1-Probably a big part of the community are musicians. I’m a musician too. I’ve done many gigs, and over time I developed some problematic habits. For example, I mostly played acoustic sets with two speakers, and most of the time it wasn’t really about the music, it was about the atmosphere. The main expectation was “don’t disturb the customers.” As a vocalist and guitarist, my first focus became sibilance control and taming the low end of the acoustic guitar. Then I aimed to make the vocals as clean as possible so everyone could understand every word. I repeated this process so many times that now, whenever I sit down to mix or start a project, these are the first areas I focus on. How can I fix this problem? It feels like I’m stuck in that mindset.
2-The second thing is related to the first one. I’ve listened to music from the 70s and 80s for most of my life, and I’ve always played whatever I liked. Now I want to start listening to all genres of music. I want to develop more artistic ideas, perspectives, and a deeper technical understanding of music.(not talking about music theory) I know it’s kind of a weird question, but what should I listen to? Where do you guys usually find new stuff to explore?
3-Do you guys work out using open-back headphones or closed-back headphones? Which one is the right choice?
4-Lately I’ve been doing daily exercises and taking some mixing lessons, but now I’ve hit a plateau. Finishing my daily workouts feels harder. Should I try to complete all the tasks no matter what, or if I fail one day, should I just continue the next day? What do you think?
Hey Aytek thanks for sharing your experience! I can see you are hungry to learn and I love that, I think a lot of ppl in this community are. You sound a lot like me though. Lots of overthinking, but that's cool. Here's my advice!
1. The mix depends on the song, but generally you want to anchor everything else in the mix to the most important element. So for example if you are doing a folk song, maybe the attention will be on the vocals, so you set the volume for that, get it good and then go in order of importance to the next instrument. I think most songs are anchored by the drums, though so I'd start with getting those good in most cases. Use your ears though!
2. Listen to new music playlists on Spotify or Apple. But if you don't like mainstream, watch TV and Shazam the songs that come up. Always fun to hear those and see new artists you've never heard of before!
3. Generally, I'd use closed back for tracking vocals and open back for mixing. They both have their plusses and minusses, but if we're talking about mixing, the whole point is to be able to hear the music as flat as possible. Open back will give you more of the room that you are sitting in. Some people don't like that, but I think that's something more advanced mixers can do, as they learn their headphones and can trust their eyes a bit more during the mix process.
4. This is a good question and I'd say it depends. Sometimes you've got to bulldoze your way through a daily mix, sometimes it's all about just showing up even if it's for one workout. Also, you are training a muscle, it's just not one on your body, it's your ears. Just like any muscle it's good to take breaks so the muscle can build instead of constantly tearing, so if you need a day or two to reset, then take it! The point is to improve at making music, not to rack up a high score (although, that is very fun to me!). Treat yourself with kindness and do your best to show up as often as you can without obsessing, and I think you'll do just fine!
Lemme know if this helps or you want more insight, this is a great platform and happy to have you here!
Regarding your question No.2, what I did was getting seriously into studying world music. There is an endless amount of new melodic ideas, vibes, harmonies and grooves to explore out there. Coming from a western musical background myself, I realised that although I love the western functional system of harmony, equal temperament and all, there is just so many more colors we can use as musicians to paint our songs. Its also a bit like treasure hunting, you never know what you will find along the way.
Once you seriously get into this, you will also find that there are many patterns (rhythmic as well as melodic) that seem to pop up everywhere. Things like clave patterns, pentatonic licks, microtonal bends are an integral part in many seemingly different styles, from rural african music, to blues rock, from jazz fusion to arabic music and modern dance grooves. Its all interconnected, not surprisingly, if we think of music as language, it makes sense that it evolved in a similar way.
hey guys! i feel like the games bass detective and feedback eliminator do not show up on my daily workouts. I've been doing these exercises for almost a month now and they never show up to me. does this happen to anyone else?
A few months ago I discovered I had this problem also, to fix it, go to your account settings, select the training tab, click the switch to turn smart training off , and then double check that all of the games have a green check next to them, if any of them have a red x, then click them to change it to a green check. When you are finished, then switch smart training back on.
It turned out that for some reason I had a couple of the games switched off, and I didn't even know it.
Hey guys, Amazing performance! Your scores seem so far away to me now! Yet again, I'm consistently in the Gym for only half a year, so maybe..someday.. :)
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Oct 31, 19:55
Oct 31, 20:20