounds more structured than Mozart, and start asking yourself if telepathy is real). His interpretations of classical musicians such as Bach, Mozart, Handel, Bartok? Realize that if he didn't do anything else but these records, he'd still be considered among the greatest classical pianists of all time. His European Quartet? Not my favorite part of his discography, but still great ECM jazz (meaning calm, melancholic, moody, atmospheric jazz). His orchestral work? Yes, he's great at that too. His brief tenure with Miles Davis? If the music itself wasn't amazing enough (spoiler : it is), then it would still be worthy of interest just because it showcases Jarrett's only time playing an electric instrument (spoiler : he crushes it). The rest of his discography (cause, you know, all of the above is not enough lol) ? I mean the guy recorded a tribute album to Gurdjieff (an early 20th century mystic), several albums where he played more than ten instruments by himself (including No End, where he improvised with himself on different instruments), was a sideman on numerous classics by others such as Charles Lloyd and Freddie Hubbard (whose Sky Dive is the only time outside of Miles' band where Keith played the electric piano)..

You see where I'm getting at? This is only one dude's discography, and it would take a lifetime to truly digest it all. And he's not even the most prolific jazz musician either (if you have the courage, foray into the work of Sun Ra lol).

And if you feel like Keith Jarrett is not your cup of tea, put him on the shelf and wait for a while. Sometimes it's good to give things a second shot after we grow more mature. Our understanding gets much wider, and stuff that didn't resonate with us at one point suddenly makes sense.
And if it still doesn't cut it, it's okay. Nobody should force themselves to liking something just because they've been told it's the right way

 

I like pharoah sanders a lot [really enjoyed his new floating points], but I don't feel the same about keith, I'd heard his tokyo concerts but for solo piano works it's nothing compared to richter's well tempered claviers or pictures at exhibition. They are not in the same epoch in aesthetic caliber. I get you like Jazz, I have my time of liking jazz too, listeing to lot of Davis, Coltrane, Mingus, Zappa, Coleman. I am currently really into schubert especially the string quintet, the death of maiden & the unfinished. Also everytime I listen to Wagner's Ring I find something new. It really to me is epitome of musical experience. I would even rank it against bach's mass in b minor or beethoven's 9th or string quartets. Maybe Keith will grow on me in future but whenever I listen to the ring, I find everything bland for atleat a week.

Also, for being complex or the most ingenious improvisation doesn't relate to being aesthetically better. Bach's simplest stuff can evoke such emotion [Also for Nick Drake's Pink Moon]. Schoenberg's Atonic & 12-tone seems bland compared to Brandenberg Cocertos. It takes guts especially when you are taking something like the 9th to work upon like schubert did in his 14th string quartet and succeeding in creating something of same caliber. I'll give keith another listen upon your recommendation. I might have just underrated him, but who knows. Have a good time.

PS - Always remember among us are people who like justin beiber, Coldplay, etc....Lol

 

Last edited: Mar 30, 2024

I don't see how you can compare composed music with full improvisation lol.
Unless you're talking about his classical interpretations. In that case I don't really care about who played Bach best lol.

Then keep walking that path by all means

Never said it's better aesthetically, and have had that conversation a trillion times in my life, so I'll pass

Eh, I'll take Schoenberg over Bach any day of the week. But I'm not having that conversation either lol.

Coldplay have some really cool songs tho.
Never listened to Bieber so can't comment.

 

babeee babee babee ohhh!!!

 

two WHOLE weeks? 3 weeks..... such patience, most would have quit by now.
Led Zeppelin was on their 4th album by 3 weeks, Moby had already been through rehab 8 times in 3 weeks.

Props 4 u dude for maintaining under such a burden.
maybe read a couple books, learn to use your ears to pull apart an arrangement. play with other musicians, ask questions once you understand enough not to be asking stupid obvious questions. Experiment hands on with your gear and understand how it works and how you can modify your signal chain and what happens when you do that.

Educate yourself, don't expect the world to be your nursemaid, that's the path to failure, its always somebody else's fault... anybody can teach you, but only you can learn how to learn.

 

Okay, so I don't know if this has been said yet or not, but THERE IS GATEKEEPING. But this gatekeeping will only occur if someone decides not to share THEIR OWN "SAUCE." And "sauce" is simply how someone personally does something or achieves a sound. In music production, there's very rarely a single way to do anything. That's the beauty of it. If someone says they're gatekeeping something, that may be true, but it doesn't mean it's the only way, or third way, or even 30th way to accomplish it or even achieve something similar (OR SOMETHING "BETTER"). We have tools all over the place, and there are also many different ways to learn them; not everyone will learn them the same way, and not everyone will even use the tools the same way. For example, some people use Serum to make their own synths, but there are also shitttt tonnnsss of third-party presets for Serum (or almost any synth) that you can buy or download. People who specialize in Sound Design will have created many sounds that sound good to THEM, and they lend you their "sauce" when you buy the product.

Your best bet is to not worry about gatekeeping because all you're referring to is the way someone does something, and this is gonna change from person to person, from this tool to that tool, etc. Sure, you may hear a lot of similar stuff, because people copy and emulate what others do (and this can be a great method), but in situations like that, this information is usually so public that it wouldn't be hard to find. Don't look for "right" answers; look for things that interest you, and then ask questions. At this stage in your journey, if you are trying to emulate the entirety of someone else's beat, you need to reach out to that person or to an accessible person who does similar beats, and then ask them to break down what's happening for you, and to suggest tools and sounds for you. And being that you're new, it'd be a great idea to sit and watch people create entire beats. I've been doing this for decades and I STILL do this. I still watch tutorials; I still dig into manuals; and I will always consider myself a learner.

Get in there and get your hands dirty, and have fun.

 

My impression is that audio is this funny space where nobody is really lying but we are all telling half-truths most of the time.

There is quite a heavy barrier to get into audio production, both material and intellectual. You won't produce a decent sounding track if you don't have at least a decent interface, some decent speakers/headphones and a decent computer; which can be pretty expensive as a whole. You won't produce a decent sounding track if you don't have at least some basic knowledge on topics like levels, eq, compression, frequencies, stereo imaging, basic effects... It takes time, research and money to enter the music space even as a hobby; which is by all accounts gatekeeping, at least on a systemic level.

On the other hand, of course, no one is really gatekeeping. If you have time to spend and lots of patience you can find all the information and gear you need to produce some great things. You have way more information and gear than the greatest producers of the past century, actually.

I'd say the actual barrier nowadays is how difficult it gets to gather all this disperse knowledge and to determine which is worth having and which is just useless crap. It's hard to determine which should be your first steps when entering music production, which are the aspects that you should focus on, which are your strenghts and weaknesses; and the fact that the discourse is usually pretty superficial and biased doesn't really help. It gets easier when you've been doing this for some years but, when you're starting, it can get pretty confusing to decide whether you should follow the guy who says "you can't even start open your DAW if you don't have a 117-bits equalizer and a clipper made from actual godl" or the guy who says "you can become the new Skrillex just with your stock effects and some free Juno emulation"

idk, music is hard

 

none of this is true.

most of the music of the 60's was created on equipment we would view as mostly shite. This includes Beatles,Stones,Beach Boys, Motown, Marvin Gaye, etc.
Its all about the composition, the song and the arrangement, the talent as such and the creative ability and the work ethic to pull it all together and not get your panties in a wad, when things don't work the 1st time you try them.

if you don't have a good song, a million plugins won't help you nor the most expensive interface in the galaxy.

 

good music is hard, and if you spend your time making crap music, eventually you will learn how to reduce the crap and make it more better. Its not GateKeeping... its learning how to use your gear and your brain together.

Look at Pink Floyd, their early albums were mostly crappy as compared to their later work. What happened? How did a band that made a song about noises in a cave come up with Dark Side of The Moon, the largest selling album in history? David Gilmour explains it as "we learned to play our instruments and play well together." Echoes was the song that foreshadowed the modern Pink Floyd.

It wasn't GateKeeping, it was playing as much as possible and spending time in the studio when not touring. not sitting on their asses and watching TV.

There is no magic, only hard work and if you love what you are doing then its not so hard. its just staying at it and learning.