Ask HN: Is there anyone here making music? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is there anyone here making music?

55 pointszaplin80 comments

I run a newsletter where I interview next-door music makers. They tell us about their process and show us their studio.

I'm looking for people to interview so If you're interested let's make it happen.

There's people doing music with $100 gear and other's with studios that cost multiple thousands. Wherever you stand, we want to see what you're doing with what you have :)

[This is an example](https://www.gasnewsletter.com/p/39-denis-violet) of an interview / studio tour.

View on HN

Hey fellow hacker-musicians! Since this is a rare opportunity to see so many of you checking in, let me offer you my expertise as a sound engineer.

I'd be glad to check out your mixes and offer some suggestion or just chat about sound, production and music in general. Join the #mixing:matrix.org [1] room, write me an e-mail through my studio's form [2] or just ask here.

No obligations on your part, but I'd be happy if it led to me working with you on your music or other projects.

[1] https://matrix.to/#/#mixing:matrix.org

[2] https://thirdhemisphere.studio/

Do you have any suggestions for books / courses / YouTube videos / other content around sound engineering?

I've been interested in learning how to play this little sythnthesizer I have but I also edit video and have no idea what I'm doing with the mixing the audio (including music sometimes).

In sound, nothing beats personal experience, experimentation and hours of deliberate listening. Spend a couple of hours with a basic compressor built-in your DAW and try to get the feel and understanding of how each parameter affects different sounds (from sine wave and noise to voice to drums, etc.). If you feel it's not fruitful, read, watch videos, listen, work on your stuff and come back to it after a while.

Regarding books, there's lots to choose from. For some quick applied wisdom, Bobby Owsinski's Mixing, Recording and Mastering Handbooks (separate) are recommended. Zen & The Art Of Mixing by Mixerman is very good, as well as his classic The Daily Adventures. The Bruce Swedien Recording Method is very good if you're into recording.

For Youtube videos, some random things I can vouch for:

I'd suggest watching Monty's Digital Show and Tell [1] as a primer for digital audio as a form. Steve Albini has been putting out some very solid and entertaining videos on recording lately [2].

There's also of course a few hyped (but deservedly so) channels such as @DanWorrall, @Producelikeapro or @ProductionAdvice.

Nothing I can suggest for courses as I haven't been interested in them for a while.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM

[2] https://www.youtube.com/@ElectricalAudioOfficial/videos

Thank you very much for these suggestions! Looking forward to checking out some of the books and videos but the suggestion of time with the DAW makes perfect sense and is something I should be doing more of.

Excited to follow up on some of the resources from this and the other comment.

I have two suggestions but they might not be strictly what you're looking for, just musician learning material. I have found the book "The Secrets of Dance Music production" [0] published by Attack Magazine very nice to read with many anecdotes on how to produce. It is focused on dance music as the name suggests. Additionally, Adam Neely's YouTube channel [1] has many infotainment videos about music, music theory, composing, etc. pick any videl where the title seems interesting, they're all well-produced and comprehensive for the general public.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Dance-Music-Production/dp/095... [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnkp4xDOwqqJD7sSM3xdUiQ

These both seem great thank you so much!

Since this is HN, for a dive into the engineering side of sound engineering http://soundsystemengineering.com is an absolute tome of knowledge. Sadly, the author also passed away this week :(

For mixing https://mixingwithyourmind.com/ covers a good set of interesting techniques. It edges into a few pseudoscience-y domains that are best left ignored, but the majority of the content is solid.

It would be really cool if there was something that provided before and after samples then walked through the changes that were made to improve things.

Even just cleaning up a podcast.

That is a great idea! What form do you envision it's in? Video/Article or some kind of an interactive thing? What topics do you think are the most important to present this way?

BTW, here's an article specifically about recording and processing Voice: https://indiscipline.github.io/post/voice-sound-reference/

There's some examples in the part on denoising. Tell me if it's something you had in mind, and if not, in what ways it's not good enough.

My personal preference would be an article or both article + video; reading can be faster. Doing something interactive might mean audio processing in the browser, that's a big ask.

I don't have enough experience to know what the most important topics / common issues would be, sorry. The NPR link below covers a lot of ground relevant to their reporters; podcasters might have a subset of those issues. You entered this discussion due to its focus on music production which has its own priorities.

The denoising example you provided is a step toward I was looking for. I think showing the waveform at each step would be an improvement, like at https://theaudacitytopodcast.com/tap005-my-secret-audacity-r... and https://training.npr.org/2017/01/31/the-ear-training-guide-f...

I think the example shows one step in the process but it could be fleshed out starting with the raw recording and documenting each step in turn (adjustments done including specific software settings along with audio clip + waveform at that current step) plus the rationale and potential gotchas to watch out for.

PS. My notes recommend Noise Removal > Compressor > Normalize in that order but I can't remember where that recommendation came from. I will have to try putting Noise Removal last.

Thanks for the valuable feedback.

Re your PS: It all depends on your particular gain-staging. In this chain of 3 elements, you NR probably can go first or second, and less likely last. My suggestion of not putting it first is caused by adhering to conservative input levels, in which case the signal is pretty low during the first stages of the chain and may be processed too eagerly by Noise Reduction.

Yeah, I'm a fourth generation musician and a second generation singer-songwriter. I've always done it guerrilla style with basic Firewire/USB interfaces and mostly free or cheap apps.

The only interesting thing about what I do, probably, is that I use a fair bit of algorithmic composition even with rock songs - I'll use a chain of Ableton randomizers to generate arpeggios or pads, or chord changes or bass lines, and then find bits I like and use those. Occasionally I'll write some JS to generate pieces, but rarely.

I'm a second generation digital musician as well - my mom was a Nashville country singer, but she used synths and Cakewalk for DOS to demo stuff back when nobody was really doing that at home, and I was her mini-engineer as a kid. In the early 90s I started doing sampling stuff with Sound Recorder in Windows 3.1, and then later with trackers and such. These days my favorite tool is my iPad Pro, with every kind of synth emulator and an expressive touch interface.

Here's a couple of examples of my stuff, a totally algorithmic piece I did about twenty years ago (Jesus) and a more straight rock/blues number that's more Tom Waits-ish. Probably not interesting for your readers, but I'm proud of doing this stuff completely by myself in a bedroom.

https://on.soundcloud.com/TbDWy

https://legbaandsons.bandcamp.com/album/shadows-dust-digital...

yeah you should be proud, they're great!

I don't know if you keep in touch with music production nowdays but algorithmic compositions are on the rise. From modular synths containing modules that generate pieces to external sequencers doing euclidean rhythms and the like. Great stuff.

Heh, not real music. Exclusively chiptunes that run on old hardware, mostly covers with some originals. I'm starting to post those here, I've got a dozen more that I just haven't rendered the videos for yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPMml3CpYe0

I have a lot to learn, and melody writing is still not a strong suit, but it's a fun side project all the same. I'm working on a rhythm game for NES, so the OST for that will be my first big original music project.

old hardware as keyboard synths or amigas and the like?

Old video game consoles. Right now almost exclusively NES, but I really want to start messing around with the SNES's SPC at some point. That thing looks way too interesting :D

nice, I am super interested.

I've interviewed a guy, Fuchi, that does some stuff with a playstation and a dreamcast > https://www.gasnewsletter.com/p/44-fuchi

How can I reach you to arrange the interview?

Yes! I'm a long-time lurker here on HN and have somehow resisted the urge to join, even when someone was "wrong on the internet", but this is the final straw :)

I'm one half of a London-based rock duo called Automatic Panic [0] and would love to chat about our approach to making music. In fact, we're running a little blog series on this very topic right now [1].

We love experimenting with how recording techniques affect performances and how the finished music then comes across. A lot of our stuff is recorded to and mixed from tape. We self-record everything and have done so wherever there's a good enough acoustic.

If you'd like to listen, our latest EP was, somewhat coincidentally, released just yesterday and we're working on a full length LP to release later this year. I've put a Spotify link [2] but you should also be able to stream from our website [3] and I think we're on most major other streaming platforms.

I'm loving this newsletter and I hope to hear from you soon at band [at] automaticpanic.co.uk :)

[0]https://automaticpanic.co.uk

[1]https://automaticpanic.co.uk/blog

[2]https://open.spotify.com/album/64gGP6Z5CZgo1MWcosbQbP?si=Ptq...

[3]https://automaticpanic.co.uk/music.html

Hi! I am. I do, would be happy to participate.

I produce electronic music in the range of electronica, downtempo, house mostly in DAWless way, using Elektron and Teenage Engineering boxes with help of a couple of other external synths.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThreeColoredSquares

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/27zESwCtXJYF2vTUJIbm7q

I've released an album last year and played several live sets both on community radios and in front of small audiences. Now I've built a totally new setup and am in the process of producing a new album there, posting drafts on Youtube.

upd: You can contact me by email: andrey@ozorn.in

Great, gonna dig in your youtube on the launch break hah.

I will contact you to arrange the interview :)

In the late 90's I produced and ran an underground techno record label called Format Recordings. Myself and my production partner who was a DJ we were young and not very business savvy so it was a hobby of passion that paid for itself. We released 10 records over 3 years. Over pandemic, my production partner and I decided for shits and giggles to relaunch the label on Bandcamp. We just went live a few weeks ago. Me personally, I haven't been as prolific as the other two producers so my first track goes live tomorrow but the other guys have 7 releases up there that are new as of last week. https://format416.bandcamp.com/

this is top stuff. I'm already 30 minutes in listening to your backlog

Nice! I know a guy [0] who might be interested but he's not on here, do you have an email address so he can contact you direct? To pique your interest, he's experimenting with AI-generated videos for his music, and sometimes rents kit which might be a twist on your GAS format :)

[0] https://pinkcliffs.bandcamp.com/

I'm a muso as well, but I've not recorded anything in years. You're inspiring me to dust off the Focusrite Scarlet ;)

of course, he can email me > thegasnewsletter at gmail dot com Dust it off, use it and have fun :))

Love the concept, just signed up to the mailing list.

I'm a Berlin based producer and DJ, and would love to be interviewed. Even if the $ of my gear is a few 0's less than all of the existing artists haha.

Soundcloud is https://soundcloud.com/simonhfrost Email is in my profile.

P.S. What does G.A.S. stand for? The above the fold of your homepage is a bit confusing, the 'Artist Interviews Studio Tours | Every Tuesday & Friday to your inbox' would be useful as a description higher up.

I'm guessing Gear Acquisition Syndrome - the desire to buy more and more music making equipment regardless of whether you need it or not.

Let's be honest, we don't need it. But it's nice to have blinking lights huh

Definitely. There's three blinky light boxes on my desk right now that hardly ever get used because I can do exactly the same thing in software. But they look nice.

Huh thanks for the input.

As mentioned below, G.A.S. stands for gear acquisition syndrome. Could be a good or a bad thing, depends on how you manage :D Honestly it's just a honeypot, the main focus is on creativity and showing that you can do music without most of the fancy stuff, which of course are nice to have :)

G.A.S. is probably "Gear Acquisition Syndrome".

that is correct :D

btw, i'll email you to arrange the interview

I’d love to participate. We are cloud kinski, the best space alien band on planet earth.

We are harmless space aliens who want to be DJs. DJs are the most successful assimilating musical force. Unfortunately we cannot DJ so we must play synthesizers to imitate humans.

Our last big show was to a crowd of 600 at Fusion Festival. We successfully assimilated 30 earthling audience members.

Find our music on all earthling streaming platforms, and check out live footage on youtube

https://youtube.com/@cloudkinski

oh wow that is super interesting. I'll contact you to arrange the interview :D

We're a duo from Aotearoa New Zealand currently finished our first album. Some of our music is at https://sidesister.bandcamp.com/

We upgraded our home studio three years ago; it's about as compact as you can get, but super efficient.

You can contact us at hello @ sidesister . com

I released a couple of full length albums that got a fair amount of college radio play. I made them while working dead end tech contracts in Silicon Valley. Although I do have a few nice bits of kit and some DAW plugins, most of my setup is DIY. I resist the urge to buy gear by building my own for a fraction of the cost. Using Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Teensy 4.1, and more.

https://lucidbeaming.com/music/

Here are repos with some of my code projects for music:

Camel, an Arduino based synth and noise box https://github.com/lucidbeaming/Camel

vid2midi, a Python utility to generate music notes from video signals https://github.com/lucidbeaming/vid2midi

Yes, Although I'm currently a front-end web developer, my degree is in music education. I make songs mostly for my own enjoyment, but I've also made some parody songs for the Star Wars podcast "Rebel Force Radio". All my songs can be found here...

https://madmonk13.bandcamp.com/

I've also recently started the r/SongChallenges subreddit where you are given a set of constraints and have to record a song within those constraints. It's not growing as fast as I'd like as there are only currently 2 of us. We just started our 3rd challenge. If anyone wants to join, we'd love to have you!

Me and my wife are trying this year. She is the main artist, I'm a drummer (but she even thinks of drum beats) and I try to work on the mixing aspect. We have a goal of trying to produce around 10 songs this year (we have done 1 and 1 is on the way right now)

You mean replacing real drums with electronic ones? Do you have anything online?

I have an edrum kit that i play, but for th first songs we just used a MIDI keyboard. We are doing everything in the box. Happy to share more if you want.

Here is the first song we made: https://open.spotify.com/track/1QHvB9qgKbO6pcXyR9B7oQ?si=IB_...

Hi,

I study (classical) music composition, lately been getting more into electronic stuff. The largest audience I’ve gotten was probably around 1000 people, although they were mostly elementary schoolers, as part of an educational event organized by my university. (Still very very fun to have that much of an audience!) I also have been getting into microtonal stuff.

I do have a bit of gear, but usually stick to a very minimal setup. Lately I’ve started getting into audio plugin development as well. Planning on releasing a new piece later today!

https://www.youtube.com/@sporkl_/featured

Definitely would be interested to be interviewed if you’d be up for it!

I've been sneaking into bars since 15 playing drums for a bunch of different bands. Started a band with old high school friends playing midwest-emo and math rock about 7 years ago. During college, we took it more seriously by touring, releasing on small indie labels, and playing at local festivals. Now that everyone has real jobs and settled down so we treat it as a good way to get together, drink beers, and make something. Always open to talking emo/math-rock and drum gear

https://griffeymusic.bandcamp.com/

Interesting prompt. Wasn't going to say anything at all until "wherever you stand, we want to see what you're doing with what you have".

Some guitar ditties are on my personal site, they're not polished or anything but were fun to make. It's just the audio as I'm not experienced with recording but learning by doing.

https://www.lifeonthereg.com/guitar.html

Hi GAS, I'd be interested in being included, though looking at the past interviews I might not have enough interesting gear. I move a couple times a year so I have to stay lean. A Focusrite, and a $100 AKG mic is my setup. When it comes to recording vocals, I mainly do them in my car in any empty parking lot I can find late at night. Haha, it's funny but that's how I recorded my last EP. You can check it out at http://jpeckmusic.com/

Yes, I would love to participate. There is nothing very impressive about my home studio, other than the fact that it exists. It happily houses my grunge band that I play in with my wife and best friend. Much of the equipment is old/half working as I have been writing and self recording music now for 15 years, but only as a hobby. I also have extensive experience with algorithmic music, developing many tools from scratch. I would be happy talk about any of that stuff. Feel free to send me a DM :).

I produce electronic pop under the moniker Visions of Division.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@visions.of.division

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0b836tZPLcWr1M0BTr6qhp?si=Y1...

I also create video to go along with the music.

I'd be happy to discuss my process with you.

I make a lot of music, but record very little of it. I sing and play acoustic guitar weekly with a bunch of other dads in a band. We do a few gigs a year, mostly just for fun. I'm not much of a singer, but I have a great ear and can usually fake my way through any song that I've heard 3-4 times.

https://youtu.be/zMZBc44Zf-s?t=861

This is fantastic, thanks for sharing it here!

Just so you know I signed up for your newsletter, and the confirmation page was a few lines of JSON.

thank you for the feedback and the heads-up :D

Very cool newsletter! I’ve been jamming for about 8 years off and on and have released a couple projects.

All electronic and mostly atmospheric/progressive house stuff

https://open.spotify.com/album/4fRsoTQpl0rvvaBZ7vNhsk

My last album was from late 2021 and I haven't done much since, but I did make a super long writeup for it, since my process was pretty unique.

Album: https://vx1.bpev.me

Writeup: https://bpev.me/notes/vx1

Oh wow that's a deep writeup. Gonna dig into this, that 90s phone got me interested :D

I, together with my band, create rock music. It is one of the things that keep me sane whilst doing a startup. Ok, that is probably a bit of hyperbole. But it is great to work on something completely different, that require different skills.

https://orbitaldecay.se/

Probably not a hyperbole, not utilizing our creative output is VERY stressful.

Pretty heavy stuff, Afraid to die is great. Keep it up guys

Was a bit in a hurry. Our former drummer is our studio engineer. We record everything ourselves and mix at home. We have a good but basic setup that creates a good result. Happy to talk more about it.

I have made hip-hop / EDM on and off for years in a minimalist studio that also serves as my home office. I would love to subscribe and wish you the best. I geek out on /r/homegym and /r/battlestations and this sounds like a perfect fit for that type of content. More than happy to chat.

I wrote my last music long time ago, then mostly I used to wrote a poetry

https://archive.org/details/ARISEFACEGREEN

This music also for a my poetry 'claws of war'

Subscribed to your newsletter.

I'm really old school - I make music but I don't record it. My creativity goes out the window whenever I open a DAW. I need to find an alternative that's more akin to working with audio tape and for me at least, DAWs just don't cut it.

Looking forward to seeing what other people are doing!

Hey, pretty cool newsletter. I was wondering where you already found all the people that participated?

hey, thanks!

I find people all around the internet. Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, (here?).

Do you make music?

I write drum & bass music for fun. I also master music for a few friends and labels. :)

https://soundcloud.com/closurednb

Heyo, this newsletter has some interesting stuff! Nice work.

I'm not sure how interesting my studio setup is, but LMK if you're interested: https://rx1f.com, email is there.

Cool newsletter! It's exciting to see the overlap of HN and synthesizers and music production. I frequently see articles here about sound design related concepts.

Checkout "Unfa" on Youtube, he does all with FLOSS.

I would like to participate!

permanentdaylightberlin.bandcamp.com/

I like the style, especially "Temptress" is great. I'm a sucker for arpeggios :D

Where can I contact you? Is it the email on your profile here on HN ?

Yes. Thanks for the feedback:)

This is pretty cool!

nice! i'm interested. Look me up: Abducted Android on Insta and Youtube (I've also very recently launched curateddawlessjams.com)

Great, I'll DM you on Instagram :D

Nice work on curateddawlessjams.com btw

I couldn't get past half that page

hi!

can you tell me what was the problem? All content is open on the website

  Enjoying this post?
  Subscribe to get more content like this delivered to your inbox for free!

I immediately closed the site.

well it's a prompt to signup for the newsletter. You can close the popup and continue reading.

If you were put off by the popup, I get it.

Thanks for the feedback

I might be wrong but I think it's a standard feature of Substack (the blogging platform), not author's choice. At least, I see it on Substack articles nearly every time

have you got people banging MPCs?”

of course, check these out:

https://www.gasnewsletter.com/p/40-kimchi-kriminal https://www.gasnewsletter.com/p/44-fuchi https://www.gasnewsletter.com/p/53-sunrise-nowhere

While I'm not making actual music.. I was looking for a really small but unique instrument to learn just in a 5-10 minute break from my projects. I wanted to learn something that would attract the interest of others and that I could play anywhere, when just sitting there, like an airport.

The instrument I ended up downloading and plan to order one is the Kalimba. And I spent an hour learning ABCDEFG keys then I would just record what keys they were pressing, and play them until I could muscle memory kicked in and I can play up to about 16 songs now.

"Walking in the Air" was the very first song I learned, even though it was a bit more advanced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bRnHSx0kzE

(my version: https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-snowman.mp3)

I continued on finding others that were simple to learn.

"Can't help falling in love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd7KC3PaEaA

(my version: https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-fallinginlove.mp3)

A song I came up with of my own on a Sunday morning just lying in bed: https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-sunday-morning-delight.m...

Here are a bunch others that I played, each song taking me anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to learn:

Ah-Ha Take On Me https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-takemeon.mp3

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-bohemian.mp3

Pirates of the Caribbean https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-pirates.mp3

Simon & Garfunkle Sound of Silence https://my.bincdn.com/1117/Keylimba-soundofsilence-full.mp3

Tears for Fears/Gary Jules Mad World https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-madworld.mp3

Disney's Up Theme https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-up-married-life.mp3

Pink Panther https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-pinkpanther.mp3

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Pure Imagination https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-pureimagination.mp3

Somewhere Over the Rainbow https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-somewhere.mp3

Celine Dion Titanic's My Heart Will Go On https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-titanic2.mp3

Beethoven's Fur Elise https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-fur-elise.mp3

Coldplay's The Scientist https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-scientist.mp3

Coldplay's Yellow https://my.bincdn.com/1117/keylimba-yellow.mp3

It's been fun learning. Not going to produce or turn it into a studio or anything, but still fun. And makes for good conversation or just a small audience who loves music.

As a developer, it takes my mind off a problem for a while, but keeps my mind doing something. If it's too challenging, I'll take a break from learning how to play the music and go back to programming, and by then, I've often solved my problem, or taking a break, I can move past where I'd been stuck making the same mistake in the song.

TurntableLIVE.com

i hate music it's got too many notes

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