Does Equipment Matter?

BUT…but…if you were only listening to it and had no idea, or cared, what the track is made with…then is it not techno? :astonished:

If you cant hear my music in space, is it worth making at all?

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if yer girl likes it then…ya. if YOU like it…even more so.

I’m divorced, girls…ewe.
I know another guy who’s divorced, he seems done with it all too.
If that’s the case, why do any of ya’ll need to go through it?

?

[sorry re div]

im not sure why i do it. i hate hate HATE every single thing i do musically. so much so, i don’t let her hear my tunes. no one gets to anymore, its just so shit.
so yes…why do it? [im hoping it keeps an old brain sharp]

but that wasnt the point i was discussing. it was who cares how its made. if it sounds like techno…its techno. if the gear you have inspires you to make tunes. thats good. would be crappy if the gear upset you the moment you powered it on…no?
im almost there, that respect. i KNOW turning it on…im only going to be let down. but thats my fault. im SO fucking terrible with music. good listener…horrendous maker.

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everyone needs ingredients to cook with, so it just depends on what your eating?

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Equipment/software doesn’t impact how good your music will be.

The most important factor is that you know your equipment and software very well. I actually find I flourish using less gear than more gear, but it must be quality and I have to have a really good relationship with it. If I have too many pieces of gear around me when producing, I get easily distracted. If I take the 2-3 items that I bond with the most … I am the most productive. (this is maybe just me though … personal taste thing). Sometimes I get amazing song ideas just sitting on the couch with A4 or RYTM hehehe :wink:

I’ve been using Ableton on and off since around 2012 and I started using hardware around 2014. In 2015 I got my first elektron and I’ve become hopelessly addicted to them. I had 6 total at one point and now I’m back down to the ones I bonded with the most. I use them almost every single day. If you can imagine using something for 3.5 years every day … you get very very familiar with it. Like an extension of your arm or something. Similar to the relationship with a nice guitar or a old grand piano. It just feels nice in your hands and you can wield it well.

Now here’s the weird thing - last fall I started using ableton every day as well. I would have it turned on right next to the machines. Now I can wield it as well as anything else I use and so I randomly make songs that are just DAW and they sound similar to the ones that are just hardware. Sometimes I make songs that start on hardware and then I finish them up with new elements in DAW.

The tools are only as good as the person that uses them.

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For me I think a nice hand held recorder and a decent sampler is still all that’s necessary to make some great tunes, at least for what I make. I’ve pretty much go e back itb for the most part but the most fun I ever had making music was when I had my SP404, DT, Circuit, and Zoom H4NPro

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That sounds like the perfect minimal setup !

Maybe after 40 years of electronic music production i have become extremely cynical of the Electronic music industry. Improvements? Where? Howso? Not sonically. Easier Yes. But so what who wants Vanilla. Only the OT shines in the space of adversity

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I take the Daw vs Dawless argument like PC vs Mac, it doesnt really matter because there are pros and cons to both so there is no reason one should totally replace the other. Use what is comfortable and fun to you and make the instrument work for you rather than you working for the instrument.

Hybrid setups are also great and its kind of limiting to be putting yourself in one camp and rejecting the other.

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Agreed ! It really depends what your ultimate goal of making music is. If you want to noodle and make jams - hardware is great. If your goal is to make releases then some DAW is necessary. Balance is everything :smiley:

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Nice answer! :grin:

You are almost right.

If someone stopped me singing and asked me what I was doing I would say “I’m singing (badly).” I would never say “I’m making music.”

Hehehehe

If I told someone I have been making music all day and they were intreagued about what I had come up with and I turn around sang for them, I think I would receive a disgruntled response and the other person would consider me weird or eccentric.

Hehehe

Thinking about it though the human voice is an instrument and there are a million beatboxers who need nothing other than what they were born with.

Whatever werks. :kissing_heart:

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Dolphins are pretty good singers too :smile:

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The space between what you have and what you want is where the magic happens. If you have a crappy guitar, but figure out how to make it sound and play amazingly, then it betters you. Apply to crappy Casio…if you make it sound amazing was it the keyboard that did it? Just something I’ve noticed through the years.

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Talking about equipment, I have just setup my Qu-24 and can now use some Mix outs to my samplers and FX stompboxes.
And I can record 18 tracks simultaneously without a computer by just hitting a button.
This simplifies my workflow a lot and I am thrilled to be able to mix some tracks in the near future :smiley:

Home studios can now be equipped with gear that record with pro quality, which couldn’t be reached a few decades ago.

We are spoiled with choice so it’s easy to grab gear that let us evolve until we reach the level of expertise to upgrade.

Last point is that hacking equipment has been the key to unlock several new music genres.

IMHO yes equipment matters. But not as much as keeping on improving our skills to use it.

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I once heard the most incredible track using nothing nothing more than a single sine wave, and manipulating it in every way possible.
Done in a daw of course :crazy_face:

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Similar concept here.
This made with just a kick drum
Quote
“The focus of this workshop will be to encourage the creation of more sounds with less material by going deeper with what’s already there and thinking about sound, synthesis, and waveforms on many levels.”

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I remember reading an interview with deadmau5 about him receiving this demo from this real young kid no one had heard of called Skrillex.
It was the best demo he had ever heard, and by the production level he presumed it had been produced in an expensive elaborate studio.
Turned out Skrillex had produced the whole thing in his apartment bedroom, on a shitty old laptop running nothing but Ableton fed into a pair of dodgy KRK monitors, running in mono as one of the woofers had blown out

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