Studying Music Technology

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
ekwipt
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by ekwipt »

Here in Australia University is not free and an arts degree would cost somewhere around $20,000. I did a Bachelor in media arts film and tv. Went back to uni at 24 and finished at 26. I made some good mates and a few connections but I have to say. If you know roughly what you want to do, don't waste your time at uni. Your much better off starting out as a runner/pa or whatever in a studio or broadcast place. You'll also be thousands ahead which you can supplement your shit income redefining your career with

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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Barfunkel »

arkos wrote:
ross-alexander wrote:Follow your heart mate you'll regret it if you don't.
Amen to that, live's to short to be working a job you hate.
Then again, life's gonna really suck if you're basically unemployable.
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Stace
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Stace »

If I had the chance to I would do it without hesitation. It is better to try and regret it than to regret not trying :)

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ross-alexander
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by ross-alexander »

An arts degree isn't really vocational directly so if that's the only reason to do it tread carefully. I don't know what the score is with payback on loans these days if tI hat's on the horizon be very careful. The idea of being a runner is a good one. I know someone that did that in film and has made a very good job of it. Another guy I know did this in the 3d animation world.

I don't know mate tricky one I only owed 3k after my degree years ago. For what I got out of it I don't know if I would feel the same with 27k debt coming straight out of my wages when I hit threshold.

I ended up teaching which lasted a while. Now my job is based around a much cheaper city and guilds qualification and I don't work full time so remain creatively fulfilled and happy as a hobbyist.

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terryfalafel
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by terryfalafel »

I agree in principle with the idea of 'follow your dreams'. It has a nice sentiment and it definitely has a basis in truth.

But, when it comes to taking a degree in the UK these days and coming out £20k - £30k in debt or even more, it seems foolish to not have a clear plan about what that degree is going to assist you to do to pay the money back. Cos having that debt round your neck potentially for decades als isn't exactly living the dream.

The days of getting a degree in any subject and it it being free / reasonably cheap, and then it assisting you in entering the job market even in an unrelated field are long gone.

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Re: Studying Music Technology

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ross-alexander
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by ross-alexander »

terryfalafel wrote:I agree in principle with the idea of 'follow your dreams'. It has a nice sentiment and it definitely has a basis in truth.

But, when it comes to taking a degree in the UK these days and coming out £20k - £30k in debt or even more, it seems foolish to not have a clear plan about what that degree is going to assist you to do to pay the money back. Cos having that debt round your neck potentially for decades als isn't exactly living the dream.

The days of getting a degree in any subject and it it being free / reasonably cheap, and then it assisting you in entering the job market even in an unrelated field are long gone.

Very true this sadly 30k is no joke debt that's a major hurdle to get over.

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ross-alexander
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by ross-alexander »

Seriously now, sad as it is to say it its really not an option unless you are wadded enough to avoid debt :(

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Hades
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Hades »

terryfalafel wrote:I agree in principle with the idea of 'follow your dreams'. It has a nice sentiment and it definitely has a basis in truth.

But, when it comes to taking a degree in the UK these days and coming out £20k - £30k in debt or even more, it seems foolish to not have a clear plan about what that degree is going to assist you to do to pay the money back. Cos having that debt round your neck potentially for decades als isn't exactly living the dream.

The days of getting a degree in any subject and it it being free / reasonably cheap, and then it assisting you in entering the job market even in an unrelated field are long gone.

I honestly think I learned more from 1 year of working than I ever did in 5 years at univ,
but yeah, of course a lot depends which studies you did.

Thing is, as someone here already mentioned (barfunkel I think), in a lot of universities, the things they teach is sometimes miles and miles away from what you need in the real world.
And if the education is gonna cost you that much, perhaps you can do better things with even just a part of that money to fullfill your dreams.
I mean, I did a shit slave job for 15 years which got me absolutely nowhere, but I did have extra time to spend on my music and I slowly used the money from the stupid job to build my studio.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do next, going back to study for 2 years might be an option, but I'm really reluctant to do that.
At the moment, I'm just spending as much time making music as I can. And if I see a job that I like I send out a cv.
But I've definitely had it with doing a shit-job for years and years that makes you totally miserable in the end.
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Barfunkel »

True, most jobs are learnable by practice. The problem is landing that job, without a degree. At least here in Finland employers way overvalue education nowadays, there are schools for pretty much everything (including stuff didn't need an education 10 years ago, like cleaning, warehouse work etc) and if you don't have a degree, it's close to impossible to get a job.
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quest
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by quest »

my advice is either go all in or don't go at all.

i actually dropped out of a masters in music technology because the school was too elitist and had stupid rules (couldn't bring your own gear into the labs, couldn't take other seminars *within the music department*, only music technology (really wanted to take an audio recording seminar, George Massenburg was teaching)).

this was coming out of a straight up music degree that did basically nothing for me, except expose me to music technology. i was a music teacher before i started, and after i graduated, i could become... a music teacher. with more debt. didn't make sense.

so i knew it was go all in or run away to another country.

i actually ended up doing both.. ran away for 1 year, then came back and bit the bullet and did computer science. once i learned to code getting a good job was in the bag.

but i realized i kind of hated coding regular boring things. i wanted to code audio and graphics applications and do research and all that.

so i busted my ass in that degree, got all the maths for graphics and stayed in the labs evenings and weekends after everyone else left. i was so burnt out by the last semester i had to defer 3 final exams because my health was fading fast.

finally managed to finish, but it still took me a full extra year to find the kind of job i was racking up all this debt in the hopes of getting. suuuuper luckily i found an r&d job in audio for virtual reality 2 months ago, and here i am now, tripping balls doing audio programming for alternate realities.

so what can i say. i was way healthier before i started all this mess 10 years ago. i was pretty happy too. but there was still an emptiness inside me, like i had to do more with my life than just be a music teacher forever.

it was a long road but at least i managed to miss some of the least innovative years in the electronic music scene.. the era of pressing play in ableton and auto beatmatching decks.

and i gotta say some crazy stuff is just around the corner, which will be a big win for artists that can adapt to the new platforms quickly enough.

the first (good) virtual reality music videos are going to be completely insane

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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Hades »

quest wrote: it was a long road but at least i managed to miss some of the least innovative years in the electronic music scene.. the era of pressing play in ableton and auto beatmatching decks.
I recently ordered myself a traktor controller,
I actively DJ'ed for more than a decade,
and the plan was to buy a new mixer after my old DJ mixer was borrowed to a teenager who wanted to start DJ'ing.

It arrived a week ago...
it's shiny big round controllers look at me every time I enter and leave my studio.
Somehow I'm afraid to install it on my 2nd laptop and start.
I know it should be easy as fuck, but I'm afraid I'll just end up using al my spare time just making DJ mixes instead of making music.
who the fuck needs yet another DJ, right ?

maybe next week, there's gonna be a terorrist attack on some hipster DJ happening or something,
754873 got killed, things improved 0.03%...
life's full of surprises, you know ? ;)
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Mattias
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Mattias »

So much good thoughts and knowledge from you lads and lassies. Makes me proud & happy being around you crazy cunt. :)
Music Page: http://www.facebook.com/Mattias.Fridell.Music
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SixOfOne
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by SixOfOne »

quest wrote:my advice is either go all in or don't go at all.

i actually dropped out of a masters in music technology because the school was too elitist and had stupid rules (couldn't bring your own gear into the labs, couldn't take other seminars *within the music department*, only music technology (really wanted to take an audio recording seminar, George Massenburg was teaching)).

this was coming out of a straight up music degree that did basically nothing for me, except expose me to music technology. i was a music teacher before i started, and after i graduated, i could become... a music teacher. with more debt. didn't make sense.

so i knew it was go all in or run away to another country.

i actually ended up doing both.. ran away for 1 year, then came back and bit the bullet and did computer science. once i learned to code getting a good job was in the bag.

but i realized i kind of hated coding regular boring things. i wanted to code audio and graphics applications and do research and all that.

so i busted my ass in that degree, got all the maths for graphics and stayed in the labs evenings and weekends after everyone else left. i was so burnt out by the last semester i had to defer 3 final exams because my health was fading fast.

finally managed to finish, but it still took me a full extra year to find the kind of job i was racking up all this debt in the hopes of getting. suuuuper luckily i found an r&d job in audio for virtual reality 2 months ago, and here i am now, tripping balls doing audio programming for alternate realities.

so what can i say. i was way healthier before i started all this mess 10 years ago. i was pretty happy too. but there was still an emptiness inside me, like i had to do more with my life than just be a music teacher forever.

it was a long road but at least i managed to miss some of the least innovative years in the electronic music scene.. the era of pressing play in ableton and auto beatmatching decks.

and i gotta say some crazy stuff is just around the corner, which will be a big win for artists that can adapt to the new platforms quickly enough.

the first (good) virtual reality music videos are going to be completely insane

Interesting to read your story as I can relate somewhat to it. Glad to hear you stuck at it and it worked out well for you.

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Hades
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Hades »

Mattias wrote:So much good thoughts and knowledge from you lads and lassies. Makes me proud & happy being around you crazy cunt. :)
what do you know, really, you Swedish cunt ! ;)
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quest
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by quest »

WARNING MEGA-RANT ALERT
Hades wrote:
quest wrote: it was a long road but at least i managed to miss some of the least innovative years in the electronic music scene.. the era of pressing play in ableton and auto beatmatching decks.
I recently ordered myself a traktor controller,
I actively DJ'ed for more than a decade,
and the plan was to buy a new mixer after my old DJ mixer was borrowed to a teenager who wanted to start DJ'ing.

It arrived a week ago...
it's shiny big round controllers look at me every time I enter and leave my studio.
Somehow I'm afraid to install it on my 2nd laptop and start.
I know it should be easy as fuck, but I'm afraid I'll just end up using al my spare time just making DJ mixes instead of making music.
who the fuck needs yet another DJ, right ?

which controller did you get? i got these so i could fit em and a laptop in my backpack and hit the train to go to a city with an actual scene for DJing
2x http://www.native-instruments.com/en/pr ... ontrol-f1/
1x http://www.native-instruments.com/en/pr ... ontrol-z1/

couldn't be bothered with the waveform displays in the fancier models. i want to just use my ears. i ended up setting up to mix down the 50 or so tracks i've been working on in the past year to stems format, then the idea is to DJ stems of my own tracks as a "live set". or DJ set.

I don't give a damn if someone called it live or DJing. maybe i wanted to do whatever blurred the border as much as possible to try and make a gesture that we should just get over bickering over the differences.

who needs another DJ? I do! I think Stacie's mixes kill it way more than some of the DJs that take themselves so seriously and also a lot of the live acts that take themselves too seriously anyway. the selection in this mix is phenomenal.



i guess what i really want is to bring back the reeeeeally old spirit, i mean, look at this video:

youtu.be/ANvIvWLSSno

look at the Goldie interview at the end... i mean... mfing Goldie! Not taking himself seriously at all, and he invented Jungle pretty much.. this was before they even called it Jungle.. was just Hardcore before that name was repurposed..

i threw a show on Hallowe'en, was trying to go for that, but some of the people didn't get it.. it's been so long since we were partying like this over here, the "platform dancers" i had (unlike the ones in this video) i had just couldn't let the music move them, even though i showed them the video, and was like "just dress casual, just be like these dancers in this video". they were so used to dancing superficially.. and dressing in superficial costumes... i was really disappointed.

we're so far from where we used to be, so damn it, Lost in the Void is right, we've got a long, loooong way to go to get things to be like they used to be, even moving forward.

damn it, damn it, Goldie even tries to give N America advice around 58:30 and we didn't listen to it.. Toronto let the exact same thing happen as did in the UK, check http://www.thecommunic8r.com/2009/05/wh ... in-toronto

(thinking about this now because I'm back in Toronto now for the first time in a long time, I guess)

so I don't know, Void was right, we're gonna have all this killer new tech in the next 5 years, and it won't automatically make things good, it depends on us, doing creative things and not selling out and doing cheesy commercial crap with it... attracting kids back to the underground like that, just like the first time around in the late 80s when people were sick of cheesy 80s pop crap and wanted something more real.

So what happened was like

youtu.be/WY87o9IZXWg

everyone just danced.. nobody took themselves too seriously. what is it going to take to get that back again? is it virtual reality? or audiovisual synthesizers? or some other trippy thing we're gonna have before long?

why am i rambling about all this? this was what kept me going studying music technology and graphics and all that the past 10 years.. trying to figure out the answer to this. a way of helping conjure a good scene again because by the early 00s it was clearly fading fast.

but the better question is - how do you make it last? does everything have to go through this cycle from the underground and into the mainstream and then selling out?

maybe it's a good thing we can't really make any money with this stuff these days because maybe that's the only way to break that cycle.

anyway, study music technology because if you do then you too can help solve these problems. we need to create the industry for ourselves because to this day, i still can't promise a band i can bring them into my studio and produce a hit album that'll make them even enough money to cover costs. i know Massenburg said "I would advise young engineers that the first thing that you have to forget about in making serious records is the sales."

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_ar ... nburg.html

but.. things nowadays are pretty extreme. maybe the first step is tearing down all the walls that social media set up.
i was in a scene my last city had for a full year, got to know when the techno parties were happening because i got to know everyone in that scene because i was back into producing again (and now DJing too). but god help me if i wanted to go to a drum and bass party, i'd have no idea when or where they were happening, and have no real way to find out (Resident Advisor doesn't really list even close to all the events happening, at least in N America).

used to be you could go to a nightlife site and see all the parties happening in a city at a glance. now all of our internet infrastructure is set up with such a strong emphasis on the individual, with cliques based on friendships and "friend-to-friend" party invites, it's totally messed up.

in this one fb group one guy was like
I miss the centralized forum for different genres that NWT used to provide. As time has gone on my exposure to different dance genres has reduced and I find the scenes I know anything about anymore have calcified to the house scene (which is vibrant, diverse,and overlaps significantly with both mainstream clubland and more vibey underground. It can easily be mistaken for Seattle's only dance scene unless you know better) and the trance scene which has some accessible shows but is mostly left to the world of mouth/ancient mailing list crowd. I have no idea where to go for drum and bass if I decided I wanted to go tonight, for example. I think there's a weekly at Baltic Room, but I'm not sure and am uncertain where to go for details. Of course I could find this information out if I had the time/inclination to research a bit, and there is something to be said for having to put effort into seeking out specific things, but I wonder if it's ultimately a disadvantage to keep our scenes in positions where you need foresics to find them. Then again, maybe I'm not utilizing some new toolset correctly and am still looking to use the internet like it is 1999. Is there an app for that in Seattle? I was working with Decibel on their app a few years back and we were developing ways to make it relevant year round. Was there success anywhere else on that front?
In the meantime I still walk around with my ‪#‎nwraves‬ IRC badge in my man bag (got myself into sold out/private events a few times with that) and I've actually found myself looking at flyers again, sometimes in actual music stores, which is kind of fun and brings the thing full circle.
so i said
I think Rob makes a good point altogether, and I personally blame Facebook's individually-focused structure on it. I started going to events in the 90s and by late 90s early 00s my area at the time (Ottawa/Montreal/Toronto) all had amazing night life websites that had a centralized event listings section and you could always know what was going on in each city any time you wanted, for any electronic music genre.

Resident Advisor sort of tried this on a global scale but it is so commercialized people don't really go for it, especially in N America.

What I'm thinking of doing is bringing something like this back, except it would use the "when in Rome" approach and be like a backbone for Facebook-listed events, a site you could browse by city and would show you a calendar of events linking out to the Facebook listings.

Then hopefully it could do the opposite, so there'd be a Facebook app that promoters could use to automatically list their Facebook event on the site when they create it here.

It'd be fairly easy to code since it'd just be a directory of links to Facebook events, and the Facebook app could pull the images and event info directly to copy onto the site listing.

I'll let the group know if this gets going in 2016 : )
maybe this is a way better approach then just putting out new tech, that doesn't change anything on its own. really need more multi-room events over here in way-less-united-than-Europe N America and then all the cross-pollination and hype and build-up can happen again just like the first time around.

house and techno started on their own in their own cities but that didn't last for long...

something's gonna give over the next few years, i'm sure of it.

arkos
Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by arkos »

Quest I was gonna read that all but damn that is way to long to read :D

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quest
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by quest »

sorry arkos. It's really difficult to try and go outside of the box of what's "acceptable" and really try to speak out. Taking a chance.
I guess i'm trying to tell a story of why i studied music technology, as weird as it may sound.
this forum is as good a place as any (sorry to the OP too though)

it was always about reacting to what was happening in the scene (remember, North America has often had a pretty depressing scene compared to Europe, but it was not always the case), and then realizing that there are certain ingredients that go into every wave of the scene in just about any music style.

studying classical music history alongside electronic music history really helped see the patterns.

it takes two ingredients - inspiring invention, use, and modification of novel technology, and then also a restlessness in a demographic of the public to want change and to support people trying to make change.

but i think there's another part to the discussion - whether people think that the arts and music scenes in general are benign, just "entertainment", or if they're more than that. i was convinced in the 90s that the scene that was alive then was a lot more than just "entertainment", but after going to events for a year, the events to me really did feel like just entertainment, they lost all of their magic they used to have before i went into school (and I had a sinking feeling this was happening before starting school).

when in school i led perceptual experiments to try and see if an average person could distinguish whether some styles of music had "more to them" than just mere entertainment or not. Something like this:

http://www.freesound.org/people/lunar7/sounds/328099/

Long story short, during my degrees I began to research whether there is something more to styles like techno and ambient/drone music, using biofeedback equipment. All done off the academic radar as they would only ridicule my efforts. Turns out they actually have a certain effect on brainwaves not really observed in most other styles of music. Other styles like minimalist classical, world music like balinese gamelan, african hand drumming, etc., also had this effect.

So I am convinced that a scene can be based around a principle that this is about a lot more than just mere entertainment.

For me, setting forth to theme event series, production and DJing style around this principle is the way forward, the way out, a way of trying to inspire another wave in the scene besides trying to get new technology out there, and trying to convince other people that this is what they should want too.

There was so much innovation at the beginning of the electronic music scene, but it ramped up and plateaued and now it's just been kind of coasting, same old, same old. Something needs to give. And people's attitudes need to go back to how they used to be. Less ridiculing each other, less separationism, more enjoying and celebrating music for the spirit of it, maintaining positive attitudes, supporting each other, etc.

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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by Lost to the Void »

Some new, good recreational drugs need to emerge or shit ain`t going nowhere in dance music land.
The ecstacy wave has long crashed now, and like it or not, that wave fueled the worldwide dance music movement.
Smartphones are shit drugs.
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New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

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quest
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Re: Studying Music Technology

Post by quest »

Man i hear you. It's all written up in these old diaries:
http://www.thecommunic8r.com/2015/12/se ... rave-diary
First it was social media, and then the smart phones. Then came the selfies. Why are we allowing ourselves to be so individualized, and lapping up every spoonful?

I like it better here on subsekt than facebook because people are still willing to have a real conversation.
I of all people should want to keep this thread on topic, I f***ing gave my life to music technology.

Maybe I just don't have the nerve to start a proper topic about this. I think I wanted to wait until I could say I was taking some kind of action that actually makes a different, so that I wouldn't be all words and no action.

Edit: I remember the parties around 99 or 00 when the gangs were starting to come in and beat up all the honest dealers. Then the quality started to go down. Now people are dying because they get something laced with fentanyl.

Are we really so powerless to just let things keep sliding? Guess I'll soon find out.


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