Uncomfortable realization (plug-in content within)

[Starship Krupa]

4 hours ago, paulo said:

No song is ever finished.

Some people just fool themselves into thinking that it is.

In the ears of the musician(s) who originally created it, for sure.

There is a problem that has come with this modern revolution where everyone who wants one can have their own bedroom studio.

I'm sure we all remember when just creating a demo was a chore that usually involved spending the entire band fund on studio time.

Scale that up to top level artists, and there were still time constraints and the issuing of a completed record, in order to fulfill contracts and keep the money rolling in. And reading interviews with said big timers, there are very few who don't express that they could have done better on albums that are considered classics. As said Mr. Lennon. I can think of exceptions (Pink Floyd were pretty happy with Dark Side of the Moon).

So there was always a set endpoint at which point the songs were finished. Even with the demo, well, the demo is finished, although we may have intended to re-record them if a record company or other investor comes along.

Now artists can fiddle-fart around with no investment other than their own time. This did happen back in the day with artists who had their own studios (the second Boston LP, IIRC), but was much less common.

Witness all of the remasters running around, some of which improve things (The Cure's Disintegration) and some of which make them worse, IMO (Ulrich Schnauss' A Strangely Isolated Place). In the case of the latter, the original is considered a stone classic to the point that there's a record label and streaming radio station named after it. It didn't need to be remastered. And a problem I'm having is that the original seems to be very scarce.

I don't have an answer for it, I wish I did. The only thing I can think of is putting some kind of external or artificial constraint on the project, which I tend not to do well with.

[Bapu]

When I'm involved in a project, I want it to be presentable as soon as possible (is that considered finished or done?) 

I gently nag the collaborators asking when they think they will be done. Then if I'm the final project repository I mix/master and I keep giving copies of the latest mix to the collaborators for their approval (or until they a sick of the song and give in).

 

 

[mettelus]

11 hours ago, David Baay said:

because I still spend too much time keeping plugins, plugin managers and licenses updated

Another bit of sage advice... I think most of my wasted time (musically) falls into this bucket, especially for things I have and almost never use. It does have "somewhat" of a benefit in that after I have wasted that time, I will follow up with playing sans computer.

Time is the one finite resource that we can exchange for many others (money, education, amusement, etc.) but can never be exchanged back. Tell that to a kid and they will give you the deer in the headlights look, so for them I often caveat that with "once you hit 40, that will make more sense to you..."

[kennywtelejazz]

A little history lesson here  😉 

Times were much simpler when many of us here on this forum were still little babies .  The craft of writing songs involved  the use of some very simple effective writing tools . A musician  would be out having a bite to eat or a drink . Often times a song idea would come to him (or her ) like a bolt of lighting  . Fearing they might loose the songs message and inspiration , the best option for them at the time was to just grab a napkin ,a pen or a pencil , and write the song idea on it .

A lot of  Hit Songs have come about as a result of this time honored simple approach ....I often wonder . Have we or some of us lost our way ?

all the best,

Kenny

Edited April 17, 2023 by kennywtelejazz

[NOLAGuy]

Wel, I too have over 600 plugins but quite a few are duplicates (VST & VST3 versions). I have reached the same point in not adding more plugins unless they are part of the collections that I have decided to focus on (iZotope, NI, IKM, Melda,Sonible) but with one major exception. I am still a sucker to buy plugins that might possibly make my own voice sound better than it naturally is. I am a hobbyist and like to record my own covers of songs I like, but I feel my voice needs some pizazz or magic to make my brain believe that I sound better than I am. So when I see an ad focused on enhancing vocals, I demo it, or if cheap enough, just buy it and play with it when I have spare time. So, armed with Melodyne Assistant, Nectar3, Ozone, and a diverse collection of vocal plugins, I go after the Holy Grail of making my voice sound like I'm really a good singer with a distinctive voice. It's the #1 item on my Bucket List to do that, and I'm getting way closer to needing to complete that List!

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, kennywtelejazz said:

just grab a napkin ,a pen or a pencil , and write the song idea on it .

A lot of  Hit Songs have come about as a result of this time honored simple approach ....I often wonder . Have we or some of us lost our way ?

Interesting question. I would compare it to other technological advancements. I still write down ideas and hum melodies into my phone.

But the slower way that you mention....yeah, it's like the ways Americans travel now. If a destination is more than about 1/4 mile away, we hop in the car. Back when we would have walked that distance (think of childhood), there would have been so many things to see and experience. Figure in longer car trips, coast-to-coast airplane flights, and all that experience we no longer have. There's an entire genre of literature and film devoted to the pioneers who traveled from St. Louis, MO to....wherever.

Today, if I decide I want to visit St. Louis, from where I am on the West coast, if I got the idea in my head in the daytime, I could probably buy a ticket and be there that evening, checked into a motel. The trip would consist of sitting in a padded chair for a few hours, hoping that they had good enough wi fi that I could do exactly what I would be doing at home, then I'd get to said motel and do it some more before going to bed.

Writing letters, heck, writing email between friends is a lost art.

1 hour ago, NOLAGuy said:

I go after the Holy Grail of making my voice sound like I'm really a good singer with a distinctive voice. It's the #1 item on my Bucket List to do that, and I'm getting way closer to needing to complete that List!

The mundane truth that I discovered a few years ago when I was really working on doing good vocals was that the "secret" to improving my singing voice was the same one as for any other instrument: 5% study, 95% practice. Believe it or not, I used to think that people had whatever voice they were born with and that was about it. Learn how to sing in tune and use what the lord gave you. Nuh-uh. Practice singing 30 minutes a day for a week: amazing improvement.

What happened was that I was playing around with the DAW and different mics, recording the same vocal over and over again. By the time I got to about the 15th repetition, over a couple of sessions, I was sounding as tight and smooth as a friggin' barbershop quartet.

[paulo]

11 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'm sure we all remember when just creating a demo was a chore that usually involved spending the entire band fund on studio time.

I always loved that part personally although I did find the pressing of buttons and minimally sliding/twiddling things around on a mixing desk to not be as fascinating as some seemed to find it. If only I'd known back then that I should have paid more attention.....

Edited April 17, 2023 by paulo

[Nick Blanc]

6 hours ago, mettelus said:

Another bit of sage advice... I think most of my wasted time (musically) falls into this bucket, especially for things I have and almost never use. It does have "somewhat" of a benefit in that after I have wasted that time, I will follow up with playing sans computer.

Time is the one finite resource that we can exchange for many others (money, education, amusement, etc.) but can never be exchanged back. Tell that to a kid and they will give you the deer in the headlights look, so for them I often caveat that with "once you hit 40, that will make more sense to you..."

I started with a schedule this year. If there's one thing I'm good at, is to adhere to a self set schedule. I can be very disciplined. This comes in handy with getting/staying fit, and now it flows over to my music. Sunday is livejamming and recording, monday is beatmaking, tuesday is learning/practising an instrument, wednesday is jamming/having fun/sounddesign, thursday is producing, friday is hardware day (synthesizers) and....here it comes....saturday is, amongst other, maintenance. I get up, get a cup of coffee and do all my update and install work. 

[paulo]

5 hours ago, NOLAGuy said:

but I feel my voice needs some pizazz or magic to make my brain believe that I sound better than I am.

I think most people who are not great singers (aka most people) probably dislike the sound of their own voice when they first hear it, myself included. It took a while, but in the end I decided to just get over it and do the best I can. The decision to record a few "unplugged" / minimal backing songs without a big mix to hide behind was a big help for me in getting over it.

[kennywtelejazz]

16 hours ago, paulo said:

No song is ever finished.

Some people just fool themselves into thinking that it is.

Songs ?  

Last time I checked Guitar Players don't care about no stinking songs ! All most of us really care about are Epic Guitar Solo's .

Admittedly many of us do fool our self's  into thinking we may be the one guitar player who can come up with an Epic Guitar Solo that can match the luscious tones , intensity and phrases of the iconic guitar solo Jimmy Page played on Stairway To Heaven  

If we can't achieve that lofty goal , then some of us fool our self's into hoping the day will come when we can come up with an original guitar riff that matches the memorable ear worm worthiness of Smoke on The Water or Iron Man . Oh Yeah ! IN GUITAR WE TRUST ! 

Kenny

Edited April 17, 2023 by kennywtelejazz

[paulo]

20 minutes ago, kennywtelejazz said:

Songs ?  

Last time I checked Guitar Players don't care about no stinking songs ! All most of us really care about are Epic Guitar Solo's .

Yep. This is why you never hear of any positions vacant for a guitarist/mixer. 😀

[abacab]

3 hours ago, kennywtelejazz said:

Last time I checked Guitar Players don't care about no stinking songs ! All most of us really care about are Epic Guitar Solo's .

Hey , wait a minute! What about Epic Synth Solos?

For example, "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter? FYI: ARP 2600 with remote keyboard.

 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by abacab

[User 905133]

EPIC Synth Solo fore sure!!!!  The Alto Sax Solo ain't too shabby, either and the Q/A C/R duet drum interactions are just plain fun.  Thanks for posting!!  I hadn't seen this specific performance before.

[abacab]

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

EPIC Synth Solo fore sure!!!!  The Alto Sax Solo ain't too shabby, either and the Q/A C/R duet drum interactions are just plain fun.  Thanks for posting!!  I hadn't seen this specific performance before.

https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/05/08/the-story-of-edgar-winters-frankenstein/

“The original riff for that (came) back when I was playing with Johnny (Winter). As a matter of fact, we played it at Woodstock.

And that’s a little known fact. I had written that riff basically thinking (how) I wanted an instrumental that I could use as a showcase. I thought of myself as an instrumentalist, though not as a singer at all.

I wrote the riff just thinking of that particular blues trio. Now what would be a cool, really powerful riff that I could use as a basis for a song? (Sings opening riff.)

I said, ‘That sounds really powerful and sort of bluesy.’

And I was playing Hammond B-3 and alto sax. And I also played drums as a kid. Played all of those instruments in various bands that Johnny and I had together.

And I said, ‘Well, I’ll just use this instrumental as sort of a platform. And I’ll play a little organ and play some sax.’ And then we had two sets of drums onstage. And I did a dual drum solo with Johnny’s drummer, Red Turner, and we played that song all over the world and then completely forgot about it. I didn’t think of it for years.

Then, with the advent of the synthesizer … I had just seen the synthesizer in various music stores. Manny’s in New York was the most popular music store. And I’ll never forget walking through the store and looking at these new synthesizers.

Basically, there were Moogs and ARPs back then. And the Moog was a built-in unit with the keyboards being a part of the control unit itself. But the ARP-2600 had a separate keyboard, a remote keyboard that was attached to the brain or the guts of the instrument with an umbilical-type cable. I looked at the keyboard and I said, ‘Wow, that looks pretty light. It looks like you could put a strap on that thing like a guitar.’ That’s exactly what I proceeded to do. The rest, as they say, is history."

[Starship Krupa]

On 4/15/2023 at 10:14 PM, mettelus said:

How many of the VST variants from MComplete did you install (that could be over 400 right there if you did them all)? Melda is good for GAS relief (especially FX). Every time something new (or "free") gets touted, I take a pause and think about if I already have it.

Sage advice here... the enjoyment of how you spend your time is what matters most... I have spent many hours just playing without recording anything and never once felt like I wasted my time.

I only ever install VST3's if the plug-in is available in that format (and works correctly in that format vs. the VST2 version). It was 27 new products, some of them with variations as far as number of outputs, so about 30 new plug-ins. I don't install every MeldaProduction product; some of the newer ones sound better than their older versions, or have features that eclipse ones I bought previously. No MReverb or MReverbMB, no MFreeformAnalogEQ, no MDynamicEQ. The first two sound nowhere near as good as MTurboReverb and the second two are products with reduced feature sets compared to others in the line.

Yes, for a hobbyist, there is no such thing as wasted time at the DAW. But if one does have certain goals, like "I would like to have something to put on Bandcamp," or "I want to make something that other people can listen to," then play can turn into procrastination. I think it's good to be in the "play" state, but there is a "get it finished" state, too. They're both fun.

Just the other night, a friend of mine was asking about a sound he heard on a song that could have been the person's voice, or her cello, either one obviously processed. So I tried to see how fast I could duplicate it with free plug-ins, and it turned out that a sine-y patch in TAL-Noisemaker (my favorite "simple" synth), MVibrato, and KHs Delay (with formants because I knew it was her voice) nailed it. 15 minutes after his query, I sent him a sample of me noodling in the same key as the song and explained how I did it. Fun!

[kennywtelejazz]

8 hours ago, abacab said:

Hey , wait a minute! What about Epic Synth Solos?

For example, "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter? FYI: ARP 2600 with remote keyboard.

 

 

 

One of the best concerts I ever went to was back in the day when both Johnny and Edgar did shows together .The first time I heard Frankenstein Johnny invited Edgar on stage and the band went into this tune...Johnny on guitar , Rick Derringer on guitar Edgar on synths and horn , Dan Hartman on bass , those players I remember + there  was a mix of Johnny's Band and Edgar's Band ...The show I saw was pretty much what they were doing for live shows as per the Tobacco Road Live album.

Back then Edgar was still very young , he was also very charismatic and he put on one hell of a show musically and visually when the band played Frankenstein ....

To this day Frankenstein is a tune I really enjoy on many levels .Later on in life I caught Rick Derringer playing it with his band and I got to talk with him after his show ...

I'm such a lazy bum I should learn how to play it....anyway thanks for posting your example of Epic Synth Solo's .....

Kenny

[abacab]

1 hour ago, kennywtelejazz said:

Later on in life I caught Rick Derringer playing it with his band and I got to talk with him after his show ...

Further down the rabbit hole we dive... Speaking of Rick Derringer, I just ran across this performance. Bonus: Ringo Starr on drums! Edgar is also there on the keys, but no solos this time.

This is my favorite song by Rick... Man, that dude has some chops!!! Wait for his solo around the 4:00 minute mark...

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by abacab

[Starship Krupa]

Okay, I'll hop in here.

When I was 11 years old, the album that "Frankenstein" is from, They Only Come Out At Night, was the most terrifying album cover I'd ever seen in my life:

Gotta hand it to Ed and Rick and the boys, the "Frankenstein" riff....wow. I'm pretty sure I saw a Midnight Special appearance that was the source the video. I showed it to a friend of mine, 20 years younger, and he said "Reznor must have seen this when he was a kid." Trent would have been about 7 to my 11 when this came out and I have no doubt it made an impression on his eventual Nine Inch Nails stage persona.

Youngsters of my generation were exposed to some brilliant rock showmanship thanks to Burt Sugarman and Don Kirshner. Ones that stood out: Winter, Neil Young (with Crazy Horse, he had a roadie bring out a fan to blow his hair around on "Like a Hurricane"), Gary Wright (also strapped on the keyboard), Robert Fripp (with Frippertronics, that appearance rewrote my DNA), The Bee Gees (doing this weird departure for them called "Jive Talkin") Brownsville Station (Cub Koda had great schtick), Bowie's 1980 Floor Show, Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare....

[ralfrobert]

On 4/17/2023 at 1:52 AM, Bapu said:

When I'm involved in a project, I want it to be presentable as soon as possible (is that considered finished or done?) 

I gently nag the collaborators asking when they think they will be done. Then if I'm the final project repository I mix/master and I keep giving copies of the latest mix to the collaborators for their approval (or until they a sick of the song and give in).

 

 

Sounds like good project management. 

[Zargg]

On 4/17/2023 at 1:52 AM, Bapu said:

When I'm involved in a project, I want it to be presentable as soon as possible (is that considered finished or done?) 

I gently nag the collaborators asking when they think they will be done. Then if I'm the final project repository I mix/master and I keep giving copies of the latest mix to the collaborators for their approval (or until they a sick of the song and give in).

 

 

I Am quite certain that NagBap 3.0's algorithm might be tougher though 😁