putting in the hours
putting in the hours
right...
The older I get, the less I seem to have time for music making.
There's various reasons for this :
1. I have 2 kids, who seem to be taking up more and more of my time.
My oldest is 6 (almost 7 now), so she has a lot of stuff you need to learn her at that age : reading, writing, math, riding a bike, swimming,... Of course school and swimming lessons and so on take care of a lot, but there's still many extra hours you gotta invest into your kids if you don't want to be a lazy parent who blames school and/or teachers later if their kid fails in certain aspects of their life.
I do NOT ever want to become such a parent.
Plus I don't want to miss out on their childhood just because I also want to make music.
(my youngest just got diagnosed with Duane syndrome last week. It looks a lot worse than it is (of all "syndromes" this is by far one of the best there is), and she is (and looks) perfectly normal, it just means one eye can't turn as much as it schould, so the other eye takes over the message from the brain and turns a little too much. You can barely see it, so it's ok I guess, but this might give consequences later on in her life like will she be able to drive a car ? or will she have other things that will give her trouble ?? I don't know, but I do know there is nothing they can do about it. You have it for life.)
2. My kids are always allowed to walk into my studio. I even encourage them in a way, because I'm hoping some day they might grow an interest into music playing and/or production themselves.
Even if I hear my mrs saying in the hallway "leave daddy alone for a moment", I still walk out to see what they want/need. I don't want to be this selfish asshole that locks himself up in his studio while my mrs takes care of everything. Downside is, of course, that my kids are walking into my studio far too often, so it's very hard to stay focused and stay in the groove, so to say.
Problem is my wife is sometimes even far worse : she can walk into my studio 5x in the same half hour, just to talk about little stuff that can perfectly wait till later.
3. I'm renovating my house, doing everything I can myself, which means I have spent days, weeks, months, hell the last 3 years doing all kids of manual labour. I've even done similar work in other houses if I needed money for gear.
I love doing this, and I'm very proud of the result, but it still takes up a LOT of time.
Normally, in about 6 months I should be finished with 90%, and the other 10% can wait for a few years later. But yeah, meanwhile, I'm still losing all those days and hours.
4. I have too many other stuff I'm rather passionate about, whether this is reading books, watching films, doing sports, cooking,...
I refuse to just do music only. I know it would give me far more time if I'd let go of some of that other stuff, but I just can't, it keeps me in balance I think.
In the end, I have this great studio that I have far too little time for.
Sometimes the last 2 years it's been a pure paradox : I work extra for gear, but since I work extra I have no time left so the gear I buy stays almost unused. It's just plain stupid.
And if there's one thing I have learned at my age, it's that whatever I became "good" or at least "experienced" with is stuff I have done for hours and hours and hours.
I only got "good" (relative word of course, don't wanna sound like an arrogant prick) at playing piano cause I've been playing it for 25+ years now.
I only got "good" in the gym cause I've been going for 17 years. I did the math recently, and I've most likely did 400.000 to 500.000 of the same boring exercises. But sure enough, now I can just quit for a month or 2, and just walk in and still be at almost the exact level I was when I was in there last time.
My body just adjusted to all those stupid boring workouts.
I only became a big film freak after watching approx 20 films a month for 10+ years.
...
I know my sound design, so I know my way around synth real well (after all the synths I bought and sold I'd better know my way around them), but I still need far more experience in making tracks. I'm not at all happy with most of what I end up with. I want my music making to become as "relaxed" and natural to me as going to the gym or playing the piano is, and that won't come from buying yet another piece of equipment, it will only come from putting in more hours for another few years.
I know this, but now it's about time to act accordingly.
Anyways, I decided to try out a new method to find more hours to make music.
Ironically, it meant I had to buy one more piece of gear : another laptop.
(The new MBP I bought just 6 months ago was so fucking expensive I'm refusing to take it out of the studio for the first 3 years, since that's the minimum I need to be using it to get my investment back)
But I looked at the cheapest, smallest MBP they have, maxed out the RAM to 8Gb, gave it a bigger HD (no SSD, no way, that's for the one at home), and bought it. It works just fine.
So now I'm spending approx 2 to 3 hours each night making music at work. Last night I had almost 4 hours, and I'm kind of happy it wasn't more cause my ears were getting really tired.
If I could keep this up, I could be looking at another 30 hours a month more.
Then if I could find just 2 or 3 days a month, I should have at least 50 hours of music making per month.
I've only started doing this 3 days ago, but yeah, I'm really hoping this will work.
It's all about putting in the hours, and even if I miss some of my HW (mixer EQ, Eventide,... ), and don't like producing on headphones, I'm still advancing by putting in the hours.
I'm making music, damn it, and thats' what it's all about, right ?
(and I'm getting paid for sitting here
)
If any of you guys have other idea's on how you guys try to find more ways to put in more hours for music production, I'd love to hear 'em !
Now I gotta stop rambling (losing hours here) and fore up the laptop now that things have finally calmed down here...
The older I get, the less I seem to have time for music making.
There's various reasons for this :
1. I have 2 kids, who seem to be taking up more and more of my time.
My oldest is 6 (almost 7 now), so she has a lot of stuff you need to learn her at that age : reading, writing, math, riding a bike, swimming,... Of course school and swimming lessons and so on take care of a lot, but there's still many extra hours you gotta invest into your kids if you don't want to be a lazy parent who blames school and/or teachers later if their kid fails in certain aspects of their life.
I do NOT ever want to become such a parent.
Plus I don't want to miss out on their childhood just because I also want to make music.
(my youngest just got diagnosed with Duane syndrome last week. It looks a lot worse than it is (of all "syndromes" this is by far one of the best there is), and she is (and looks) perfectly normal, it just means one eye can't turn as much as it schould, so the other eye takes over the message from the brain and turns a little too much. You can barely see it, so it's ok I guess, but this might give consequences later on in her life like will she be able to drive a car ? or will she have other things that will give her trouble ?? I don't know, but I do know there is nothing they can do about it. You have it for life.)
2. My kids are always allowed to walk into my studio. I even encourage them in a way, because I'm hoping some day they might grow an interest into music playing and/or production themselves.
Even if I hear my mrs saying in the hallway "leave daddy alone for a moment", I still walk out to see what they want/need. I don't want to be this selfish asshole that locks himself up in his studio while my mrs takes care of everything. Downside is, of course, that my kids are walking into my studio far too often, so it's very hard to stay focused and stay in the groove, so to say.
Problem is my wife is sometimes even far worse : she can walk into my studio 5x in the same half hour, just to talk about little stuff that can perfectly wait till later.
3. I'm renovating my house, doing everything I can myself, which means I have spent days, weeks, months, hell the last 3 years doing all kids of manual labour. I've even done similar work in other houses if I needed money for gear.
I love doing this, and I'm very proud of the result, but it still takes up a LOT of time.
Normally, in about 6 months I should be finished with 90%, and the other 10% can wait for a few years later. But yeah, meanwhile, I'm still losing all those days and hours.
4. I have too many other stuff I'm rather passionate about, whether this is reading books, watching films, doing sports, cooking,...
I refuse to just do music only. I know it would give me far more time if I'd let go of some of that other stuff, but I just can't, it keeps me in balance I think.
In the end, I have this great studio that I have far too little time for.
Sometimes the last 2 years it's been a pure paradox : I work extra for gear, but since I work extra I have no time left so the gear I buy stays almost unused. It's just plain stupid.
And if there's one thing I have learned at my age, it's that whatever I became "good" or at least "experienced" with is stuff I have done for hours and hours and hours.
I only got "good" (relative word of course, don't wanna sound like an arrogant prick) at playing piano cause I've been playing it for 25+ years now.
I only got "good" in the gym cause I've been going for 17 years. I did the math recently, and I've most likely did 400.000 to 500.000 of the same boring exercises. But sure enough, now I can just quit for a month or 2, and just walk in and still be at almost the exact level I was when I was in there last time.
My body just adjusted to all those stupid boring workouts.
I only became a big film freak after watching approx 20 films a month for 10+ years.
...
I know my sound design, so I know my way around synth real well (after all the synths I bought and sold I'd better know my way around them), but I still need far more experience in making tracks. I'm not at all happy with most of what I end up with. I want my music making to become as "relaxed" and natural to me as going to the gym or playing the piano is, and that won't come from buying yet another piece of equipment, it will only come from putting in more hours for another few years.
I know this, but now it's about time to act accordingly.
Anyways, I decided to try out a new method to find more hours to make music.
Ironically, it meant I had to buy one more piece of gear : another laptop.
(The new MBP I bought just 6 months ago was so fucking expensive I'm refusing to take it out of the studio for the first 3 years, since that's the minimum I need to be using it to get my investment back)
But I looked at the cheapest, smallest MBP they have, maxed out the RAM to 8Gb, gave it a bigger HD (no SSD, no way, that's for the one at home), and bought it. It works just fine.
So now I'm spending approx 2 to 3 hours each night making music at work. Last night I had almost 4 hours, and I'm kind of happy it wasn't more cause my ears were getting really tired.
If I could keep this up, I could be looking at another 30 hours a month more.
Then if I could find just 2 or 3 days a month, I should have at least 50 hours of music making per month.
I've only started doing this 3 days ago, but yeah, I'm really hoping this will work.
It's all about putting in the hours, and even if I miss some of my HW (mixer EQ, Eventide,... ), and don't like producing on headphones, I'm still advancing by putting in the hours.
I'm making music, damn it, and thats' what it's all about, right ?
(and I'm getting paid for sitting here
)If any of you guys have other idea's on how you guys try to find more ways to put in more hours for music production, I'd love to hear 'em !
Now I gotta stop rambling (losing hours here) and fore up the laptop now that things have finally calmed down here...
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
Stop browsing the net in the evening. saves you a lot of time for beeing productive. That's how i do it. Recently i have up to 6 hours a week for music and i HAVE to use them.
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Lost to the Void
- subsekt
- Posts: 13518
- Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: putting in the hours
If you want to do it, you will do it.
If you have other passions, then you have other passions, don`t worry about it.
Desire is the root of all suffering.
If you have other passions, then you have other passions, don`t worry about it.
Desire is the root of all suffering.
Re: putting in the hours
Mono-xID wrote:Stop browsing the net in the evening. saves you a lot of time for beeing productive. That's how i do it. Recently i have up to 6 hours a week for music and i HAVE to use them.
^^pretty sure that's a good tip right there.
I kicked out cable tv 19 years ago, and I can't imagine the time you'd lose with being a couch potato watching stupid stuff on tv.
I'm even trying to avoid subsekt on my days off (except for answering topics I'm subscribed on).
All this blabbering away of me eats away too much time
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
What Steve says.Lost to the Void wrote:If you want to do it, you will do it.
If you have other passions, then you have other passions, don`t worry about it.
Desire is the root of all suffering.
Do a sample pack of some of that sound design. Record your piano playing or something, make a remix out of it. Let the rest of us make a remix out of it
. There's more than one way to be productive.Re: putting in the hours
putting in the hours man, putting in the hours.
just this week I've come up with a 80% finished track that I'm really happy with
(and one that isn't going to need endless arrangement corrections which is usually where I get stuck),
and 60% of that track was done on my laptop during my nightshifts.
I'm hoping to finish it in the next few days.
playing piano is not the problem. I play 4 hours a week currently, 2 weeks ago I played at least 10 hours.
I once asked a teacher how many pieces you can usually play well. She said most people can only play around 10 pieces well at the same time.
I'm well over 20 and I keep on adding new pieces, I'm usually learning 2 or 3 at the same time, hungry as I am for more more more...
just this week I've come up with a 80% finished track that I'm really happy with
(and one that isn't going to need endless arrangement corrections which is usually where I get stuck),
and 60% of that track was done on my laptop during my nightshifts.
I'm hoping to finish it in the next few days.
playing piano is not the problem. I play 4 hours a week currently, 2 weeks ago I played at least 10 hours.
I once asked a teacher how many pieces you can usually play well. She said most people can only play around 10 pieces well at the same time.
I'm well over 20 and I keep on adding new pieces, I'm usually learning 2 or 3 at the same time, hungry as I am for more more more...
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
Learn to make things really quickly. Get gear/software that is fast and easy to use. Forget about all the fine details, just bang out tracks in an hour. Unless you write a real hit, there's just no point in spending weeks or months on fine tuning. Or at least I see no point, as just a hobbyist. If it's just going to end up on Soundcloud with 50 listeners, who cares if you EQ the snare for 3 weeks or have delicate multilayered synth parts which took you 20 hours to create.
That's my philosophy. If I ever manage to write a good track, I'm convinced it'll get so much positive feedback online, that I'll know it's worth the effort of developing further. Until that happens, I just turn on my machines, jam a bit, record it and call it done.
That's my philosophy. If I ever manage to write a good track, I'm convinced it'll get so much positive feedback online, that I'll know it's worth the effort of developing further. Until that happens, I just turn on my machines, jam a bit, record it and call it done.
"I don't shower every day, but when I do, I do it after listening to some Barfunkel" - Anonymous
http://soundcloud.com/user4904810
http://www.mixcloud.com/Barfunkel/
http://soundcloud.com/user4904810
http://www.mixcloud.com/Barfunkel/
Re: putting in the hours
I partly agree.Barfunkel wrote:Learn to make things really quickly. Get gear/software that is fast and easy to use. Forget about all the fine details, just bang out tracks in an hour. Unless you write a real hit, there's just no point in spending weeks or months on fine tuning. Or at least I see no point, as just a hobbyist. If it's just going to end up on Soundcloud with 50 listeners, who cares if you EQ the snare for 3 weeks or have delicate multilayered synth parts which took you 20 hours to create.
That's my philosophy. If I ever manage to write a good track, I'm convinced it'll get so much positive feedback online, that I'll know it's worth the effort of developing further. Until that happens, I just turn on my machines, jam a bit, record it and call it done.
I definitely like having gear/SW that is fast and easy to use.
I have synths that are endlessly deep and can keep giving new stuff for years, but most of them still have an interface that is easy to work with.
And obviously I use the gear with the best interfaces the most.
But working fast and easy also comes more after you put in more hours with a certain piece of gear making music (or clips).
Just last week I put in approx 15 hours, most of the times making a track using a new piece of SW,
and of course by spending so many hours I'm getting a lot faster at working with the new SW.
but what you say about there no point being in fine tuning a snare if it's just an average track, that's basically what I have with finishing tracks.
If I don't like what I've come up with enough, I don't see the point in finishing tracks.
People say : you gotta do this, you'll learn a lot from it, and sure they are right.
But what's the point in doing this with tracks that in my opinion don't even deserve to get finished.
As you say : for what ? For a half-wit track that has 50 listeners on soundcloud ?
I don't see the point in moving on with a track if I'm not happy enough yet.
I can just re-use parts of the track later on in future projects, or just save clips for my ever growing clip library,
which I might add is a great tool if you're making a track on just the laptop : having many clips made from my HW collection that you can just grab and use even if I'm not at all in my studio.
But in any case : this is why I know I need to put in more hours, then my results get better faster and easier, so I end up with tracks that really keep me going back to them,
cause I really like them and really want to finish them.
I have this one track which I've been going back to for 10 months now, all it needs is a little more percussion and then the arrangment.
putting in more hours...
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
Hades I didn't even think you made music, I just thought you had a bunch of synths
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Ayeken DJ's
- washable
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:29 am
- Location: Scotland
- Contact:
Re: putting in the hours
kids...yep, i have one now and little time to do much now......
Re: putting in the hours
yeah yeah, have a good laugh with me.mint clad wrote:Hades I didn't even think you made music, I just thought you had a bunch of synths
But even if you are serious.
Trust me, I'm not a collector, if it doesn't get used, I'm selling it.
I'm just terrible at finishing tracks, plus I don't want to put half-wit stuff up on the internet constantly.
More than enough shit music out there already.
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helloitsmeagain
- athlete
- Posts: 556
- Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:08 am
Re: putting in the hours
limit yourself to a 140 characters in subsekt posts...
Because of ACiD, i now know that butter is way better than margarine. I saw through the bullshit. - Mitch Hedberg
Re: putting in the hours
Maybe lower your standards to get a more instinctive and so faster workflow.
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helloitsmeagain
- athlete
- Posts: 556
- Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:08 am
Re: putting in the hours
i finger drum at work. has the added bonus of pissing off colleagues.Hades wrote:If any of you guys have other idea's on how you guys try to find more ways to put in more hours for music production, I'd love to hear 'em !
get an ipad. that way when you on the crapper you can make tunes. anyway, i hear everyone is making music on them now. someone in the cubicle next to me at the work toilets was playing with his yesterday.
Because of ACiD, i now know that butter is way better than margarine. I saw through the bullshit. - Mitch Hedberg
Re: putting in the hours
if only I was capable of that...helloitsmeagain wrote:limit yourself to a 140 characters in subsekt posts...
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
helloitsmeagain wrote:i finger drum at work. has the added bonus of pissing off colleagues.Hades wrote:If any of you guys have other idea's on how you guys try to find more ways to put in more hours for music production, I'd love to hear 'em !
get an ipad. that way when you on the crapper you can make tunes. anyway, i hear everyone is making music on them now. someone in the cubicle next to me at the work toilets was playing with his yesterday.
I HATE TABLETS !!!!!
Seriously, they're just glorified entertainment instruments.
(And no way you can seriously make music on them, unless you use them as a controller and hook them up to some serious computer.)
All they're good for is watching some film or series on the train.
Or reading a book, which I still prefer in paper version too.
I hate e-readers, I always have to upload new stuff on my moms e-reader (gift from us) and my wife's e-reader a few times a year and I fucking hate the things.
NOT AT ALL user friendly. Always gives me stress and puts me in a bad mood.
And both of them are computer-illiterates, so I always gotta put in the work...
2 weeks ago one of my nieces fucked up my mom's tablet, so I had to solve the problem.
Just 10 minutes on the thing and I was pissed as hell. I hate those user interfaces and touch screens.
No way you can easily post 50000+ character posts on those !!
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
Hades wrote:if only I was capable of that...helloitsmeagain wrote:limit yourself to a 140 characters in subsekt posts...
On the other hand though, if I'm on a subject that is useful for music production or talks about a piece of gear (which does happen 0.003% of the times I post),
it helps that I type so much.
I just spent 20 minutes posting something for alume talking about drums,
and I remember you once telling me something along the lines like "I know you're not afraid to type a lot so please do so" when you needed to know more info on my Midas mixer.
so yeah, there's that to consider...
the other 99.997% of the times, you just gotta start scrolling downwards.
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
nope. that's not happening.Alume wrote:Maybe lower your standards to get a more instinctive and so faster workflow.
I'm a perfectionist.
I know very well perfection doesn't exist, and if there's a reason something isn't perfect (for example a piano improvisation or a jam on my gear),
I'm perfectly ok with that,
but if I can prevent it from happening, I will.
Too much average shit already.
Lowerig the standards is being lazy.
Sin cambios no hay mariposa
Re: putting in the hours
I wouldn't call it lowering your standards. It's just two different methods, trying to capture the rawness and energy of the moment vs making something more thought of. Kinda like jazz improvisation vs. composing a classical symphony on a piece of paper. Both can result to great music.
"I don't shower every day, but when I do, I do it after listening to some Barfunkel" - Anonymous
http://soundcloud.com/user4904810
http://www.mixcloud.com/Barfunkel/
http://soundcloud.com/user4904810
http://www.mixcloud.com/Barfunkel/
Re: putting in the hours
thats' exactly what I said above barfunkel :
I can live with "imperfections" in jams or improvisations, cause I know that's just part of the deal and it amkes them unique and perfectly "in the moment", so to say.
But if I'm creating a track I will try to give it my best shot to avoid as much imperfection as I can.
Lowering my standards would mean not giving it all I (reasonably) got.
I can live with "imperfections" in jams or improvisations, cause I know that's just part of the deal and it amkes them unique and perfectly "in the moment", so to say.
But if I'm creating a track I will try to give it my best shot to avoid as much imperfection as I can.
Lowering my standards would mean not giving it all I (reasonably) got.
Sin cambios no hay mariposa