Comment by bnferguson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bnferguson | Hacker News Reader

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This question comes up a lot with synths and especially hardware and Eurorack gear.

For me not being focused on finishing anything is what got me back into playing music (and eventually performing live sets).

Previously there was so much pressure to produce end results I couldn't even get started and lost all joy in the process. At some point I got some hardware to just play with and never really looked up how to save anything (was a Drumbrute, Meeblip and I borrowed a Beatstep). Was making odd acid tracks and silly sketches on my kitchen table every night that I'd lose as soon as I turned it all off. It was oddly freeing, and really fun.

A year later I was playing out gigs ranging from 20 mins to 3 hours. And one could even argue that I've still not finished any songs despite hours of recordings and performance as it's mostly improvisational.

Now I'm happily back in the noodling around and having fun stage again and loving it (though about to switch gears again).

Anyway - just figured I'd weigh in as there's often a lot of pressure to finish or record things when just playing around or building weird synths is in and of itself a really really fun (if expensive) hobby and maybe someone needs to hear that. :)

(also perfectly fine if your focus is on complete songs, of course)

This is useful data, thanks.

I'm going through a sort of mini-midlife crisis right now and one of the things I'm thinking about is whether I can make music part of my life again. I used to be in a rock band and it was tons of fun, but I'm in my 40s with kids so the logistics of rehearsing with other people and playing shows at night make that unlikely.

Another path I'm considering is making electronic music. That's mostly what I listen to and I used to tinker with it before I started a band, so I have some experience with synthesizers, beats, etc. It's much more amenable to my life style now because I can do it after the kids go to bed. But also, back then, I had a lot of trouble getting anything done and often ended up feeling disappointed.

It's not enough for me to just noodle with a synth for a few hours. I want something I can share with other people, which implies to me that I need to be able to finish things. So I'm just trying to figure out strategies for that before I drop money on gear only to have it collect dust.

You don't need much money to get started with a MIDI controller and VSTs, assuming you have a good PC because most people do here on hn.

Even though the hardware people seem like the most outspoken on most forums, I enjoy doing everything in the box now and my hardware mostly just sits under its dust covers.

I have an Ableton Push2 and it's an amazing piece of kit, more like an instrument than a controller. The layout makes much more natural sense to me than a keyboard, I think because I used to play guitar.

I'm the same in that I would like to have something at the end that I can share with other people, but the finishing stuff part I haven't quite worked out.

So far that has required more discipline than I have been able to muster, but I do feel I'm making progress and my workflow is improving.

Yeah, I can definitely afford to sink some money into this. It's more that I'm wired to hate myself if I spend money on something and don't use it. There are few things I despise more than feeling like I'm a poseur.

> Even though the hardware people seem like the most outspoken on most forums,

Good point!

I don't like wasting money either.

Of course it's up to you, but if I were you I would just get a controller and just get started. It's never been easier, cheaper or better. If you want to save money you could just get something secondhand from ebay.

I am invested in and love Ableton but there are lots of good options out there.

Like I say, I don't think hardware is necessary these days. It is fun to have dedicated knobs for everything but if you get a good controller it's much more flexible overall.

I can put 10 instruments into a single instrument rack on a track in Ableton and immediately have 8 macro knobs to control whatever I want about all 10 instruments at once.

You can easily do crazy stuff like create mutant instruments that morph between completely different instruments or samples, and change effect settings according to how hard you play the notes, or what part of the bar you're in. The limit is really only your imagination!

Then if you want, you can just duplicate that whole complex track with a single keypress. It's crazy. You can't do that with hardware!

Getting it to sound musical is the hard part, and that's where hardware shines - because you're limited in options, you can usually just turn it on and get a good sound out if it immediately. But IMO that's not a real reason that hardware is better because of course you could limit yourself to that in software too.

You sound like you can afford it and have the desire. I would just buy something and get started. It's heaps of fun, as long as you don't put too much pressure on yourself!

> if I were you I would just get a controller and just get started.

This is basically my plan. Except that I'm deliberately putting it on hold until I'm done with the book I'm writing because I really don't have the time and definitely don't need the distraction.

> It's heaps of fun, as long as you don't put too much pressure on yourself!

But putting pressure on myself is like my #1 personality trait. :)

I'd defininitely agree with the GPs idea of just doing it for the fun of it, and if something finished pops out, great - otherwise it doesn't really matter, you still had fun.

One interesting aspect of the modular thing that hasn't been discussed yet is limitation. With an in-the-box setup with all the plugins it's easy to get lost in the endless choice of what could be done. Each song sounds different because there's no consistency of setup.

With a hardware setup you're usually limited to a small number of devices/modules - this can be very powerful in focussing the mind. Each time you come back to your setup it's the same, but you'll dig a bit deeper to get something else out of it. Eventually you master it and produce the best of what that thing can do.

A lot of great early electronic music came out of limitations. Voodoo Ray was originally going to be called Voodoo Rage, but the sampler had a limited amount of memory left, so he cut off 'Rage' to make it 'Ray'.

It can be argued that the amazing amount of music that comes out of the 'standard band' setup is also a product of limitations.

Yes, this has absolutely been my experience.

Joining a band was a revelation because all I had to do was make my bass part sound good and there were relatively limited ways to do that. On top of that, a bass or guitar just sounds pretty nice right "out of the box". With electronic music, I found it took quite a bit of effort to even get to a single sound that sounded rich and satisfying. It felt a lot more like having to be a luthier when all I wanted to do was play. (At the same time, I didn't want to just use presets either, because I didn't want sounds that were too familiar...)

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