Automation - what do you usually automate?

[Hades]

Let me ask you this : is there ANYTHING at all in your productions that you are prepared to spend several hours on, something that is in essence really boring ?
And I'm not talking about sound design because that part can be great fun as soon as you've mastered the basics and you use a synth with enough knobs/sliders and an intuitive interface.

Not really, no. My music is a hobby.


Definition of hobby

: a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation

or

an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation:


Why would I have a hobby I don't enjoy or find boring? I have no professional goals, I'm way too old to dream about things like that. Can you think of a single, good reason why should I start treating a hobby like I would treat a job? A job that will never earn me a dime, I might add. I can't think of a anything, nothing, nada, zip. It makes no sense,from my point of view, to spend 50 hours mixing a techno track like you do. It wouldn't turn me into a professional,so it'd be just wasted time.

how about : really wanting to get better at something ?
and : making good music even better ?

you're always going on about your "capturing the moment", but you can perfectly capture the moment and then try and make it better afterwards by making your mix sound better, using automation to keep things more interesting, etc etc etc.

Jezus man, so many people play football as a hobby.
I'm quite sure most of these people prefer playing football itself rather than running a few laps around the field to improve their condition,
yet most would see this as a simple necessary boring part of becoming a better football-player.
IS THIS THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND FOR YOU ????

I like cooking.
I have a preference for slow cooking or for asian dishes, and usually don't like too much of the fancy work.
Yet once in a while I will make something I don't really enjoy making that much, just to learn something new, gain some extra experience.
I don't like cooking so much that I'll put as much time in it as I would in automation,
plus I probably won't be able to use the extra gained knowledge when I go back to making the stuff I usually prefer to make,
where as with automation I know it will help with each track I make.

Here's the thing, once again, you are lazy barfunkel.
You have no logical reason whatsoever not to use automation or better mixing or whatever.
NONE, apart from the fact that you don't have the patience and discipline for it,
so you just say you prefer it "raw", and "it's only a hobby" and blablabla.

You're asking about the production secrets of your so loved "90's techno".
I'm 500% sure you'll never use any of these techniques (even if they're pure gold) if you try them out and find out they take up too much of your time.

Music is a passion for me. I consider "hobby" a completely inadequate word to describe the way I feel about listening and most definitely making or playing music.
Especially the French word, which is even worse : "passe-temps".
And if your motivation to explain why you don't want to do anything boring is that you're not gaining any money out of it,
then that's even the saddest excuse I've heard you use of all the ones you've been inventing all the time.

Of course people don't have to go to the other extreme of spending 40 hours on a mix like me (mind you, arrangment is included in that process), but last time I did that was on the track in my sig, and it already hit 1500 plays in 4 months.
If I would have just made a quick jammy arrangment and wouldn't have bothered with any mixing, I doubt it would have been played 1/3 as much.
I used to suck at arrangment and mixing because I didn't like doing it, so I barely spent any time on it.
Untill I once made a track where I kept going back to the mix/arrangment, and saw what it can do to improve a track.
Sure, it was boring as fuck, but I just consider it a boring part of an otherwise great hobby.
read : part !
it's not because there are a few things boring here or there that the whole thing is boring.

[Hades]

not a crappy renault clio engine, innit?

might I kindly remind you my first car was a Daihatsu Cuore Sportivo, already ugly as fuck in bright yellow,
but the previous owner had racing stripes on it, and "streetmachine" painted on the front.
It was "given" to us by my mother in law, who knew perfectly well I hate bright colours.

looks like this, but with extra stupid racing stripes :



I got laughed at pretty much everywhere I went, but it did save me once from a hoard of totally drunk (and obviously violent) neo-nazi's
(but you probably already heard that story).

of course I like a beautiful car, but in essence it's only a means of transportation from A to B,
and I'd rather spend money on an instrument than on a fancy car.

[Wiu]

Automate the automation. Anything that stays the same for any more than like 3 seconds is way too 90's really. Loopy shit that won't stand the test of time.

Yeah that was meant to be a joke. And yah, loopy 90's Techno is fucking delicious and will be long remembered, for me at least. That's not to say that there isn't a shit tonne of fun to be had messing around automating things. Always leads to some nice sounds. Automating Ableton's GUI colour scheme is a feature I so reckon they should add.

[Barfunkel]

Music is my hobby as well. But still i want to sound as good as possible, nothing wrong with being good at your hobby. I mean,if your hobby is tuning cars, you would save up for the best engine you can afford, not a crappy renault clio engine, innit?

I wouldn't mind getting better. But, I would never turn my hobby into a chore, that would defeat the purpose. I'll try to improve AND keep the hobby a fun activity.

Makes fun when you listen to your recent (better) tunes compared to the ones you made 2 years ago. Trust me.

I think musically my best stuff is the stuff I made with the Nintendo DS a few years ago, but it's of course sonically a bit lacklustre, being made with a children's handheld gaming console. My sonics are usually just a byproduct of what gear I happen to have at the time. Usually not that much, I can't afford to own tons of gear at the same time.

I don't think my best tracks are sonically THAT bad to be honest, no matter what Voidloss or other people say. I often use DJ mixing software and blend my unmastered music next to commercial, mastered releases and compare the tracks. My tracks often have too much really low frequencies, which are easy to sort out in mastering with some EQ. My tracks lack a bit of punch cos I don't own any compressors, but again, the mastering process might be able to do something about that too. The midrange of my tracks is often the Achilles heel, which is partly down to synthesizer choice. The majority of my synth parts are made with an Elektron Analog Four, which is not like a 303, ie. it doesn't sound great across the whole frequency spectrum no matter what you do. It has sweet spots here and there, mostly in the low and the high frequencies. At least I was never able to get a strong, midrange-y lead or a chord sound out of it, when I owned it.

Currently I'm unable to make music the way I want, as I'm selling some gear in order to buy some new stuff (and to support myself, sadly, as I've been unemployed for a long time now). I've been playing around with some software, but I really hate the process, drawing notes, moving blocks about. I want to record stuff live, turn knobs, move sliders, create the arrangement as I record. Push or Maschine would help of course, but I don't want to spend money on ITB solutions.

[Barfunkel]

Long rant snipped

Why are you so angry when some foreign online guy you never even met treats his hobby like most hobbyists treat their hobbies? Me not caring much about fidelity doesn't take anything away from you.

And besides, I'm not lazy. I work hard as hell to improve myself in other fields. Music is something I do to relax, so I'd have the vigor to concentrate on my other activities.

[Hades]

Long rant snipped

Why are you so angry when some foreign online guy you never even met treats his hobby like most hobbyists treat their hobbies? Me not caring much about fidelity doesn't take anything away from you.

And besides, I'm not lazy. I work hard as hell to improve myself in other fields. Music is something I do to relax, so I'd have the vigor to concentrate on my other activities.

mate, I am not angry at you,
you are just an extremely irritating person to have a discussion with.
you just can't do a decent discussion and you keep on fooling yourself with half-baked arguments.

now you just ignore any of the stuff I said because you just don't have any reasonable argument to reply with.

I'll repeat one little thing :
if it turns out that any of the production techniques someone tells you for your 90's techno turns out to be too much of a hassle, you're just never gonna do that.
you are lazy.

you say you're not lazy ?
ok, in what "other fields" do you work hard as hell then ?

[Barfunkel]

I'll repeat one little thing :
if it turns out that any of the production techniques someone tells you for your 90's techno turns out to be too much of a hassle, you're just never gonna do that.
you are lazy.

Depends exactly of course how much of a hassle it would be. If it takes 20 hours of sitting at a computer to get, say, a nice kick then I probably wouldn't bother. But if it's involves buying a new piece of gear and learning how to use it to it's maximum potential, then sure, I'm up to it. I love learning new gear and techniques for it, assuming the gear has a good UI.

you say you're not lazy ?
ok, in what "other fields" do you work hard as hell then ?

You can ask any of my former employers exactly how lazy I was. I've always done what had to be done and then some, at work.

Speaking of hobbies, I currently work like 4-6 hours a day on one hobby of mine, trying to improve my skills to a level that would allow me to make a living of it (again). It's mentally very demanding as I need to concentrate on it 100% or I'll lose money instead of win it.

[Hades]

sure man, excellent answer : I'll contact your previous employers since I have all their contact details anyway

quit being vague man,
what hobby are you working on 4-6 hours a day ?
and you say you only work on it that much since you're hoping to gain money out of it ?
that's the spirit man !

btw : since when is 4-6 hours a day a lot if you don't have a job anyway.
I easily spend 8 to 10 hours a day on my music currently since I quit my job a few months back.
and then there's still the kids and the big house and all the rest of the daily life stuff to deal with.

[Barfunkel]

sure man, excellent answer : I'll contact your previous employers since I have all their contact details anyway

quit being vague man,
what hobby are you working on 4-6 hours a day ?
and you say you only work on it that much since you're hoping to gain money out of it ?
that's the spirit man !

btw : since when is 4-6 hours a day a lot if you don't have a job anyway.
I easily spend 8 to 10 hours a day on my music currently since I quit my job a few months back.
and then there's still the kids and the big house and all the rest of the daily life stuff to deal with.

I play online poker.

It's fun, too, but I mostly do it for money. I used to be a professional some years ago, but I didn't keep up with the times and my skills got outdated so I quit for a long time. Now I'm trying to improve my chops and get back to it. I make some hundreds a month from it currently, but my plans include playing more and playing higher stakes, to make a living off it again, instead of just the beer money.

It's mentally very taxing, because even winning players have losing streaks due to bad luck. You can play (and play well) for, say, 50 hours and be down lots of money, hardly any other job is like that. It's sometimes difficult to keep believing you can beat the field during such a streak. Playing it 8-10 hours a day is VERY difficult due to this and due to the absolute concentration it requires. Losing concentration for 5 seconds can mean losing everything you won the last 2 hours.

Wouldn't recommend it for most people.

[Hades]

I play online poker.

It's fun, too, but I mostly do it for money. I used to be a professional some years ago, but I didn't keep up with the times and my skills got outdated so I quit for a long time. Now I'm trying to improve my chops and get back to it. I make some hundreds a month from it currently, but my plans include playing more and playing higher stakes, to make a living off it again, instead of just the beer money.

It's mentally very taxing, because even winning players have losing streaks due to bad luck. You can play (and play well) for, say, 50 hours and be down lots of money, hardly any other job is like that. It's sometimes difficult to keep believing you can beat the field during such a streak. Playing it 8-10 hours a day is VERY difficult due to this and due to the absolute concentration it requires. Losing concentration for 5 seconds can mean losing everything you won the last 2 hours.

Wouldn't recommend it for most people.

wow ! what a solid plan !

people insist on calling it luck

that's a quote from Rounders, which is definitely one of the best poker films I ever saw.

Seriously man,
you can't believe how many times I talked to "professional" poker players or people that thought they were winning a really decent amount of money with poker.

Poker is sold as a "cool" game, it's really popular amongst the teenager/student crowd nowadays.
I used to get so pissed off seeing these adds for casino's everywhere, when I knew I'd only get the potetic gamblers on my line.
One of the most depressing calls I ever had went like this :

"am I disturbing you ?"
"it's a 24/24 line sir"
"yeah, but it's 3AM"
"and you thought of that after you called ?"
"I just went to Maastricht, and I lost 200.000€"
"sir, if you wanna get excluded from casino's, you need to do ....."
"but that only works in Belgium, I went to Maastricht, that's in Holland"
"I know perfectly well where Maastricht is sir, but if you say you drove all the way to Holland just to gamble, then I strongly suspect you are already excluded from every Belgian casino,
so I don't think there is anything I can say to you that might help you"
"but I just lost 200.000€"
"yeah, tough luck"
"but... that's 200.000€ !!!"
"sir, if you can even take 200.000€ with you, it means you can probably afford to lose it,
it's not like a lot of banks even have 200.000 in cash ready to go.
so what the FUCK do you want me to say to you ? I'm sitting here, working my ass off for a seriously underpaid overstressed job, doing graveyard shifts,
and I should feel sorry because you just wasted 200.000€ in a few hours time while so many people can't even afford decent food or proper housing on our planet ?"

and then I had a call from a truck with a breakdown, so I gladly put the guy on hold, and thank god for him he just hung up,
or I would have really enjoyed telling him what a total prick he was.

Now, just for the record : this was one of the many many lines I had to deal with,
Belgian government gets millions a year from casino's, and then all they do is open up this little line at some "they'll do it all" dispatch center,
so they can say they are giving "support"...
None of us ever got any "training" to deal with this shit,
and I can guarantee you from personal experience that 95% of the people that called were not at all planning to quit gambling,
instead they kept on gamblig all the money away,
leaving their wives (most addicted gamblers are men) and children without any money and in the end their houses were gambled away.
The other 5% of the calls I got were from their wives, desparately trying to stop them from gambling away everything.

Do you seriously think there is a chance you'll actually win more than enough times to make a living out of this if casino's let poker games into their rooms ?
Casino's are like insurance company's, they calculate their odds very efficiently, and it happens almost never that they lose in the end.
So yeah, what is it about poker ? Is it all about skills or is it about luck ?
because if luck is really that important, why risk a lot on this anyway ?
and if it's only about skills, why wouldn't more people do this in a die-hard way ?
Like some of the richer folks, who can afford to lose a lot of money while improving their skills ?

And honestly, if you want to win something, don't play online man.
How on earth can you "calculate" any serious bluff-things if you're just playing an online person you've never met ?
At least in real life you can properly look at the person, trying to judge if he's playing a game or not.
You can't imagine how many calls I had from people to complain about how the websites didn't properly worked when they tried to cash in their money...

there's nothing wrong with enjoying a game of poker, but if you seriously think you're gonna make a living from it...

keep on fooling yourself man.

[Barfunkel]

Lol.

Like I said, I used to make a living out of it, during the big poker boom when casinos both off- and online were full of really bad players who had big dreams with zero skills. I played professionally for 3 years, without a single losing month. Then training videos and books started to come about and the average level of players got higher and I didn't update my skills fast enough, so my winning style turned into a breakeven style, so I quit for years.

All in all, I've played approximately 5000 hours of poker, which means (multitabling 6-10 tables online) that I've played about 2,5 MILLION hands of poker. It's of course in theory possible that I've just been extremely lucky during those 2,5 million hands. But, it's a bit unlikely that it's the case.

It's of course extremely difficult to beat both the field AND the casino rake. You have to be in like the top 5% players of the casino. Some are, most aren't. Some are not but have the potential to improve.

But anyways, profesional poker players exists. They are not a myth. I personally know DOZENS of people who played winning poker for years. They are of course rare, especially in 2016, but rare doesn't mean impossible.

Note: I was never a high stakes professional. I didn't make millions or anything like that. I played low to mid stakes poker, making about the same as I would make at a normal job.

[Faust]

but I didn't keep up with the times and my skills got outdated so I quit for a long time.

Sounds.....

kind of lazy.

I'm assuming you play cash tables (pretty difficult to 'make a living' off SnG's and Tourneys). And assuming you play something like 5 or 6 tables at a time (again, pretty difficult to 'make a living' if you are not multi tabling at least this amount), finally assuming you are playing the odds, variance, and your cards, rather than your opponents (difficult to play the players online if you are multi tabling).

That shit definitely isn't fun.

Dunno man, I could be wrong of course, but Its a rare breed that finds that shit fun; grinding like that is hard work (because it becomes a bot like automated process, going through the motions and muscle memory type shit).

If you find that fun, power to you man, honestly, respect.

- however, automating a parameter spoils your music making fun?

c'mon man, I think you just like arguing

Do you seriously think there is a chance you'll actually win more than enough times to make a living out of this if casino's let poker games into their rooms ?

Actually they take a cut (called a rake) of each pot . You are not playing against the house so to speak - The casino host the game and take a cut of each pot. You play against other players cash and not the house.

So yeah, what is it about poker ? Is it all about skills or is it about luck ?
because if luck is really that important, why risk a lot on this anyway ?
and if it's only about skills, why wouldn't more people do this in a die-hard way ?
Like some of the richer folks, who can afford to lose a lot of money while improving their skills ?

Skill and math, luck plays a very small part if you understand the skill and math. The reason people can be pro players is because most people who play dont understand the odds etc, they dont understand skill and math elements of the game, they just gamble and play the luck. Its all about avoiding the good players, playing against the bad players, and spotting the best places (based on math, and other things) to get your money in. If you keep doing this then the math and laws of variance wins.
To use a football analogy like your self - If football was only about skill then why dont more people get good enough to become pro. - Its more complex than that as Im sure you know.

And honestly, if you want to win something, don't play online man.
How on earth can you "calculate" any serious bluff-things if you're just playing an online person you've never met ?
At least in real life you can properly look at the person, trying to judge if he's playing a game or not.
You can't imagine how many calls I had from people to complain about how the websites didn't properly worked when they tried to cash in their money...

Surprisingly easy to get a read from a player online from play and betting patterns. However, reading people isnt that important really. Online and 'live' need different skill sets. And the best players play online. Online is the best place to play.

Once upon a time I made a living playing online for close to two years.

Anyways, I rarely post, but -
A: Barfunkel - man you are frustrating.
B: Poker is definitely a game of skill with millions of players making a living from it sat at home in their undies eating Cheetos. When you play poker for a living, the amount of people you meet who assume its a mugs game with no skill is almost everyone. You know when people ask 'what kind of music do you like' and you die a little inside from how that conversation is probably going to go. Well its the same as when people say 'what do you do for a living' and you play poker

[Faust]

On topic (while Im here, would be rude not to).

I automate anything and everything. Anything is fair game.
I do it live - then 'clean up' afterwards. Usually to a really anal standard where Im really concerned with how it looks rather than sounds. Its kind of a weird thing I have that I fight with everyday.

[Barfunkel]

but I didn't keep up with the times and my skills got outdated so I quit for a long time.

Sounds.....

kind of lazy.

I'm assuming you play cash tables (pretty difficult to 'make a living' off SnG's and Tourneys). And assuming you play something like 5 or 6 tables at a time (again, pretty difficult to 'make a living' if you are not multi tabling at least this amount), finally assuming you are playing the odds, variance, and your cards, rather than your opponents (difficult to play the players online if you are multi tabling).

That shit definitely isn't fun.

Dunno man, I could be wrong of course, but Its a rare breed that finds that shit fun; grinding like that is hard work (because it becomes a bot like automated process, going through the motions and muscle memory type shit).

If you find that fun, power to you man, honestly, respect.

- however, automating a parameter spoils your music making fun?

c'mon man, I think you just like arguing

Actually I do find that fun, assuming I have an edge over the field and can trust myself winning long term. Like I said, I don't recommend it for most people. You have to be able to reach a certain state for mind, where you can be calm and calculative for hours a day with very little room for errors. I like that. It's not much like making music with a computer, actually very very far from it. You can always correct errors when you make music and you can go through any emotion, without it making you lose money. Calm and calculative aren't exactly traits I'd associate with musicians.

I play at the Finnish national site currently,just very small games until I can afford to play higher stakes. The player pool is very small compared to something like Pokerstars, so reads are definitely useful. Most people at the small stakes tables make some sort of mistakes, which I then try to exploit. I know how the other regular, possibly winning players play and I know how the really bad players play.

I play 6 tables at a time. I used to play more, like 10-12, but I think I play my best game at 6. Too few and it becomes boring, too many and it becomes too fast and furious. I've found my balance.

[Hades]

but I didn't keep up with the times and my skills got outdated so I quit for a long time.

Sounds.....

kind of lazy.

I'm assuming you play cash tables (pretty difficult to 'make a living' off SnG's and Tourneys). And assuming you play something like 5 or 6 tables at a time (again, pretty difficult to 'make a living' if you are not multi tabling at least this amount), finally assuming you are playing the odds, variance, and your cards, rather than your opponents (difficult to play the players online if you are multi tabling).

That shit definitely isn't fun.

Dunno man, I could be wrong of course, but Its a rare breed that finds that shit fun; grinding like that is hard work (because it becomes a bot like automated process, going through the motions and muscle memory type shit).

If you find that fun, power to you man, honestly, respect.

- however, automating a parameter spoils your music making fun?

c'mon man, I think you just like arguing

ow god, thank you, finally somebody making a decent argument, holding up a decent discussion.
after the barfunkel stuff, it gets frustrating.

please don't think I'm saying I know tons about poker because I really don't, but I've seen enough about gamblers to know that most likely 80 to 90% of the players fool themselves into thinking it's all about skills, and then when they go berzerk on what they think is a "winning strike", they lose what they won eventually, and then talk about "bad luck".
From what I've seen, the main problem is too many people not playing on skills and always eventually letting their emotions run away with them.

Do you seriously think there is a chance you'll actually win more than enough times to make a living out of this if casino's let poker games into their rooms ?

Actually they take a cut (called a rake) of each pot . You are not playing against the house so to speak - The casino host the game and take a cut of each pot. You play against other players cash and not the house.

[/quote]

I did not know that, thank you for this information.
It explains why casino's would allow a game into their house if the game is all about skill and not luck.
Casino's don't win on luck, they win on odds, and they perfectly calculate their odds every time.

thx for your valuable input !
you should post more often.

[Barfunkel]

A: Barfunkel - man you are frustrating.

Forgot to answer this...

Why am I frustrating? Because I like 80's and 90's music and production methods more than I like current music and methods? Why exactly is that frustrating? It's just one man's opinion, I'm not saying that the government should make plugins illegal. You're free to use those, I just don't usually like using those, because of workflow issues I have with them.

If this was a guitar forum and I made a post about wanting to play like Hendrix or Clapton, people would point fingers at me and laugh and tell me to forget that old fashioned shit and use the latest guitar emulation plugin instead (which actually sound pretty convincing in 2016, so I would totally understand the point, even if it wasn't my way of doing things).

[Lost to the Void]

Frustrating because you live in fantasy land.
You like 90's stuff, as do we all. But you are also lazy and carry hipster "raw innit" memes with your production "ideals". And live in a fantasy land where you think these old records were achieved with can't-be-assed production technique to justify your own can't-be-assed production technique, when in reality these records were made with good production technique.
You come on a production forum where people ask for advice about production and basically say "don't bother, production is unnessecary, the audience won't notice" etc all the time, which is just unhelpful.

You argue against production technique/skills in one hand, but then ask questions about music theory, or even 90's production techniques (that generally require skill aquisition and application) seemingly hoping the answers will be "you are lucky man, the answer to your question is, it doesn't matter, as you can apply can't-be-assed methods here" when the reality is that the answers will be the application and aquisition of skills you are seemingly against.

It all adds up to a confused contradiction of someone caugt up in some romantic hipster ideal/fantasy where good "raw" music is made with absolutely no effort, skill, or possibly even natural talent or passion.
Or
Troll behaviour.

Thats what is frustrating.

It is nothing to do with being against 90's techniques. Its more your illusion of them.
I myself am very much in to old skool production methodology when it comes to mixing.
But it does still require skill.

[Mono-xID]

Frustrating because you live in fantasy land.
You like 90's stuff, as do we all. But you are also lazy and carry hipster "raw innit" memes with your production "ideals". And live in a fantasy land where you think these old records were achieved with can't-be-assed production technique to justify your own can't-be-assed production technique, when in reality these records were made with good production technique.
You come on a production forum where people ask for advice about production and basically say "don't bother, production is unnessecary, the audience won't notice" etc all the time, which is just unhelpful.

You argue against production technique/skills in one hand, but then ask questions about music theory, or even 90's production techniques (that generally require skill aquisition and application) seemingly hoping the answers will be "you are lucky man, the answer to your question is, it doesn't matter, as you can apply can't-be-assed methods here" when the reality is that the answers will be the application and aquisition of skills you are seemingly against.

It all adds up to a confused contradiction of someone caugt up in some romantic hipster ideal/fantasy where good "raw" music is made with absolutely no effort, skill, or possibly even natural talent or passion.
Or
Troll behaviour.

Thats what is frustrating.

It is nothing to do with being against 90's techniques. Its more tour illusion of them.
I myself am very much in to old skool production methodology when it comes to mixing.
But it does still require skill.

[Hades]

Frustrating because you live in fantasy land.
You like 90's stuff, as do we all. But you are also lazy and carry hipster "raw innit" memes with your production "ideals". And live in a fantasy land where you think these old records were achieved with can't-be-assed production technique to justify your own can't-be-assed production technique, when in reality these records were made with good production technique.
You come on a production forum where people ask for advice about production and basically say "don't bother, production is unnessecary, the audience won't notice" etc all the time, which is just unhelpful.

You argue against production technique/skills in one hand, but then ask questions about music theory, or even 90's production techniques (that generally require skill aquisition and application) seemingly hoping the answers will be "you are lucky man, the answer to your question is, it doesn't matter, as you can apply can't-be-assed methods here" when the reality is that the answers will be the application and aquisition of skills you are seemingly against.

It all adds up to a confused contradiction of someone caugt up in some romantic hipster ideal/fantasy where good "raw" music is made with absolutely no effort, skill, or possibly even natural talent or passion.
Or
Troll behaviour.

Thats what is frustrating.

It is nothing to do with being against 90's techniques. Its more tour illusion of them.
I myself am very much in to old skool production methodology when it comes to mixing.
But it does still require skill.

exactly,
thank you Steve.
though I really don't believe for a second he's a troll.

it's frustrating to think people who don't know a lot about production coming on subsekt, reading your posts, and some of them (the poor lads) actually thinking it doesn't take any skills at all,
"just get a bunch of HW for that "raw" sound, muck about for a while, and hey, presto, you're done".
because you just give up on any technique that will require you to put in some possible boring effort for a few hours,
and then afterwards you will say something along the lines that you don't possibly believe this certain technique makes a whole lot of difference anyway,
most likely contradicting some previous posts you made.

it's really no use discussing with you barfunkel,
everybody ( including myself ) will at some point make "not-so-valid" points, or contradict something he/she (yes Stace, not forgetting you ) might have previously said,
but you sir barfunkel, refuse to listen to anything anyone says, and keep on contradicting yourself on a very regular basis.
for example : now you start mentioning how many games of poker you played, mentioning "it could be luck, but I doubt it",
while just a little earlier you were complaining you could lose it all if you have no luck,
and once again insinuating it's really not about putting in the hours (mixing/arranging/automation) when making music.

so yeah, I really give up,
I mean, I prefer making a lovely pie with potatoes, bacon, plums,... while drinking a good bottle of wine,
perfect to kill the dark depressing weather pver here
and meanwhile responding to my youngest going "daaaaadddddyyyyy ! my shop is open !!! would you come and buuuuyyy something ???"
I don't even like to walk away from a discussion, as I think I've proven enough over the years here on subsekt,
but really, it's just that this is a lot more meaningful way for me to spend my time !

I can believe someone like mr Faust, who I don't know at all (because like he said he hardly posts here at all), when he says he used to make a living from poker playing.
I know these people exist, I'm not that dumb,
but I seriously doubt you'll ever have the patience and discipline to be able to make a living off it if you can't even be bothered to do basic work on your tracks like mixing, arranging, automation,...
You are simply too lazy to do that barfunkel.
I think you're in your undies munching cheetos, telling yourself all kinds of fantastic lies.

[Barfunkel]

Frustrating because you live in fantasy land.
You like 90's stuff, as do we all. But you are also lazy and carry hipster "raw innit" memes with your production "ideals". And live in a fantasy land where you think these old records were achieved with can't-be-assed production technique to justify your own can't-be-assed production technique, when in reality these records were made with good production technique.
You come on a production forum where people ask for advice about production and basically say "don't bother, production is unnessecary, the audience won't notice" etc all the time, which is just unhelpful..

I was talking strictly about live gigs when I said that, I think it was even in the live playing topic. I said something about the audience not caring whether everything is EQ'd and compressed to perfection. Good, entertaining, energetic performance is what rocks the audience, not perfectly EQ'd snares. Live gigs tend to sound like shit compared to productions, in terms of fidelity. Most of the times at least, maybe not at a Toto concert or something.

.

You argue against production technique/skills in one hand, but then ask questions about music theory, or even 90's production techniques (that generally require skill aquisition and application) seemingly hoping the answers will be "you are lucky man, the answer to your question is, it doesn't matter, as you can apply can't-be-assed methods here" when the reality is that the answers will be the application and aquisition of skills you are seemingly against.

It all adds up to a confused contradiction of someone caugt up in some romantic hipster ideal/fantasy where good "raw" music is made with absolutely no effort, skill, or possibly even natural talent or passion.
Or
Troll behaviour.

Thats what is frustrating.

It is nothing to do with being against 90's techniques. Its more tour illusion of them.
I myself am very much in to old skool production methodology when it comes to mixing.
But it does still require skill.

I don't argue against production values or skill. It's just that, when it comes to techno and house, I have different values than you. I love how old Dance Mania records sound for example, even if you think they sound like shit. That's the kind of skill I want to acquire.

I also love Phil Collins as another example, but I'm not aiming for that kind of a sound. I wouldn't MIND having that skillset, but I'm not gonna spend 10 000 hours to Phil Collinsify myself. I'd rather put my mind into sounding more like those those beloved Dance Mania records. I'm 39, I have limited time left to perfect my craft before I turn into an old boring geezer.