So, How Bad Do We Suck?

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Back to Ed's original point, which is, I think, when he hears someone say 'you sound like a pro' it makes him want to vomit cause it's not true and 99.9% of what gets posted here is so far from professional that.........

Personally, I really like constructive feedback and am very used to hearing it in brutal fashion. I have one friend who is a trained audio engineer and he's particularly brutal (I think it goes with the profession) and never shows mercy. He zeros in on the tiniest flaw (not like they are hard to find in my mixes) and explodes it for me to see how absurdly awful it sounds and how he wouldn't be able to sleep, etc..... I spend a lot of time on things now before I send them to him for comments, but I have improved in my opinion and that's why I'd love to have a forum where guys like Ed just run your stuff through the gauntlet on every post. That stuff is invaluable to me.

As for songwriting, my most trusted critic is actually my wife (i am truly blessed). I spent about eight hours working on my last song and was totally proud of what i'd done, then i ran it by her and she said 'it's painful to listen to'.

So if I ever post something in this forum again and you ever listen to it Ed......thanks in advance for your honest brutality.
 
erichenryus said:
Back to Ed's original point, which is, I think, when he hears someone say 'you sound like a pro' it makes him want to vomit cause it's not true and 99.9% of what gets posted here is so far from professional that.........

Personally, I really like constructive feedback and am very used to hearing it in brutal fashion. I have one friend who is a trained audio engineer and he's particularly brutal (I think it goes with the profession) and never shows mercy. He zeros in on the tiniest flaw (not like they are hard to find in my mixes) and explodes it for me to see how absurdly awful it sounds and how he wouldn't be able to sleep, etc..... I spend a lot of time on things now before I send them to him for comments, but I have improved in my opinion and that's why I'd love to have a forum where guys like Ed just run your stuff through the gauntlet on every post. That stuff is invaluable to me.

As for songwriting, my most trusted critic is actually my wife (i am truly blessed). I spent about eight hours working on my last song and was totally proud of what i'd done, then i ran it by her and she said 'it's painful to listen to'.

So if I ever post something in this forum again and you ever listen to it Ed......thanks in advance for your honest brutality.
Jesus on Pot, man...it sounds like you already have PLENTY of people telling you you suck.

You need more? lmao.

I think you may be confusing a couple of concepts. You shouldn't equate not agreeing with Sonusman as "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH." I just think that telling somebody they can never achieve their goals unless they do something "the right" way is as absurd as me thinking one of my mixes sounds professional.

As far as your audiophile buddy, that's great, if it helps you...personally, if that was the kind of feedback I was getting, I'd never post ANYTHING...EVER. Posting stuff here makes my tunes suck less, and that's all that really matters. I have more than enough people (outside of this BBS) willing to point out the warts and farts...but few of them ever offer to help fix the problems.

So I say....


Fuck 'em!

:D
 
Yeah... but come on... we're not idiots....

(well... chris may be an exception to that. ;) :D)


We don't need someone to hold us by the hand and say, "OK... you're a good wittle boy.. and your mixes are good wittle mixes.. but you need to do this and that to make them gooder mixes."


:p


I think strictly negative feedback is the most beneficial kind... It's the best way to identify what your "problem" areas are. Maybe it's just because I'm not much of an "ego" person, but I really don't give a flip if anyone says they like my stuff or not. Same goes for if they say they don't like it. I'm not gonna take it personally and get all bent oat of shape... I'm just gonna use it as data for future consideration.

I remember when I posted a mix that I thought had turned out better than all my previous mixes... and everybody said it sounded fine or OK or whatever... and then mixmkr comes along and totally rips me a new one and says that it basically sounded like @ss. :p He didn't tell me what to do to fix it.. he just gave me very blunt accurate negative feedback about what parts sucked... and listening to that mix now... he was dead right. It sounded God awful. The gits sucked.. the vocals were compressed to death... and I assure you, the methods I used to record that mix will never be repeated. :p


I mean... If I get fifteen comments aboot how my drums suck, then I don't need someone to take me by the hand to the store and pick out a new sample CD for me... I need to LEARN TO PICK BETTER DRUMS!!! :D I need to get it in my own head what to look for and what not to do.


Feedback comes in all shapes and sizes... (much like women. :p) Some people will just say, "That rocked man!", others will say, "you're a little mid heavy, shave off some 450K on the gits." and others will say, "dude, your guitar sounds like crap."

It's all valid feedback and it's all helpful.



WATYF
 
I'm with WATYF too.






Sorry just taking ear breaks. :)

And realizing more with every post, that we keep coming back to this subject. Thread after thread after thread, it turns into a debate about what a critique should be.
 
Coming from someone who sucks.... what Ive learned...from you! The Homerecording Community.

The forum is "MP3 Mixing Clinic"

Key word is clinic..

A clinic is where you go to find out whats wrong, right or whatever. You take the doctors advice in the hopes of getting better. Do you come to the clinic to tell the doctor what he says is wrong and you know better?
If you don't want people to tell you what they think is wrong and how to improve it, don't come here. On lots of other BBS is you ask a question and then counter the answer or get angry over a review, you get rebuked and the thread gets locked.
The reality of the situation is that everybody sucks when they start something new. The goal is to improve yourself so that you move out of the suck category. I don't like telling people they suck. I like to be specific and to the point. Growth is always painful. Truth helps us grow. Lies do what for you?...what did it do for the emperor with no clothes?

Ed wasn't born with an opinion, it was forged over years of failures and successes. Same for me. I have learned huge amount of stuff from Ed, Bruce and DavidK... DavidK giving me critical remarks as well as how to fix things. But I don't get to hung up on things too much. How many of you have read critical statements about albums that have won Grammy's?

DO you really want to get better, or do you want a pat on the back?

On the drum issue...Im an old drummer...and I hate drum machines..but I have to use them while writing alot of the time..its an evil I live with. If someone says to me I hate your canned drums...Well guess what... me too :0) But..depending on the type of music..you can make it work.. The biggest thing you can to remove the monotony of machines is to use varying volumes through out the song, I usually copy the snare patch 4 times with different volumes and usually another 2 that sound close to emulate a missed hit off to the side. Cymbals...edit those stupid things...Take part of the sample and paste it to back end several times then fade it out s othe decay is not truncated. PC's can work for you and not against you. Use different volumes for cymbals too and pan them differently. Don't get stuck in presets, I did that and man it grates on me....but then again, some music needs that very thing. Static-X is one of those band that it works for, even though they have a drummer, there isn't alot of variation. Def Leppard is another example where it works.
I think you all know what Im talking about, and know that if we set our minds to it, suck won't be in our vocabulary.
If something that is suggested is outside of your budget, everyone here knows to cut the song some slack right?
And when someone says " I think this would sound better" does that automatically mean it sucks? Not always.

I have songs that suck, and Im not going to punish the clinic with them. I have 2 that are marginally acceptable as music.
When I think Im ready I'll post some. Oh and there will be a drum machine ;)


SoMm
 
SLuiCe said:
.............And realizing more with every post, that we keep coming back to this subject. Thread after thread after thread, it turns into a debate about what a critique should be.




Oh shit! don't start that again! Dobro! Help!
 
SLuiCe said:
And realizing more with every post, that we keep coming back to this subject. Thread after thread after thread, it turns into a debate about what a critique should be.
I'm with SLuiCe...



There will be no rules or regulations regarding how to post a critique in the clinic. Everybody has their own methods and that's prolly why this is such a good place to get help with home recording...



...because you're gonna get a variety of people giving you a variety or responces in a variety of ways.



Let's just leave it at that.


WATYF
 
Track Rat said:
.......snatchs guitar out of Bob's hands and smashs it into pieces and hands the neck back to him.............."sorry".
Aw man......look what you did to my guitar! :(
 
A couple more comments on the subject of this thread...

........First, lets not forget that we're listening to MP3s. You can't really listen to a CD or LP and then say that the MP3s we listen to don't sound as good because it's apples and oranges. There's simply no way to directly compare the two unless you go ahead and convert the CD or LP you're comparing to.

I know there are those that believe a high bit-rate MP3 is virtually the same sonically as a CD but they are not and I can hear the difference. The things that get lost in conversion to MP3 are the subtle things like reverb tails and little delicate sounds, especially acoustic stuff, that are the hallmark of a good recording. Many of those good sounding CDs would sound much less pro if converted to MP3 and, in fact, I subscribe to E-music and while I find their stuff fine for casual listening.....if I want to really listen to something, they aren't acceptable......I can't even listen to them for long unless it's just background music. Hell.....I hear a difference and a loss just burning LPs to CD so you know an MP3 isn't gonna do it for me.

Secondly, I think sometimes people get carried away by the fact that there is a name for this place called the MP3 Clinic as if it's like a doctors office or someplace where you're paying for a specific service and you should get exactly what you paid for. To me, this is more like a hang-out where musicians go after gigs to hang out with each other. Like any gathering place, there are many different ideas about what it's for. Some folks come here specifically to get deep critiques and serious advice, others come to give that advice and still others come to hang out and see their friends and maybe share a bit of advice.
For me it's all three although I've been so busy lately I haven't been able to listen like I want. Hopefully next week will be slower so I can catch up.

People like Mix and Sonusman are valuable to this community to be sure. Although I've heard people call their reviews brutal, I've never found them to be mean....just direct and there's nothing at all wrong with that. Their services and help are needed and I wish they'd quit getting grief when they give a review that's not gushing. If they were assholes about it that would be one thing but I've never seen that to be the case so folks should lighten up about that.

But for those who just like to comment on songs they like, there's nothing wrong with that either. This is the people's place and I'm running on that ticket.....vote for me please.
 
Son of Mixerman said:
On the drum issue...Im an old drummer...and I hate drum machines..but I have to use them while writing alot of the time..its an evil I live with. If someone says to me I hate your canned drums...Well guess what... me too :0) But..depending on the type of music..you can make it work.. The biggest thing you can to remove the monotony of machines is to use varying volumes through out the song, I usually copy the snare patch 4 times with different volumes and usually another 2 that sound close to emulate a missed hit off to the side. Cymbals...edit those stupid things...Take part of the sample and paste it to back end several times then fade it out s othe decay is not truncated. PC's can work for you and not against you. Use different volumes for cymbals too and pan them differently. Don't get stuck in presets, I did that and man it grates on me....but then again, some music needs that very thing.

Now these are some useful tips...

(especially when you compare it with the eternal 'get real drums' comment)

OK, you used drumsamples...your choice....here are some tips to make them work better. Excellent!

Everyone can comment the way he or she wants. But in my opinion, this is the type of comments people should listen to...

Thumbs up, Son of Mixerman! :)
 
Originally posted by WATYF
We don't need someone to hold us by the hand and say, "OK... you're a good wittle boy.. and your mixes are good wittle mixes.. but you need to do this and that to make them gooder mixes."


Speak for yourself.. I must've walked around for 2 months telling anyone who would listen to me whine
"YAaaAHHAa I dunO Whut Da proBLem is Cakeywalk Doesn't allow REal-Type ye-oLDE Timey FX!! WHY kant I heAr Du FX reel tyme!! DUUUH DurruRR DDUDUUUUH!!"


Any handholding on anyone's part greatly appreciated here from "Hey you've mixed in to much reverb" to "Uhm.. I can hear the new Frasier playing in the background". It's all welcome.
 
Hey you would be so proud of me..


I used my first Aux Bus today!!!:D :cool:
 
Re: A couple more comments on the subject of this thread...

Lt. Bob said:
.......I know there are those that believe a high bit-rate MP3 is virtually the same sonically as a CD but they are not and I can hear the difference.

Wow, Bob. You're my new hero. I'd love to have ears like that!!!

XRay vision would be cool too, while we're at it...;)

Daf (who'd settle for 20-20 - the Lazix Nazi said "No Lazix for you!")
 
homogeneous

sterile

analogous

This is what music production has been reduced to!

Ed
 
Ed, someone just resurected one of your old rants. The one where you posted in every forum in one afternoon. Haha. Pretty funny stuff!
Twist
 
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