Miroona's recent activity

  1. Comment on Does anyone else feel like it's really weird to be right here in the moment? in ~talk

    Miroona
    Link
    Rather than weird, blissful would probably be a bit closer to the word I'd use.

    Rather than weird, blissful would probably be a bit closer to the word I'd use.

    5 votes
  2. Comment on Do you use Linux for music production? What software and tools do you use? in ~creative

    Miroona
    (edited )
    Link
    I'm a little late to the party seeing this thread was posted over a week ago but I'll chime in here regardless: I use Fedora Linux for music production, but I haven't fully setup everything yet...

    I'm a little late to the party seeing this thread was posted over a week ago but I'll chime in here regardless: I use Fedora Linux for music production, but I haven't fully setup everything yet (particularly plug-in's). Getting FL Studio working at all was actually a fairly trivial process. Getting something like Serum working has taken a little bit more time; there are several performance and usability related issues that I haven't nailed down yet (move the mouse cursor within the Serum window and you get 0-1 fps, which means you can't actually manipulate anything).

    I am also interested in trying out Bitwig for a number of reasons while using FL as the daily driver. For the most part, I think people are sleeping on FL Studio as competent audio creation software (Benn Jordan (The Flashbulb) speaks at length about this and other topics as well; I recommend that channel - the dude knows his stuff).

    I took a break from creating much since last December, a move that was intentional as I just needed to spend time doing and thinking about other things but I feel like I'm almost at the point where I'm ready to create again. I recently purchased parts for a new system: a 3800x with a Gigabyte X570-based motherboard and I'll still catch myself in passing thinking about how awesome of an upgrade it is over my prior 2500k system. It's going to be a powerhouse and I'm grateful to have it. I was "constantly" running into the performance ceiling.

    The last step of course is to get everything actually running on Linux and I want to be committed to that. I really don't want to use Windows anymore. I'll be lying in bed listening to my machine spur up doing stuff for no reason even if there aren't any programs running whereas in Linux, I know my machine is truly mine.

    I did find a forum you guys might be interested in, linuxmusicians.com. I registered there a little while ago and is actually decently active and I still find myself stopping by and learning stuff so it might be of note to someone here as well.

    Fedora, by the way, is a super rad operating system especially in a non-default state (check out Gnome Extensions website). I think I'm also going to be playing around with a new shell (link #1), (link 2).

    Happy to see more creativity / project oriented posts on Tildes; I really should be posting more here again and elsewhere. There aren't too many places* (I spend a lot of time on music tracker forums) online I find where stuff like this can be discussed both on a creative level and on a technical level and I really like seeing that here.

    I think I'll start thinking about making music for a game, tbd.

    Edit x2: oh also, check out https://llllllll.co/

    1 vote
  3. Comment on Too many kids show worrying signs of fragility from a very young age. Here’s what we can do about it | Parenting kids with anxiety in ~life

    Miroona
    Link
    I encourage anyone remotely interested in this topic to set aside an hour and watch this video. It won't be super relevant if you're not a teacher or a parent, but it is nonetheless chalk full of...
    • Exemplary

    I encourage anyone remotely interested in this topic to set aside an hour and watch this video. It won't be super relevant if you're not a teacher or a parent, but it is nonetheless chalk full of great information and useful data particularly in the middle half of the video, though the whole thing is worth watching entirely.

    I try to be mindful of the links that I share these days; this video is worth your time. Hopefully you find it as informative as I have.

    13 votes
  4. Comment on Mozilla lays off seventy as it waits for new products to generate revenue in ~tech

    Miroona
    Link
    It's worth reading the memo in the above article. And then goes on to explain the thought process behind the decision and what's planned for the future. It is most certainly unfortunate for the...

    It's worth reading the memo in the above article.

    We are doing this with the utmost respect for each and every person who is impacted and will go to great lengths to take care of them by providing generous exit packages and outplacement support

    And then goes on to explain the thought process behind the decision and what's planned for the future. It is most certainly unfortunate for the people involved, but I have to say that I feel fairly comfortable not only with the future of the individuals impacted (given the first quote above) but also the future of Mozilla itself given the level of transparency I'm picking up from this memo.

    Even though I expect it will be difficult to digest right now, I would like to share more about what led to this decision. Perhaps you can come back to it later, if that’s easier.

    10 votes
  5. Comment on Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 1 discussion thread in ~tv

  6. Comment on Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 1 discussion thread in ~tv

    Miroona
    Link
    I think the episode contains a number of small filler moments just to fill the rest of it out. I'll use the typically cliche and unnecessary sex scene as one example and maybe even the small bit...

    I think the episode contains a number of small filler moments just to fill the rest of it out. I'll use the typically cliche and unnecessary sex scene as one example and maybe even the small bit near the beginning with the eunuch quip from Tyrion. There's even two minutes of screen time dedicated to a boy trying to get a decent view of the army moving in just after the show title opening which again, is strangely high. Overall these are minor points particularly given that it is, after all, the first episode of the season, but it was noticeable enough for me to wonder about the overall pacing of the larger story at hand as well as all of its subplots as the season pans out.

    1 vote
  7. Comment on What is the blogging platform of your dreams? in ~talk

    Miroona
    Link
    I like Netlify. There's also Github Pages. A third option. Gwern.net is an example of a blog format I'm fond of in that it neatly divides posts by subject material. This is an ideal format for a...

    I like Netlify. There's also Github Pages. A third option.

    Gwern.net is an example of a blog format I'm fond of in that it neatly divides posts by subject material. This is an ideal format for a writer with varied interests, in my opinion.

    5 votes
  8. Comment on What was your fondest memory of a community on the internet ? in ~talk

    Miroona
    (edited )
    Link
    I’ve got tons. You see, when I say I grew up online, I really mean it. I’m also quite high at the present moment so please forgive me. I have several favorites. I was a member of a group of music...
    • Exemplary

    I’ve got tons.

    You see, when I say I grew up online, I really mean it. I’m also quite high at the present moment so please forgive me.

    I have several favorites. I was a member of a group of music subforum regulars on DeviantArt.com. The the actual music subforum was actually quite shit because of what were perceived to be “normies” who stumbled into the deviantART for the first time, deciding to post the 2094781rd My Chemical Romance total nerdgasm fanboy thread. And because dA is so large, we had this happening every single day. So we’d have fun and see how well we (the regulars) could blend into what the group saw as a dumb crowd of normies who always post like it’s their first time seeing sunshine and they’re just so happy to be there.

    Basically what this amounted from this idea of making up fun shit to do was pretending to be so blatantly normie in any given thread or create our own and see how far we could get before we had a mod come and lock our fun. I’m not talking about anything super trolly, but back then trolling was an art form. We’d make new profiles like this one and see how far we could take it before the rest of the larger subforum figured it out and the jig was up. Just good fun.

    The deviantART forums are a good memory. The music subforum regulars connected with each other with a system other regulars of other subforums had which involved creating new deviantART accounts (for the forums) and then “watching”/favoriting that account, and then people who followed a particular subforum profile page connected there. I remember deviantART’s forums being somewhat neglected or thought of as an afterthought so development of features like that didn't exist yet but we didn’t care since we knew each other so well and were able to form this sort of community system regardless and in a time that the distinction between an “organizational profile” and an individual user wasn’t so clear. These cliques built around individual subforums were always so fascinating to me and it was great to be a part of that. The music subforum nerds took it to IRC for several years and did pretty well, even ended up encouraging other non-regulars to come and talk, and many did. We also made a clusterfuck of an album together (each of us submitted a track that we had made in our DAW).

    That same group also got into something I’ll call the “torrent/p2p scene” (in addition to regular TF2!) as a collective (I was one of the ones that introduced it). We’d pass each other invitations to trackers when we had them available and start posting on their forums (“because hey we actually like talking to people! This is the Internet, and it’s awesome! Aren’t you happy to be alive right now? :)”). I fucking loved posting on private tracker forums. There are some cool fucking people out there and it’s really awesome seeing a community develop and grow over anything. You do that by participating.

    Even earlier on, I remember early 2000s Age of Empires: The Conquerors’ Edition clans forming .tk webpages and makeshift comment boxes, or rented from some cheap/no cost forum provider solution. And that shit was awesome. We played on Microsoft’s Zone.com until they shut down the CD-ROM section in something like summer 2006 (I remember because Halo 2 came out two years earlier, and I have some stories about that too!). I remember fondly where small puddles of people who posted regularly in one of the game’s lobbies shoutboxes gradually getting to know each other more and playing the game together. I got to know this one other kid from GA pretty well and I remember thinking that was a new friend I had made on the Internet.

    As just a kid, I always thought that was so fucking cool, and then I realized almost everyone who was on the Internet(“!”) at that time did too. It’s this fucking incredible thing that we can feel like it’s ours and get to know each other without even living in your country (and then commercialism ran a train through it.)

    I was also into making forum signatures for forums that I visited that supported them (most did, especially gaming forums, except the one I frequented on Bungie.net). So then I ended up finding a place called nationalsigleague.com and getting involved there in tandem with discussion groups that a then-new site called last.fm had. Some people would post on certain event pages even for an upcoming show, asking if anyone wanted to carpool in the area or meet there (which I did myself for a Machinedrum show, and predictably turned out fine). I think what CBS has done with last.fm having since purchased it represents a huge disservice to anyone who was a regular of that service (and then, communities). Trent Reznor had just come out with remix.nin.com and I was a part of that too.

    Tracker forums, dA, and AoE clans were just the beginning when I discovered the Internet as a kid. I got pretty into podcasting (when podcasting was seriously infantile) and games (and Slashdot) but not really for the love the games themselves, but the communities surrounding those podcasts and the games they talk about (I will try rewording this later). I ended up posting a lot on the 1up.com forums and the community that surrounded the Computer Gaming World / Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) podcasts. 1up had a bunch of these podcasts (Retronauts, etc) and so some of the games journalists there podcasted. The podcast[0] of the PC game journalists were my favorite (“GFW Radio”) and you can still listen to their podcast online (which ended years ago). Here's an excerpt of one episode that inspired many of the deviantART shenanigans I loved doing.

    Many of the episodes were really interesting insights into games journalism and their relationships with publishing companies. I also wrote for a then fairly new videogame reviews/previews site that I later discovered also posted on deviantART too and then checking out my links being submitted to sites like News4Gamers (N4G) whose website now looks substantially different then what it was then. Writing about Bioshock as a teenager, watching the article pick up steam in various places online, and listening my favorite games journalists talking about a game I loved on an episode of a podcast that I loved was so rad. I invited one of the journalists to one of my favorite music trackers (waffles was born) and I thought that was pretty great. I also started a music blog which is still online that got to be pretty popular with the tracker demographic (thinking about starting it back up again).

    I also for a time ended up being a figure in Eve Online.

    [0] https://archive.org/details/GFWRadioCollection

    12 votes
  9. Comment on Google Hangouts for consumers will shut down in 2020 in ~tech

    Miroona
    Link Parent
    Discord is something I've written about before: What I'd really like is a program that interconnects with other chat programs/services/platforms. Trillian was/is almost successful here, but my...
    • Exemplary

    Discord is something I've written about before:

    What irritates me about Discord is much less about the software but rather the company. This is a program (ahem, platform) that didn't exist one day and then had 100M users with millions of dollars of marketing behind it the next - all in an era where it has been popularized to pump a bunch of VC into a tech startup and then sell the company to a larger one when your platform has $X million users.

    Another thing that bothers me is the lack of End to End Encryption (E2E). I feel this is incredibly irresponsible particularly when representatives of the company - including CEO Jason Citron - state that they use TLS for "text chat etc" which is about data in transit and is not what E2E is concerned with. They stated back in 2016 on their feedback page that they have no plans on implementing any kind of E2E implementation which I find troublesome particularly since the Signal protocol that is brought up in this link has already been implemented to other popular communications software like WhatsApp.

    I simply don't buy that the difficulty in putting this feature in your software is insurmountable for a company like Discord. They said they'd revisit it and almost three years later, it remains one of the most important suggestions voted into the thousands on the "declined suggestions" page (the votes of which, by the way, were locked. So now you can't even vote for this feature even if you sign-in).

    At a more superficial level, I'd be thrilled with a more minimalistic interface - something MSN Messenger managed to do a decade ago. Discord shouldn't take up so much screen real estate. I'd also be thrilled with an option to separate "identities" on a per server basis.

    Your data is valuable and they know it. This is not a trustworthy company.

    What I'd really like is a program that interconnects with other chat programs/services/platforms. Trillian was/is almost successful here, but my perception is that it started to deteriorate as a viable option right around the time Microsoft discontinued the capability to use the program to interact with Skype users. With that, interoperability with Windows Live Messenger was also discontinued. Trillian also cannot be used to interact with users of other programs like Discord or Steam. It's also closed source software (and uses a lousy encryption implementation).

    Chat on the Internet is not hard (there are reasons why IRC is still used - which is awesome), but linked to a commercial company with financial interests in developing and maintaining as much control as they can over its users and suddenly you've got a recipe for an invitation for the program in question to be susceptible to anti-user business decisions that ultimately have a negative impact on user experience - especially if that organization is VC funded like Discord is.

    8 votes
  10. Comment on Reddit silently introduces an option to report content as violating the German NetzDG law in ~talk

    Miroona
    Link
    Many if not most of reddit's failures and choices that ultimately negatively impact its users are pretty familiar to me, but I wish I knew more about how this one worked/works out. In other words:...

    Many if not most of reddit's failures and choices that ultimately negatively impact its users are pretty familiar to me, but I wish I knew more about how this one worked/works out. In other words: what is the motivation for reddit to implement an option like this? Does the German government contact reddit and request that what we're looking at be put in place? In what capacity does reddit handle reports filed under that category? Or are they just forwarded to German officials?

    I was aware that Germany has a rather stringent stance in affairs of speech (and copyright) but I can't imagine being the person willing to sign off on something like this - on reddit's side or within that country's government. Though the screenshot that the op includes the line:

    "A new german law named NetzDG that will force social media sites to delete offensive content has come into effect with the New Year. There are plenty of critics on both the far-right and among internet activists"

    To me, this isn't a "left versus right" issue. I feel this represents another small notch into what the Internet is - or otherwise used to be - for people. I take a very Picard-esque opinion (another) to the topic of freedom of speech. It's a value, not just a legal right - at least in my mind.

    3 votes
  11. Comment on As someone with ADHD, I hate the "RTFM" motto in ~comp

    Miroona
    Link
    I feel like I can understand the two arguments being presented. That being said, imagined you have authored some software. People have questions about this software. You have now authored...

    I feel like I can understand the two arguments being presented. That being said, imagined you have authored some software. People have questions about this software. You have now authored documentation to answer those questions as you've realized that answering them takes time away from doing something else. You can quickly see why it becomes a nuisance to get called upon to answer questions you've answered dozens (!) of times before even after writing documentation to answer the very thing you are asking about.

    I feel like the word "manual" has caught a negative connotation for being boring or even useless (even if one recognizes that all manuals aren't created equally: one can't know that without first looking through it).

    We no longer live in a world where finding answers in your 800 page manual for your 1998 Ford Windstar has to be done without tools like CTRL+F.

    Although I acknowledge the "users can be lazy" argument, from my perspective, it's always been more about simply showing the user that such documentation actually exists. They might not even know.

    "RTFM" for me isn't a motto; I don't use the term pejoratively. When I see somebody asking questions, I want to help them. Documentation has been created to answer the exact series of questions they have thought long enough to ask about in the first place, raising awareness by pointing them to a reference they might've not been aware of is a practice that should be encouraged.

    I try to be aware of things like the "curse of knowledge" (Wikipedia article), a cognitive bias in which people assume - unknowingly - that others have the prerequisite background knowledge to understand the topic at hand.

    But then imagine if Tildes had users coming to the forums every day to ask how they can hyperlink a URL within a post. Pointing them to the documentation in this scenario is a healthy practice.

    (Tangentially, I feel the same way thinking about topics like grammar. If I've misused a word, my thinking is that I would want to know about it so I don't make that mistake again. Tact aside, I don't quite understand people who lash out at others for simply letting them know).

    I have ADD and a bit of an annoyance of mine is when I see others claim the same use it as a crutch. I have re-read your post and I am not quite sure if you are or not, but thinking about further, some of your comments are a bit dramatic. Let's not pretend that you have to go page-by-page in a 650 page manual when CTRL+F exists.

    5 votes
  12. Comment on Steam Autumn Sale 2018 in ~games

    Miroona
    Link
    Age of Empires II HD for $4, that's awesome. If anyone picks this up, let me know and we can play.

    Age of Empires II HD for $4, that's awesome. If anyone picks this up, let me know and we can play.

    3 votes
  13. Comment on Posting old news in ~tildes

    Miroona
    Link
    There's nothing wrong with what you're suggesting and as cadadr pointed out, commentators at HN (as well as other communities) often submit links to past news or articles with the purpose of...

    There's nothing wrong with what you're suggesting and as cadadr pointed out, commentators at HN (as well as other communities) often submit links to past news or articles with the purpose of discussing what's been brought to the table. I think the operative phrase here is to encourage discussion and I find that generally speaking, if the submitter writes a thought or even something of a 'submission statement' in conjunction with the link they've just submitted for consideration, it increases the likelihood that readers will respond as the op just got the ball rolling for everyone.

    I know that's a bit of a side note, but I definitely encourage anyone who submits a link (to an article or news piece, old or new - doesn't matter) to follow up with some thoughts on that link - even if it's just posting about what motivated you to share it. My dream for Tildes is that this is a place people can come to that's much less of a feed and much more of a place for actual conversation.

    As another side note to your post, I was always a bit ambivalent when I saw people on reddit address it as a singular entity. I feel that a community is expected to have differences of opinion and when people incorrectly treat a community as an individual, it starts to offer a rather hypocritical impression of behavior to both participants and passerby's. Feel free to let me know if I'm nitpicking here (it's just an observation).

    5 votes
  14. Comment on EA is partnering with many of the original Westwood developers to work on the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection in ~games

    Miroona
    (edited )
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    Having fond memories of C&C, I have to realize that I happen to be in the target demographic of such a development. EA of course understands that as well since nostalgia help serves as a catalyst...

    Having fond memories of C&C, I have to realize that I happen to be in the target demographic of such a development. EA of course understands that as well since nostalgia help serves as a catalyst to compel many people to buy games that are continually being remade or remastered.

    I can't help but notice that this is yet another title being brought out from gaming history's dusty shelves to be given the treatment of a new polish and a fresh coat of paint. This isn't so much a comment on EA specifically as it is a comment on the current state of the gaming industry - or more accurately, the state of "triple A" titles.

    Loot boxes, microtransactions, and unnecessary different editions of the same game are all common complaints plaguing this area of videogames and I think rightfully so as these things and many more are what happens when an industry forgets what brought them there in the first place: fun. Sacrifice some fun for mechanics that encourage spending is an equation that seems to agree with companies like EA and "Activision Blizzard" and their shareholders and this behavior shows no sign of stopping if trends are any indication.

    So while I am happy to see the news of a remaster of one of my favorite games, I can tell you that I will not preorder it, instead I will wait for reviews. I'm sure somebody knows someone who has been burned by any number of recently hyped titles that turned out to be not as good as what they might've thought (Fallout 76?). I encourage everyone to do the same. Friends don't let friends pre-order games.

    4 votes
  15. Comment on Creative process discussion in ~creative

    Miroona
    Link
    Before making the conscious decision to engage in a creative session, I make sure I'm well hydrated and I've got everything I need before sitting down at the computer. This means I've showered for...

    Before making the conscious decision to engage in a creative session, I make sure I'm well hydrated and I've got everything I need before sitting down at the computer. This means I've showered for the day, my desk is free of clutter, and general house keeping stuff are taken care of.

    I consider a good session of music creation to be a four hour block of uninterrupted time. I make it a point to try to submerge myself in what I am doing so I can become better little by little every day. It dawned on me at some point that many of the hobbies I've had have come and gone, but creating music (and writing; in fact, I've also written extensively about music on a blog that's still online) is something ... I've just stuck with. I love possibility and that thought alone only serves to encourage me to press on.

    On a personal level, I used to be super into technology and computing in general; I've grown up with computers, forums, and the golden years of the Internet but that being said, I've realized that I've become a bit disillusioned by both technology and the tech industry. I guess it's just a bit weird for me to no longer consider myself all that much of a "computer guy."

    It has impacted me this much.

    1 vote
  16. Comment on What are y'all's favorite (private?) trackers? in ~tech

    Miroona
    (edited )
    Link
    Oink and later What will forever both have a place in my heart however as far as current trackers go, I'm really into HDbits, MAM as noted earlier, Waffles, and Redacted. I'm also a huge fan of...

    Oink and later What will forever both have a place in my heart however as far as current trackers go, I'm really into HDbits, MAM as noted earlier, Waffles, and Redacted. I'm also a huge fan of Karagarga, trancetraffic, audionews (talk to me if you make ambient oriented music!), deepbass9, and NotWhat. I love all of these trackers and more for various reasons.

    I don't take my membership at any private tracker for granted (I am especially grateful for Karagarga and HDbits which have great communities). I've spoken at length regarding the enormous benefit and satisfaction one gets out of participating in these sorts of forums and I believe that they play a larger role beyond the simple exchange of media that services like Netflix and Spotify will never be able to fulfill.

    2 votes
  17. Comment on Nitinol: The shape memory effect and superelasticity in ~science

    Miroona
    Link
    This is actually a very informative video and he puts a lot of thought into something that lasts only ten minutes. I appreciate the lack of fluff and other meta commentary consistent with many,...

    This is actually a very informative video and he puts a lot of thought into something that lasts only ten minutes. I appreciate the lack of fluff and other meta commentary consistent with many, many other channels that plague Youtube ("like/share" - "don't forget to subscribe" and so on). The bit towards the end regarding the stent and its usefulness in a coronary artery is news to me.

    2 votes
  18. Comment on Twitter is considering removing its "like" button in ~tech

    Miroona
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I was not able to find another source beyond the Telegraph link nor was I able to access the full version of the article running it through Archive.org or various Firefox extensions. That being...

    I was not able to find another source beyond the Telegraph link nor was I able to access the full version of the article running it through Archive.org or various Firefox extensions.

    That being said, Slashdot has this tidbit to add:

    Update: In a statement, Twitter neither confirmed nor denied the report, adding that it was indeed in the process of rethinking "everything." It said, "As we've been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation, that includes the like button. We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now."

    I think they think of how people use Twitter differently than I do. The service has always struck me as having a bit of a one-to-many relationship in that a celebrity individual or organization of interest can post something and have it disseminated to many people. It's something one subscribes to so it becomes a feed, rather than a conversation. It's a tool of promotion rather than discussion.

    I understand people can use it differently but overall, firing short bursts of 1-2 liners is a format that doesn't encourage reciprocal discussion of any kind; in my mind, it actually discourages it.

    9 votes
  19. Comment on Feeling totally stuck trying to work out music production in ~hobbies

    Miroona
    (edited )
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    What s4b3r6 brought up is in-line with a lot of what I'd say. I like to think in terms of process over tools but there's a lot of low hanging fruit here on both ends. I don't know if you're...
    • Exemplary

    What s4b3r6 brought up is in-line with a lot of what I'd say. I like to think in terms of process over tools but there's a lot of low hanging fruit here on both ends.

    I don't know if you're interested in such a suggestion, but I'd start by trying out a DAW like FL Studio or Ableton. I agree with s4b3r6 that there are better ways of approaching this and he is correct in saying that LMMS is coming at music production from the opposite direction. You can make this significantly easier on yourself. I prefer to use FL Studio as I've found that its interface simply suits me better (and its piano roll is heads and shoulders above any other DAWs I've used). You will have a lot of "but how do I do this?" type questions for some time but as you're a programmer and writing code is something that also requires patience, I think you will be just fine. If you've ever used Photoshop to any significant degree, you'll know that you can spend years working with it and only truly know 10% of the program.

    At any rate, I don't know if you're interested in that advice, but from my perspective, you're early enough in the process of trying to figure out how to actually make something that trying out a DAW isn't at all a bad suggestion. What s4b3r6 said is absolutely correct; there's a better way to approach this. LMMS is not for the faint of heart and you can make it easier on yourself with the above.

    For the first few weeks, you'll just be getting used to learning how to identify what things look like, where things are, and relationships with other things. Buttons, knobs, sliders - all these things and more are pieces to a puzzle to which you're not exactly going to have a decent picture of what you're looking at yet. This is okay. As you develop proficiency, it'll dawn on you that you are actually fully capable of writing some super cool music. You're unlocking the artist inside; just be patient and as s4b3r6 said, slow down.

    When it comes to actual production: make it simple (FL Studio 20 makes this even more straight forward in the form of intuitive templates). Let's say you have an idea for a track; well - and I'm sure you can attest to a variation of this - many of my musical ideas are very expansive with lots of different characteristics from layer to layer and instrument to instrument. You have an idea that plays well in your mind, but as you attempt to translate it to actual audio, you realize something's off. It doesn't sound like how you imagined it. In my experience, this is where keeping it simple is fundamental (particularly as you're starting out). I learned to tone it down until I had a better grasp of what I was doing. I still catch myself doing it.

    What about that ideas of yours? Where does it start? You're sculpting something, so think in those terms. Layering is fundamental: you have a bass layer, lead, drums, and so on. If your idea calls for a bass layer, work on that layer being mindful not to forget how you want your overall song to sound. What I'm getting at here is that eventually, you're going to want and need to have a plan when you launch FL Studio. Have an idea of what the overall sound is going to be like and then develop one layer at a time (you can always come back to rework later). I like to use FL Studio's note taking functionality (F11) to document:

    1. what it is I'm working on
    2. what still needs to be developed
    3. notes pertaining to arrangement ("do I really want this sound at this moment or some time later on"?). It leaves me time to think about things and return to it later. I like to get about 80% of the sound done first.

    That's another thing that is important to be cognizant off: allow your sound time to incubate. Watch this video and then attempt to translate that into the sound equivalent. A lot of this boils down to the adage that states that in order to write well, you must first read. Listen to some of your favorite songs and really analyze them. What makes them your favorite? How are instruments used and to what degree? Also think about the arrangement itself and where a new sound introduces itself to the listener.

    I don't know how much of this is useful to you but I'm happy to try to speak to any particulars if you have any follow-up questions. I'll try my best to help.

    3 votes
  20. Comment on Anyone still listening to music with files instead of streaming? in ~music

    Miroona
    Link
    You have good taste in music, quan7hum. I have an extensive library (about 410GB) that I've been working on for many years with a heavy emphasis on electronic oriented music (Foobar 2k user as...

    You have good taste in music, quan7hum.

    I have an extensive library (about 410GB) that I've been working on for many years with a heavy emphasis on electronic oriented music (Foobar 2k user as well). I used to be a heavily active last.fm user for over a decade but a redesign in mid 2015 or so unfortunately permanently ruined the usability and functionality of the service.

    Last.fm was immensely helpful and generally a pretty cool place to be (lots of niche discussion groups penetrating some of the very ends of a lot of subgenres - sadly, this functionality was also killed). Recently though, I was really happy to have learned about https://libre.fm/ so I'm looking forward to contributing to that.