Rise of Youtube tutorials and masterclasses..

[seanocean]

I said i was just gonna lurk but i actually have this on my mind. this is something that has a taste of politics, originality, and techno cultural significance..
In the past, or with everyone i've encountered with the subject that nobody really tried to tip their hand when it comes to their secret sauce.. but now that youtube is monetizing and letting people profit off of information, hungry young bucks are flocking to the tutorials and getting lots of views on their channels and also artist like Yan Cook and Umek are doing great lessons and classes online.. some for free some for paid. I think the rise of this has to do with corona virus leading professionals to seek out other sorts of income.

I learned a good tip or two from Yan Cook's recent videos and while Julien Earle's videos are somewhat annoying it's been pretty good to get an an inside ear on the track separations.. though there's not a why or reason behind what Julien states is inside a track.. no way to create those ideas or why those elements are in play. I've been meaning to check out a Abe Duque's production classes as well.

the big question is.. why does this feel dirty to watch these videos? is it because the information cheapens the originality and there's gonna be a copycat cookie cutter sound developing as a trend from these videos? In the past people have been guarded because nobody taught anybody anything and you had to really go through the pain of making your own mistakes for years and if you're tip your knowledge some guy's gonna steal the fire and leave you in the dirt. that's some paranoia but some of that i think leads you to make your own mistakes in a creative way.. whole swaths of new music have been made by people who couldn't do things a certain way and did them 'wrong' and still did them anyway because it's something they enjoyed doing (see joey beltram and his trying to copy early trax records) . so in some ways letting people make their own mistakes leads to creativity and new music.. having a sense of homogenized music will eventually lead to stagnation.

but is it really that bad? in some ways people will see that anybody can do these things and try it out flood the market with crap music.. then again crap music will happen regardless, and opening up people to more technique will help raise the bar. Though on the other hand if there's no mystery, people will no longer associate this as something they cannot do and it cheapens the music as a commodity. like remember that time when everybody learned how to dj at once and to this day you cannot find someone in the world who hasn't tried to be a DJ at one point or another.. while the true heads felt crowded out?

what are your thoughts on this? i feel kind of conflicted.. it could be good, it could be bad.

[Críoch]

I know what you mean.. but I guess the geek in me finds these things interesting & sometimes reassuring when I see how little is behind a sound.

I've watched a few of Julian's vids.. and he is definitely on the money. I think when you reach a certain stage, it's easy to make a carbon copy of something, but its soulless. I like him & respect what he's trying to do with the knowledge sharing.. but the 'engineered ' or ghost production side of things is an empty empty empty void. I see those vids as infomercials in a way. It's the effect it has.

Yan Cook on the other hand is a bit more inspirational, showing a bit of theory & sound design.

Some reviewers are ok. Can't beat Nick at sonicstate. Loopoops vids are cool but the music is crap. Too much gear to know wgatvut actually does.

I'm all for more knowledge & content.

Books are cool , as are documentaries. Room fir everything. Let people eat & be nourished while times are tough.

[borg]

the big question is.. why does this feel dirty to watch these videos? is it because the information cheapens the originality and there's gonna be a copycat cookie cutter sound developing as a trend from these videos?

You should first and foremost enjoy yourself. If it makes you feel bad, then don't watch. But I would say to keep watching, learn, master techniques, and try to re-invent them, combining or interchanging different ideas.
If we could only listen to whoever that did something first, it would be a small playlist.
Enjoy yourself, and let others decide if they like it if you feel the need to share your creations with the world. It also frustrates me, that whenever you get better at something, you first think 'fuck yeah', and that rapidly turns to 'now I sound the same as 90s techno'. It's the same when I play guitar and try to wrap my head around music theory. I may come up with things that sound beautiful to my untrained self, but soon you realize you just played a tried and tested chord progression with a modulation that's child play to jazz musicians. But you can turn that into something original by sculpting your sound and/or combining styles. Techno might be just the other way around: You study and master a sound, and try different melodies/harmonies/rhythms with the tried and tested techno sound.

[Root]

If we'd know how to produce a snowflake, falling snow wouldn't be that magical (in a not esoteric way) as it is. That's because snow isn't predictable and you can't reproduce snow, therefore it's somewhat astonishing, inspiring.. magical for many people. In todays society everything get's more and more controllable and available, what leads to loss of that magic in the world. I mean 30 years ago it's been a big happening when you came back from your holidays, had to wait 10 days for your photographs to get developed and then finally could show them to your friends. Today you can book your all inclusive travel with your smartphone, book every extras you want, know how the place will look like before you'd been there and stay in contact live with all your people while your trip. No magic anymore.

I guess it's the same with the music industry.. everything get's more available, predictable, controllable and loses it's magic somehow. Vice versa we have to seek for unforseen moments, for individual inspiration, when we want things to get to life again.

[Lost to the Void]

I don't mind.
I wish some of this stuff was available to me whe I was starting as it means I would have got up to speed more quickly.
No one really owns knowledge.
I don't mind sharing techniques, I've been teaching one on one and doing talks and lectures for years, and handing out tips online etc. I can't teach people to be creative, to have that spark or know how to access it so all I am doing is giving people tools.
So all it is, is raw technique.
You would hope people would just want to innovate and explore but we still get "how to make that techno bass sound" requests here.
So the knowledge being freely accessable doesn't mean anyone will do anything creative with it.
So is it really giving anything away?
I don't think so..... technique is just technique.
Knowing how to lay bricks doesn't mean everyone is going to build a Duomo Cathedral.
The art is the idea, the craft is just making it happen.
Also, a lot of these videos give terrible advice, so you still have to filter.

[Críoch]

You should first and foremost enjoy yourself. If it makes you feel bad, then don't watch. But I would say to keep watching, learn, master techniques, and try to re-invent them, combining or interchanging different ideas.

Totally agree with this.

Seen recently there's a parallel train of thought to the '10k hours to become an expert' thing. Some.people reckon that all you need is 20hrs. It's quite logical really, focusing on a handful of good material to learn from & then being able to analyse your performance & correct yourself. Some people are lucky that they can just do that naturally & get the result they want. We probably do this regularly for small tasks.

Me personally, theres an argument for 10k hours. I've always wanted to experiment & develop. I feel that I wasnt able to do this properly & uniquely, until I learned a lot & figured out what my sound was.

Learning techniques & 'how do I make..' questions are all gateway things.. but they should lead to the next thing. Your own thing.

It all comes down to whether you're a 10k hrs, 3 hrs a day for 9 years-kinda person, or the 20 hrs prodigy. One is a long road, where enlightenment & integrity is potentially going to be the only reward. The 20hr trajectory may bolt like excited shoots to their first exposure to light, but these surely are the least likely to survive. You can usually tell by the effort gone into someone's DJ logo or 'branding' as to where their head is at.

I see a distinct ethical void between the folk fishing away with homemade rods & the ones who are robbing cheapo fishy fingers from Iceland.

It should be a bit of a journey. Remember Johnny 5.. is alive? Need more input!

Mini rant over

[Críoch]

It also frustrates me, that whenever you get better at something, you first think 'fuck yeah', and that rapidly turns to 'now I sound the same as 90s techno'. Etc..

This is so true. I've got a kill switch in my head that goes off when I unintentionally ape or get quite close to something else.

I was messing around with a thumpy, muffled 909 kick earlier.. spending a bit of time on it.. then made a cool little plucked bass riff with a delay running over the top of it. Out of nowhere & without any warning, Stanislav Toklachev had become my spirit animal.

So I did what any sane person would do. Delete the kick & throw in an 808 drumkit.. which made it sound like it came in the same batch of sperms as UR The Illuminator.

It can happen so suddenly. Delete.

[Críoch]

. In todays society everything get's more and more controllable and available, what leads to loss of that magic in the world. I mean 30 years ago it's been a big happening when you came back from your holidays, had to wait 10 days for your photographs to get developed and then finally could show them to your friends............

No magic anymore.. .....

I guess it's the same with the music industry.. everything get's more available, predictable, controllable and loses it's magic somehow. Vice versa we have to seek for unforseen moments, for individual inspiration, when we want things to get to life again.

Yeah, good point about the photos. It's definitely a case of quantity over quality. Most photos that people take nowadays are utterly worthless. Its utter misery when you accidentally do a 'burst shot'. Same can be said of anything that encourages mass production. You're right. I remember saying my name over & over when I was a kid once until it made no sense. There's only so many male solo acoustic artists or hard dark techno with trance riffs that you can stomach.

Saying that, the quality of the camera in some phones are incredible. I'd a Huawei Pro something for a year & camera was unfuckingreal. Back on Samsung now. Happier not letting my Googles go through China jusf so I can IG my porridge in 4k HD

Really have to make the effort to record special days though & its great to see if a photo is good or bad right away. Don't miss getting that little sticker on photos to tell you that you're crap at taking photos. Killer to have a whole roll fuck up for some reason. Had a OM10 back in late 90s / early 00s. Was hit & miss sometimes . You wouldn't know until they came back. Thick envelope - probably OK. Thin / empty envelope - don't give up the day job..Remember coming back from a weeks holiday with a mate & he was winding up his roll when we got home. When he opened the film door, the film popped out like a snake in a tin. I roared laughing.. which was the wrong thing to do given his disappointment

Thanks for reminding me.

[Lost to the Void]

. In todays society everything get's more and more controllable and available, what leads to loss of that magic in the world. I mean 30 years ago it's been a big happening when you came back from your holidays, had to wait 10 days for your photographs to get developed and then finally could show them to your friends............

No magic anymore.. .....

I guess it's the same with the music industry.. everything get's more available, predictable, controllable and loses it's magic somehow. Vice versa we have to seek for unforseen moments, for individual inspiration, when we want things to get to life again.

Yeah, good point about the photos. It's definitely a case of quantity over quality. Most photos that people take nowadays are utterly worthless. Its utter misery when you accidentally do a 'burst shot'. Same can be said of anything that encourages mass production. You're right. I remember saying my name over & over when I was a kid once until it made no sense. There's only so many male solo acoustic artists or hard dark techno with trance riffs that you can stomach.

Saying that, the quality of the camera in some phones are incredible. I'd a Huawei Pro something for a year & camera was unfuckingreal. Back on Samsung now. Happier not letting my Googles go through China jusf so I can IG my porridge in 4k HD

Really have to make the effort to record special days though & its great to see if a photo is good or bad right away. Don't miss getting that little sticker on photos to tell you that you're crap at taking photos. Killer to have a whole roll fuck up for some reason. Had a OM10 back in late 90s / early 00s. Was hit & miss sometimes . You wouldn't know until they came back. Thick envelope - probably OK. Thin / empty envelope - don't give up the day job..Remember coming back from a weeks holiday with a mate & he was winding up his roll when we got home. When he opened the film door, the film popped out like a snake in a tin. I roared laughing.. which was the wrong thing to do given his disappointment

Thanks for reminding me.

Well the thing with all of this.
It's about authenticity.
Heart and soul, if you will.
Music is art.
Techno.......is art.

At least it should be to have any meaning.

Empty soulless art gathers an empty soulless audience.

So really when you make music, it should, I think, be honest. Art from the heart.
I think lot of music, but techno in particular, is purely functional. Not even that, it's merely a facsimile.
The great thing about techno is that you can really throw together disparate sounds and make it techno.
The terrible thing about techno is that you can throw anything together and make it techno.
You can literally stab buttons on a machine and the machine will make techno for you.
The production quality is high, the artistic quality or input, is low, overall.

A lot of stuff that is out there is just some guy sitting down with no intent, no concept, other than to make techno. So the concept is already fraught with preconceptions based on what other people have done..
So sit down, push buttons until something sounds techno. Make the production polished. Release so you get another gig.

Think about other mediums.
A writer just sitting at a typewriter with no concept, just bashing out sentences similar to other writers. Then sorting out the grammar and calling it a book.
It doesn't really happen.

Good writing comes from the heart and soul.
Same with painting.

I guess I'm talking about creative process rather than production now.

But if you are just sitting down and pushing buttons with no passion or fire or concept, you may as well just be putting together flat pack furniture. You are just "doing something" rather than doing nothing. But does it have any meaning?

Now I don't think I'm special, nor do I think I'm a great artist. I try to make art. I try.

If there is no feeling in me, no concept, nothing to say, then I don't even go into the studio. I see no point in just pushing buttons purely to do something other than nothing.
If a label asks me to do an EP or whatever, if I have nothing for them, I'll tell them, and if they are willing to wait and I spend time and come up with nothing worthwhile then I tell them. Sometimes I'm lucky and the label are totally cool with that, they would rather give me time to do something that I really believe in. Otherwise I apologise and hopefully part with no hard feelings and promise to send something if/when I get something.
I don't know many people in techno land who would do that.
A lot of people will just bash something out just to get the release. Well. Just go surfing on hardwax/beatport and see what that leads to.

So..... To refer to the comment
No magic any more.

Magic will happen when you make it happen.
Art is emotion, expression of the inner self, interpreting the world and yourself through an artistic medium.

Yeah it sounds pretentious, but if it is honest then it isn't pretentious at all. We all know what the alternative leads to.
Empty, soulless, production line junk. Product.....

I'll take some genuine passionate music roughly produced over some slick polished generic happy meal music any day.


So.. invest yourself in your art. Use your emotions. Mine your memories for experiences of meaning. Express these moments however you can in the music.
Watch a film that moves you some way and translate how it makes you feel as music.
Read a book and make the soundtrack to your favourite part.

Express your love, hate, anger, serenity, indifference...whatever.

Don't try to make techno. Make art through the lense of techno.

You might fail.
You will probably fail.

Try again
Fail again
Fail better.

But try.

[mainst09]

Knowing how to lay bricks doesn't mean everyone is going to build a Duomo Cathedral.

[Lost to the Void]

Also, those people who hold their techniques to their chest, like some kid who stole all the candy.
Technique is probably all they have, so they guard it jealously.

Like the saying goes.
Some people are so poor, all that they have is money.

[Ben Kohonays]

people will see that anybody can do these things and try it out flood the market with crap music..

There will always be derivative generic shite. But there will also always be new things to try.

Think of all the artists you really like and I'm willing to bet that ALL of them will have had something original about what they were doing at the time. There will always be copycat shysters, bandwagon jumpers but the true artists are the ones pushing into new territories, experimenting, creating anew. Some of them even invent new genres.

[seanocean]

solid words subsekt fam, glad i came back around here.

[Kromasome]

I like to use tutorials as both education and inspiration. Take bits and pieces from various vids and then apply it to your own productions, in your own way.

I sort of think of it like baking a cake. Give 2 people the exact same ingredients, but quite often the end products will be quite different from each other.

On a bit of a tangent, but I'm still struggling to apply much of the technical advice on a regular basis - I think this is where I could get the most gains in terms of consistently and regularly achieving a high quality result. My brain just starts to turn to mush when I try to tune in to more technical tutorials.

I'm also drawn to tutorials where the presenter is going outside the box in terms of what should or shouldn't be done - like Mr. Bill

[speen]

I totally understand all the words about copycats and the true artists that make music from the heart and are truly original etc.

but I think there is a large group of people that make this music that are not professionals, you can compare them to the millions of guitar players that play licks from their favorite bands and have their own band, maybe playing a bunch of own songs and some covers. Just to have fun..

The big difference is that with techno/computermusic/electronic you can easily create a final product where with a band this is harder, I believe, as you would need a studio, practice together, find decent band mates etc..

So what about all those people, who just enjoy banging out some tunes on ableton or turning knobs on their machines until it sounds right? It doesn't always feel like making art for me, more often it's just a bit of fun and wasting time. Other times it even feels like work!

[Críoch]

When the fun stops. Stop.

[borg]

I totally understand all the words about copycats and the true artists that make music from the heart and are truly original etc.
etc..
So what about all those people, who just enjoy banging out some tunes on ableton or turning knobs on their machines until it sounds right? It doesn't always feel like making art for me, more often it's just a bit of fun and wasting time. Other times it even feels like work!

Exactly! Whenever I make something that is halfway decent and share it with friends, I often get the reaction "why don't you release that stuff?" And that's where Steve's arguments come in.
"Why bother?" I always say. There's millions of tracks out there, why add my own copies to the pile? I'm not gonna lie and say I don't care. For sure I would be fuckin' proud if I could get something properly released, or produce something I would be happy with so it's worthwhile of setting up a bandcamp page. But at the moment I'm doing the 10.000 hours, watching the vids, copying/practicing techniques, start yet another track without finishing the previous ones, and when I'm fed up, grab my guitar.
Another topic, but touching the rock band idea: I feel collaborating with someone else could do me well, at least add to the fun.

I'll dig up my Zappa quotes: "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." You don't have to have a degree in music theory before being able to bend the rules or come up with something original, far from it. But if you want to reach more people than the five persons that find your music freakishly funny and like nothing they have heard before, you gotta have some basic knowledge, imho. Anyone know Larry Wild Man Fischer?

Anyway, enjoy what you're doing, and don't get frustrated too much, and if you do, take it as an encouragement to put in more work.

[speen]

When the fun stops. Stop.

I am going through an art = pain phase at the moment

trying to make beats with Coil samples

[Amøbe]

Lots of good stuff is being said here.

Personally I have had the experience that I feel confident in my technical level for a little over a year or something (people are more than welcome to disagree), and this has made it possible for me to "make music". Like I know my tools, and now I feel a lot more free. This has changed me from a process of copying to a process of creating, and I feel that I finally make something that is much more personal and somewhat original (it's allowed to disagree here as well).

My point is that I for a long time didn't have a community that could help me with improving my technical skills, and if I didn't have stuff like subsekt and YouTube tutorials, then I probably wouldn't have made it to the point, where I feel free.

These days I get more out of stuff like Bad Gear on YouTube, which just shows possibilities with certain gear and not an exact recipe

[Lost to the Void]

I totally understand all the words about copycats and the true artists that make music from the heart and are truly original etc.
etc..
So what about all those people, who just enjoy banging out some tunes on ableton or turning knobs on their machines until it sounds right? It doesn't always feel like making art for me, more often it's just a bit of fun and wasting time. Other times it even feels like work!

Exactly! Whenever I make something that is halfway decent and share it with friends, I often get the reaction "why don't you release that stuff?" And that's where Steve's arguments come in.
"Why bother?" I always say. There's millions of tracks out there, why add my own copies to the pile? I'm not gonna lie and say I don't care. For sure I would be fuckin' proud if I could get something properly released, or produce something I would be happy with so it's worthwhile of setting up a bandcamp page. But at the moment I'm doing the 10.000 hours, watching the vids, copying/practicing techniques, start yet another track without finishing the previous ones, and when I'm fed up, grab my guitar.
Another topic, but touching the rock band idea: I feel collaborating with someone else could do me well, at least add to the fun.

I'll dig up my Zappa quotes: "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." You don't have to have a degree in music theory before being able to bend the rules or come up with something original, far from it. But if you want to reach more people than the five persons that find your music freakishly funny and like nothing they have heard before, you gotta have some basic knowledge, imho. Anyone know Larry Wild Man Fischer?

Anyway, enjoy what you're doing, and don't get frustrated too much, and if you do, take it as an encouragement to put in more work.

That`s a good philosophy. But it can also be dangerous, I know guys who basically spent their (no joke here) entire lives doing the "10,000 hours" thing, picking up techniques, updating gear all the time. "THIS will be the thing that gets me there"....
And they literally have never released anything. Now if you don`t want to release something, and are just having fun, that`s fine. But a close mate was on this tip, wanted to release, it frustrated him, but he never sent a demo anywhere. Despite me lining him up with people and basically opening the door for him, doing everything but speaking for him (I was basically using clout and nepotism to get him a release, but he deserved it, he had talent..... I`ve actually done that for lots of people, come to think of it.... I hate gatekeeping, if you can help and it`s based on merit, then why not..... that`s another discussion), eventually I had to give up, I could see he would have to find his way out of the headspace he was in on his own.... He still hasn`t done anything....

I`m not saying that`s you, but keep that in mind, your inner critic can run away with itself. And it may make a first release disappointing, because you spend so long building to it. And perfection is the mountain with no peak.

Releasing isn`t everything, of course, I love to make music just to make music, Lots of stuff I do is never designed for release in any way.