Quitting

  • Thread starter Thread starter brendandwyer
  • Start date Start date

Have you ever wanted to sell all your gear and quit recording

  • Yes

    Votes: 165 39.1%

  • No

    Votes: 257 60.9%
  • Total voters
    422
I get frustrated all the time, can't get what I hear in my head to come out in my recordings because of my lack of recording/mixing/mastering skills. But what makes me sometimes slightly think of giving up is when a group of people and myself work really hard on writing a really good album, then have 1,2 or three members flake out for a girlfriend or new job or drugs or whatever and having to start over again searching for new members, auditioning, all that after all those long hours playing, practicing, recording ideas etc. Then I write a really cool song inspired by those events, get back on track, buy more recording gear, find new members and everything is better..........................for the moment. Finding like-minded dedicated musicians where I am from is like pulling your own teeth. Everyone thinks they want to be a rockstar, till they find out how much actual work is involved to get anywhere.
 
Damn it! I thought this was a thread about "quilting"!


imagine my dissapointment.
 
If I were to give it up all together, I would not kow what to do with myself. I would probably just become a fat alcaholic.......oh wait, that is what I am now, JK , I have taken breaks form it for 3-4 years at a time, then I always find myself wanting to do it again.
 
Good points all southside,and funny too. I don't believe I could quit, I was recording or just dabbling even when I knew I didn't have all the required stuff,just winging it man and sounding like total poop. Its part of who I am, I mean I go to a totally unrelated and mostly boring job and come home and actually get to do something I really like to do. I know we're a dime a dozen and I'm not especially special and probably will never have my name in lights. If I post an MP3 there are already 40 million MP3s on the web and mine will be buried in the vast depths of some search engine where noone will hear it or a few might listen and never appreciate the time and money that went into this effort. I never made a red cent on it(although I would like to so I can get more gear). I guess I like the ability to create musically and technically .I'll do it even if I'm invisible to everyone.
If my house burned down. I wouldn't miss the gear as much as the ability to create music and save it. I'd probably go right to musicians friend and see what I could get.
 
Great thread,

My take on this is what you might call "un-quitting".
I had piano lessons for 2 years as a kid. Hated it. Never went anywhere with it.

But had a great teacher.

Had a year of guitar with him at 17. Never applied myself. But that good old man put the joy of playing in my heart, if not in my fingers, as I was to find out later.

Even then I was doing recording/dubbing experiments with hideously bad gear cobbled together for the occation.
Some years later I got a Casio (late 80es.) I had a job at a video post house. They needed a Big Opening (think 2001) for a video. Low budget. I stepped up to the plate, overdubbing a piece I wrote, on their ancient Scully 8-track at 3 in the morning. $125.

And then came the Big Gap. I was 28 then, and getting married. No recording, no playing (because no money for either.)

Fast Forward to 2001. I was 41. I finally had gotten unhappy and restless enough about not playing music (I still had my guitar, and that was ok, but I wanted KEYS and RECORDING GEAR) and my marriage was at this point 4 years from collapse, so I simply ordered a Yamaha P80 one day, and a little while later, a Tascam 788, and then told my Extremely Disapproving Wife about it after the fact.

I started making up for lost time, practizing piano every night I possibly could. And that little candle my old teacher had lit in me that long ago burned brighter and brighter as I fed it.
I was cursing myself for not having stuck to really learning the theory, but was trying to make up for it by having good ear-playing ability. I was loving every moment.

I am now 45. I live in a new apartment following the divorce last year, and I couldn't begin to imagine not playing. Like someone else here said, it's the only therapy I've got. I have a Tascam 2488, but I went analog-crazy last month and got a Studer 2-track quarter-inch machine as well. And my songwriting, which had been dormant for so long, also suddenly re-surfaced.

I'll be playing (and engineering) 'till I die......

Best,
C.
 
I think it's a very valid question, if only to provoke thought.

We all spend hours and hours working on our recordings. And I know that for me there are a few of my favorite albums that I can pop in, and depending on how I'm feeling, they either inspire me to be better or cause me to shake my head and say to myself, "Why doesn't my stuff sound like this?"

Either way it's motivation.

The fact that most of us are probably recording in our spare time and that we make the time to come on the internet after work, school, whatever and learn more about recording probably says that we can't ever really quit. I know I can't, but I do know what you mean.

Nothing like pulling out and album that just hands you your ass as an engineer.
 
After college, when I was playing solo gigs, I bought a Tascam 4-track. I am technically challenged, so I got real frustrated and sold it. I figured, hey, what's wrong with recording on my boombox? :eek: I still have those cassettes.

Several years later, after more college, marriage, nailing down a secure job, buying a house, and writing dozens of songs, I bought a digital MTR. My job is such that I am very busy for several months, then not at all, so my recording has fallen into an 'all-or-nothing' pattern, so recording and other hobbies are sporadic also. (Maybe I have too many other hobbies. Sometimes I wish I was obsessed.)

In that time, I've thought about selling what little stuff I have, mainly out of frustration. I've never thought about quitting writing, but I'll sometimes think that I should just book studio time once a year, recording some songs, passing out copies to friends and family, and so on...

However, lately, I'm actually sensing that I understand some of the technical stuff. This has made it increasingly easier to get some decent sounds and let me concentrate on getting ideas onto tape (or bits, or whatever they're called). At this point, nearing 40, I think I'll stick with it. (Boy, I'm so glad I figured that out at such a young age.) :rolleyes:

G
 
I have just come off a 7 Year stint as a "Non-Musician" and have just recently started Collecting Equipment and getting back into it and I now have More equipment than I ever Did when I was a working Musician and makeing just as much money (None!!...lol).....

The only thing that discourages me is not haveing enough money to buy the Gear I need or the Quality of gear that I want so I have to make due with the cheapest shit I can find....

Another thing that bugs me is my total lack of Lyric writeing and singing ability , I am good at writeing Songs just not with lyrics and even if I could write lyrics I couldnt do anything with them as I have a shitty singing voice...

So I have a Hard Drive full of good Heavy rock/punk songs with no Lyrics and that really gets me down sometimes as what good is a Punk song without any Lyrics?

Anyone Know of any singers that Live im my neck of the woods??


Cheers
 
Minion said:
Anyone Know of any singers that Live im my neck of the woods??
Click to expand...
I would think there'd be no shortage of performers in Vancouver city itself.

Just follow the "B.C. Bud" and the performers should not be too far behind. ;) :D.

G.
 
Yes there are Lots of Musicians in Vancouver(And Bud) but I"m pretty far from Vancouver (but still close to the Bud....lol), It takes about 5 hours to get there from here and you have to Take a Boat for 2 hours ....

I have an add in the Paper looking for Musicians so Hopefully I will find a good singer.....

Cheers
 
no.

I think any artist that makes anything with substance gets dissatisfied now and then, and sometimes for a long spell. the trick is to really believe that there is something worth doing inside. don't try to control it, or edit it too hard. people with harsh atitudes and bad criticism only wish they liked what they were doing. just relax and let it come back and you will suprise yourself.
 
As I was pulling my hair out last night over a glitch, (mostly in brain) I told my wife to sell everything. After a good night sleep, I'm back to work with a smile. Luckily I have a good wife who knows that and my gear was still there.....
 
I friend of mine who writes amazing songs was recording a CD- or trying to. She performs very well but wasn't satisfied with how the songs were going and couldn't communicate where she wanted them to go. I did my best and even helped her lay out a production plan that would see the album through to its end. (More an attempt to clarify that the light at the end of the tunnel WASN'T a train...)

After leaving the session and traveling back home (she lives about 6 hours away) I didn't hear from her for a while.

Then I ran into her on AIM and she told me she was concidering quitting music.

My response: "What is there to quit?"

After almost a full minute of silence her reply was "Thanks."

I've never thought about quitting and selling all my stuff. What I have thought about giving up on are unrealistic expectations of my skills, equipment and business. I give those up all the time. As long as I'm not tring to be (and tellings others that I am) a world class hot-shot engineer, I am (and they are) usualy happy with the work I do.

The other side of it is that no matter what instrument I'm playing in a band, I'm *always* more valuable to the project with my recording and tech skills. Even if I'm not recording the band or adding any of my stuff to the equipment pool.

At this point I've been a songwriter, musician and engineer for over half my life. It simply IS who I am and there is nothing to quit. It reminds me of something Victor Wooten said at a clinic when someone asked him what he did to warm up before a show.

(paraphrase) "Uh...actually I don't do anything. I've been playing for over 30 years now- if I'm not warmed up now I ain't never gonna be. Maybe a quick game of basketball if I can- a good full body warmup."

But that's just me. As was mentioned earlier interests change all the time and there is no shame at all in moving past something that was interesting for a while and is no longer.

Take care,
Chris
 
Great points Chris,good points all! The only gear I have ever sold wasn't because I was quitting ,it was because I needed money for more gear (somehow I think I'm behind the ball on that one). The only time I want to leave the studio is when I know my better half is getting fed up with my being there so long.(or when my back hurts and I need a good stretch) :D

When I have sold gear I have regretted it,when I have left the studio it was too soon.
 
If I did quit, I have no eartly idea what I'd do, perhaps try that whole "bathing" craze I keep hearing about.
 
Cyrokk said:
If I did quit, I have no eartly idea what I'd do, perhaps try that whole "bathing" craze I keep hearing about.
Click to expand...
It's not all it's cracked up to be. Don't bother.
 
Dogman said:
Cyrock said:
If I did quit, I have no eartly idea what I'd do, perhaps try that whole "bathing" craze I keep hearing about.
Click to expand...
It's not all it's cracked up to be. Don't bother.
Click to expand...
Ah, you just haven't tried it with the right people yet! ;)

G.
 
Sell up~~no chance

No absolutely not

sometimes I get scunnered & don't switch on for a while, but if I had no means to capture what's in my head I would go mad
 
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