OT: Why wan't you tell me the answer?

noisewreck

noisewreck

New member
We've all seen posts where someone asks a question, and people reply, only to piss off the OP because he's not getting the answer he was after right?

Then the accusations fly, that seasoned people are guarding their trade secrets, etc, blah. "Give me compressor settings..."... etc.

Well...
Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?
 
It's like the guy who buys a $1200 Strat & then wants to know why no one will tell him exactly how to sound like Hendrix. I mean, how hard can it be to sound like Hendrix? Right!
 
I only screw with the trolls. I'll answer legit questions. And nobody's gaurding any secrets.
 
musicmachine said:
It's like the guy who buys a $1200 Strat & then wants to know why no one will tell him exactly how to sound like Hendrix. I mean, how hard can it be to sound like Hendrix? Right!
Click to expand...
those guys always annoyed me when I was a kid. I learnt on fairly cheap guitars (I had an Encore then a yamaha pacifica) and a strat always seemed like a magical object to me; something that you dreamed to own one day. When I saw kids that were bought an american strat to learn on, it really annoyed me. Oh well, I've got one now :)
 
Fuck em. Answering questions about shit that is different per track, per song, like compressor settings and EQ is a waste of time.
 
I dunno about the point of this whole thread, but this excerpt from the cited article caught my eye:

>>I will tell you the trick. If you are on a moving bike and the bike leans to the left. How do you prevent yourself from falling? You turn left. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.<<

While to some extent that's true, that's actually a bit of a Cart-Before-The-Horse thing: On a bicycle you don't turn in response to a lean; you lean in order to cause a turn.
 
Bob Ross said:
While to some extent that's true, that's actually a bit of a Cart-Before-The-Horse thing: On a bicycle you don't turn in response to a lean; you lean in order to cause a turn.
Click to expand...
Only when you're in control :) When you're just learning to balance yourself, the bike goes all over the place, you react so you don't fall off. That's what the teacher was alluding to.
 
It's because some questions really are fucking stupid:

Example:
Question "How do I make my kick brighter?"
Answer: "Use eq and brighten it up."
Question: "What frequencies?"
Answer: "The bright ones"
Retort: "WTF kind of answer is that?"
Answer: "The only one we can give because your too fucking lazy to experiment on your own and do what we just said."
Retort: "WTF I'm not lazy fuck you, I listened to your mixes and they suck."

(I know this didn't happen it wasn't totally meant to be that similar and wasn't intended to offend anyone but it puts the point across).

OR:

Question: "Can someone give me some presets for drums?"
Answer: "No presets don't work."
Retort: "I know they don't I just want some to learn."
Answer: "I don't have an hour to put together a fuck ton of presets for plugins and tracks that are different on your end just so you can tell me you couldn't figure out how to use them/ can't use them deeming them like I said USELESS."

Or my favorite ones that didn't include enough information because they couldn't be assed to type out enough information to get the help like so:

Question: I have a firepod and a cubase and the shit isn't working, what's wrong with my setup?

Example of a questions I don't personally find stupid:

Question: "How do I setup a hardware compressor?"
Question: <posts short clip of something they are working on> "Hey I'm not liking how this kick is sitting in my mix any advise?"
Question: "What are some ways to mic up a drumset?"
Question: "What is side chain compression and how do I set that up?"

I'll answer noob questions all day with a smile on my face as long as they warrant a good answer. Shit I'll even go out of my way to hold their hand on it if I think it could benefit the forum (by posting screenshots and step by steps etc...).
 
Guitargodgt said:
It's because some questions really are fucking stupid:

Example:
Question "How do I make my kick brighter?"
Answer: "Use eq and brighten it up."
Question: "What frequencies?"
Answer: "The bright ones"
Retort: "WTF kind of answer is that?"
Answer: "The only one we can give because your too fucking lazy to experiment on your own and do what we just said."
Retort: "WTF I'm not lazy fuck you, I listened to your mixes and they suck."

(I know this didn't happen it wasn't totally meant to be that similar and wasn't intended to offend anyone but it puts the point across).

OR:

Question: "Can someone give me some presets for drums?"
Answer: "No presets don't work."
Retort: "I know they don't I just want some to learn."
Answer: "I don't have an hour to put together a fuck ton of presets for plugins and tracks that are different on your end just so you can tell me you couldn't figure out how to use them/ can't use them deeming them like I said USELESS."

Or my favorite ones that didn't include enough information because they couldn't be assed to type out enough information to get the help like so:

Question: I have a firepod and a cubase and the shit isn't working, what's wrong with my setup?

Example of a questions I don't personally find stupid:

Question: "How do I setup a hardware compressor?"
Question: <posts short clip of something they are working on> "Hey I'm not liking how this kick is sitting in my mix any advise?"
Question: "What are some ways to mic up a drumset?"
Question: "What is side chain compression and how do I set that up?"

I'll answer noob questions all day with a smile on my face as long as they warrant a good answer. Shit I'll even go out of my way to hold their hand on it if I think it could benefit the forum (by posting screenshots and step by steps etc...).
Click to expand...

LMAO!!!! So True!
 
Some people dont want to hear your answer, especially if it means
buckling down and reading, learning something and experimenting.

Instant knowledge isn't really knowledge because tomorrow
they'll be stuck on the same thing again....
 
I think a lot of people don't realise just how much stuff there is to know. I don't think I've ever been a newbie in that way as I took a funny route into recording. I've been basically obsessed with it since i was about 8. I read about it all the time, I read all the books on recording I could find and talked to everyone I knew who had any experience. When I got the internet I spent hours on end looking up stuff about recording and reading equipment manuals. By the age of about 14 I knew quite a lot about recording. I used to design home studio setups when I was bored at school and plan out my ideal rig. The thing was, I never had any recording equipment at all. I got a zoom MRS-4 4 track when I was about 11 but I didn't get a proper setup until I was 17 (fostex R8, Fostex 812 mixer, compressors and multi fx). When I actually got it, I knew exactly how to set up and use it all. i was able to dive straight in and use it and experiment with stuff. It's been the same every time I've bought a new piece of gear. I've researched everything about it and read the manual online before I've even got it. That way I can just use it straight away. I occasionally think when people ask 'newbie' questions that it should be obvious but then I realise that there's a lot of stuff you need to know and that I've been obsessively reading about it for the past 12 years. I suppose it was quite a good, albeit strange way to get into recording. I wonder if anyone else has done the same; skipped being a newbie by studying everything in detail before you own it.

Anyone?
 
I usually try and answer a reasonable question with a reasonable answer.
If I'm in a good mood I'll go out of my way to try and help

the unanswerable what EQ, Comp, reverb, levels should I use on a track are just dumb and anyone who is asking them probably won't be doing this hobby for much longer than it takes to find that your first attempt doesn't sound like a multi platinum selling hit record and you don't become uber rich and famous overnight. As such they're just time wasters for the most part

the questions that really puzzle me are:
1) the "should I"
Q Should I buy a: SM57; Fasttrack Pro; new mic stand, etc etc etc
A How the heck should I know, do you want one?

2) the "is this right for me"
Q Is this the right, mic, pre amp, guitar for me
A How the hell would anyone know what is right for you, let alone random strangers on the internet

3) the "How do I make it better"
Q How do I make my vocals, guitar songs,better
A You should probably make them better somehow. Have you tried practicing

4) the creme de la creme of questions:
Q "I have an --------, is it any good"
A why don't you tell us since you have one

other than that I'll try and encourage people to try for themselves with some pointers

I must say that the amount of validation people seem to need today to decide anything, it amazes me that some of these people are even able to get out of bed, decide what to wear and what to have for breakfast in the morning. Let alone make it out of the house. Maybe there are forums to help them with that too
What happened to self confidence, trial and error and decisiveness..... I dunno, kids these days
 
Last edited:
Bob Ross said:
I dunno about the point of this whole thread, but this excerpt from the cited article caught my eye:

>>I will tell you the trick. If you are on a moving bike and the bike leans to the left. How do you prevent yourself from falling? You turn left. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.<<

While to some extent that's true, that's actually a bit of a Cart-Before-The-Horse thing: On a bicycle you don't turn in response to a lean; you lean in order to cause a turn.
Click to expand...

The guy should have used the word "steer" rather than "turn". In order to turn you first have to lean, and in order to lean (or not) you have to steer.

I try to give newbs just enough information to get them to the next hurdle. Sometimes I answer incomplete questions with incomplete information hoping they will have a "learning experience". Suffering has a way of imprinting a lesson that's much more effective than having the answers spoon fed.
 
Showing my age, when I got into sound there was no internet, everything was analog, I had very little gear, no recording schools, you learned by watching others and reading books and trying things out. In my case this also applied to live sound.

How did I get things to work? I plugged it in and tried every setting known, every eq, every gain structure, when got my first compressor (3 months pay) I tried it patched every way it could be, every different setting, wrung its neck to get the sound I wanted. I used every bit of gear to its extreme and knew it inside out.

My first studio, 2 x cassette decks and a mono mixer. Recorded to one deck then recorded the next part while bouncing to the other deck, then bought a reel to reel 4 track, then noise reduction, then an 8 track, bigger console, 16 track bigger console again, more stuff, but all the way through I tried everything that the new piece of gear could do.

Now I use hard disk recorders, computer software (when most of my friends my age can't even log onto the net), I try everything, try to understand everything the software can do, learn about the computer its self, why it won't work (this is the most frustrating part ha ha) and try to stay up to date with the latest gear and software.

NOW, lets get into the present attitude, "I want it NOW!" "I have no time to learn how it works or how to do it" "I want to record my album in my bedroom with my gear and it must sound like an album recorded in a 4 million dollar studio by someone that has the talent to record and understand the gear and has taken the time to train in the profession". "I CAN'T WAIT! I WANT IT NOW!", "I must buy model XYZ microphone coz that's what's holding me back, even if I have not yet learned how to get a sound out of the mic I have!"

Answer, most home recording gear available now a days will out perform recording gear available 20 years ago, I'm not talking about classic gear remembering that a lot of studios 20 years ago still did not always have this classic gear, but 20 years ago there was trained, talented people that took time to learn how the gear worked and how to get a sound, next time you can't get the gear to perform, look in the mirror. Then, read on the net or in books, go to a concert, sit behind the sound engineer and watch what he does, ask large studios around you if you can sit in on a session, ask questions, but also don't be afraid to try things out.

Most of the questions posted already have the answer on this forum, use the search function.

Cheers
Alan.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I try to give newbs just enough information to get them to the next hurdle. Sometimes I answer incomplete questions with incomplete information hoping they will have a "learning experience". Suffering has a way of imprinting a lesson that's much more effective than having the answers spoon fed.
Click to expand...


This should be the golden rule for anyone who wants to actually help out newcomers. Best advice for one unwilling to learn should be "figure it out for yourself you lazy bastard". Pointing in the right direction to actually figure shit out themselves, seems to me, the best for them to actually learn something. If a question is asked after one has shown that they have already read 'TFM', and searched without direct results, it is obvious that they really want to learn. Then I am willing to go much further.
 
Bob Ross said:
I dunno about the point of this whole thread, but this excerpt from the cited article caught my eye:

>>I will tell you the trick. If you are on a moving bike and the bike leans to the left. How do you prevent yourself from falling? You turn left. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.<<

While to some extent that's true, that's actually a bit of a Cart-Before-The-Horse thing: On a bicycle you don't turn in response to a lean; you lean in order to cause a turn.
Click to expand...

noisewreck said:
Only when you're in control :) When you're just learning to balance yourself, the bike goes all over the place, you react so you don't fall off. That's what the teacher was alluding to.
Click to expand...

bouldersoundguy said:
The guy should have used the word "steer" rather than "turn". In order to turn you first have to lean, and in order to lean (or not) you have to steer.
Click to expand...

Holy Crap!!! A countersteering thread on a recording board? :eek:

Un-fricking-believable...
 
stevieb said:
Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for one night. Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Click to expand...

I like to ride my bicycle to the lake, catch a fish, then cook and eat it. Setting 'myself' on fire started when I got on the bike. My dad taught me to ride. His teachings were the match that lit the fire that led me to learn how to fish......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top