How many of you are actually dedicated to music?

[Doofcake]

I make at least 1 track every week. That is my rule. During periods when I have more free time, I try to get at least two tracks a week done. Yes, I am very dedicated to making music.

[phantomignition]

I am, but not as dedicated as many others have said they are honestly. I don't post very often, and mostly lurk, so I don't think I'm contributing to the problem.

As for feedback, as much as I feel that I should give others feedback on here, I never feel that my feedback will be informed enough, so I don't post it, or there are cases where I just don't hear anything wrong with it. I know that with myself being in the same situation that any feedback is helpful, but I just don't want to give someone bad feedback. I guess you weren't really addressing the site and more the Skype chat, but that's my mindset for here anyways.

...if you don't give music your 100% in dedication and focus, then I only have one word of advice: Quit

I honestly hate seeing shit like this... Sorry, but I just don't feel like giving up everything for music. I have other interests, and I think others do too. I just hate feeling 2nd class or something just because I don't spend all of my time on this. You might not mean it like like that, but that's the impression I get sometimes.

[Navron]

I'm in the military. I have considerably less free time than many of you when it comes to music.

Being 100% dedicated doesn't mean spending all your free time on music.

A person could spend all day, every day, on music, and not be 100% dedicated.

Being 100% dedicated means you actively seek to improve yourself, stay outside your comfort zone, and write music for yourself.

A person could spend less than 2hrs a day on music, and have all those qualities above. On the other hand, another person could spend all day on music, doesn't try to learn more about production, and constantly asks others for step-by-step instructions on how to be as successful as labeled musicians.

In regards to the latter, that's what I mean when I say you should be 100% dedicated.

[phantomignition]

Yeah, I guess I misunderstand that sometimes.

[Vivix]

I think I'm dedicated. I've been doing this for many years now, and it's what I enjoy the most in life.
I will always keep doing it, even if I have to have a day job or another career to keep alive, it's a good life. I have other interests as well, of course, and I'm slow on making new tracks, but I love it.

The only thing in music that I think is kind of a chore, is production value, but luckily, I love lo-fi music and mid-fi- so it doesn't bother me much.

[Freewave]

Rather than everyone contiunue to post in here and pledge their own commitment to music (not really needed tbh) is Makkon making any step to add more mods to this site? It just seems that with Lavendar and Jeff being the only 2 active mods there's a real deficit in moderation as has been pointed out several times in this thread. I know that some people like myself, Narvon, and 4th Impulse have volunteered so it would be nice to see someone who he feels is qualified be able to assist in the making mlr a better running site. If there's an actual step to make this place run better (other then MLR members moderating their own behavior w/o reminders) that would be it.

[the4thImpulse]

Rather than everyone contiunue to post in here and pledge their own commitment to music (not really needed tbh) is Makkon making any step to add more mods to this site? It just seems that with Lavendar and Jeff being the only 2 active mods there's a real deficit in moderation as has been pointed out several times in this thread. I know that some people like myself, Narvon, and 4th Impulse have volunteered so it would be nice to see someone who he feels is qualified be able to assist in the making mlr a better running site. If there's an actual step to make this place run better (other then MLR members moderating their own behavior w/o reminders) that would be it.

I PMed Makkon a couple days ago addressing these issues, pointing out what this thread brings out and asking his opinion on it. He said the forum absolutely needs more mods and he wants to give one of the current mods a 'makkon status' (admin) so he can focus more on his life outside MLR. He left it saying he would talk with the current mods and that's all I know.

[Freewave]

Great, glad that something is hopefully in the works.

[CaptainFluffatun]

To answer the question in the title, I am, and hope to score films for a living someday.

[senntenial]

This post is a novel so I'm just commenting on the first quote.

I really don't understand the "dedication" to music. There is a difference between spamming and dedication. For instance, I don't consider myself dedicated to music at all. I pursue other interests and do not often make many songs or have a strong desire to burn. However, I don't spam the forums. Spamming is why we need mods. MLR discussion, however, is a place for chat. Sometimes people don't feel like listening to your WIP or giving feedback, and would rather talk about whatever else bronies talk about (which is probably either the show, their computer, or their sexually deviant minds.)

Unfortunately, the problem in my eyes is the large, large community within MLR that decides that they want to produce, but have absolutely no desire to improve themselves, self-review their work, or read up on production/composing. I see nothing wrong with those who choose to chat about non musical items in the Skype chat.

You're driving off a lot of awesome musicians who used to be a part of this community, because they actually take music seriously, and they're not going to hang out in a place that makes music a second priority to participating in random off-topic discussions and meme posts.

I acknowledge the outcome of this situation, but personally disagree with the cause. I believe many "good" musicians have been turned off by the extremely mediocre atmosphere that is MLR. Facing hard truths, we all suck (not exluding myself). Those who believe themselves to be better than these aspiring musicians do not want to associate themselves with new guys getting acquainted with the concept of computers. I think a good analogy would be a Priest hanging around 4chan's /b/ board. Lieth with dogs, riseth with fleas.

[itroitnyah]

I agree with both sentennial and kyoga.

There are really good musicians who have left here because they want to associate them with people other than us, which I'm going to say that there aren't many people here who are actually "good" by many standards.

And then there are the people who are really good but still come here, like Lav, Nav, etc,.

Then there are the people who would come here to help out the beginners, but don't see hope in them, lol.

[GumsOfGabby]

Admittedly, I make music for the bitches...

There, I said it!

[Stu Beef]

So we want to be inclusive but maintain a standard of contribution.

We want to reflect/attract a standard of excellence but without marginalizing anyone.

We want the bitches, but we don't have the cash.


I find it would be rather difficult to accommodate these desires, esp. through moderation.
Mods help maintain what a forum is, they can't necessarily CHANGE what it is without considering the user base. Of course, we are the ones demanding some kind of change, but I still don't think that is enough.

All forums have their concrete standards: don't spam, don't be a jerkoff, etc; and a lot of them have their sort of unwritten, meta standards. Say you walk into a 5 star restaurant; there may not be any sign outside the door saying "Dress nice and smell nice you filthy pig *scoff", but dammit, you can bet it's expected of everyone there. But that standard comes from the kind of people who populate that place, as it is with communities like these. If we want to enact a certain kind of standard we must push to hold ourselves and everyone else accountable, and what it boils down to is not just TELLING people how to do things, it's SHOWING them.

Obviously we have our shining examples of helpful and active contributors, and yeah, I don't think everyone even has the TIME let alone the attitude to be that. But still, if improvement is desired it has to come from individuals raising the bar for EVERYONE. There should be an attitude that "man, if I'm going to participate, I better at least make an effort because damn, there's some wicked people on here."

[Sonarch]

Reading this is giving me a lot of thoughts and I would like to express them, but rather than type the stuff I have in my head currently, forgetting half of what I wanted to say in the process, and end up responding to the thread with a half-coherent mess of thoughts, i'm going to organize what I want to say. So it'll be a moment.

[Sonarch]

In other words, why are there so many new users with 15-20 posts per day, that joined within 2-3 months ago, that have yet to produce anything and/or expect the more experienced musicians to hold their hand all the way to becoming as great as Alex S, Makkon, or any other highly regarded fandom musician?

I may be one of those guys you are referring to, with over 900 posts and no tracks to my name, because I post a lot in the spam thread (where all of my spammy stuff stays), as well as a few others. I’ve tried to involve myself in several projects, but I’ve come to realize I just don’t know enough about music yet to do anything worthwhile, so as of right now my objectives are learning about my software, and working on my guitar related projects, because I do know a bit about guitar, and my guitar project is probably going to take awhile to finish.

I don’t expect to have step by step instructions on becoming the next big artist. I do ask for help with a lot of things, because I’m pretty new to music, so there is a lot of stuff I know nothing about, and I really appreciate the help people have given me when I’ve asked. Peak Freak recently helped me a ton with microphones and recording, of my guitar projects. Dr. Dissonance explained some fundamental music theory when I asked him, and it really helped me a lot. And I know 4th has given me good advice on multiple occasions, as well as many other people, so I hope you all don’t see me as some ungrateful, self-entitled jerk, because I really do appreciate it.

As for feedback, I don’t visit the Music section much simply because I don’t even know enough to make music myself, so I don’t feel like I can provide much helpful criticism. I do try on occasion, though, because I want to have contributed into the feedback before I ask to get some out. In fact, one of the first things I did when I got here was look at the new posts, click on a thread from someone with a track, asking for feedback, and it had no replies, so I went and tried to be as helpful as I could.

Although what I am writing is probably more relevant to the first post than the ones on the third page, I wanted to vent out all these thoughts I was having as I read down the thread. And most of it seems to be me justifying my presence here and all. I just need to get through this school year, and i'll have plenty of time to make music and help others out. I should stop writing now, before I stop making sense altogether.

[Navron]

Lots of Stuff

I think that's pretty much spot on.

@Sonarch: My OP isn't an attack towards high post counts nor newer musicians. Also, any feedback is better than no feedback, so don't feel like you need to do a detailed breakdown of a song. Even just simple, "I liked this part, didn't like this part," can go a longggg way to helping somebody finalize their song.

[Sonarch]

@Sonarch: My OP isn't an attack towards high post counts nor newer musicians. Also, any feedback is better than no feedback, so don't feel like you need to do a detailed breakdown of a song. Even just simple, "I liked this part, didn't like this part," can go a longggg way to helping somebody finalize their song.

Alright man, I'm not trying to be hostile or anything

[FadedSilhouette]

Well after reading through this thread I feel like I've fallen into the group that Navron was talking about in the first post. Rather than actually trying to figure out how to do some effect in a song by myself I tend to come here to seek help. In some cases that's ok but that seems to be my first reaction every time that type of situation comes up and it's unfortunate that I didn't realize that until now lol, but when I'm actually working on my music and nothing major like that is stumping me it has my complete, undivided attention and I always try to do my best, which isn't very spectacular compared to most of you guys. The reason I have so few posts with my music in them is because I've only publicly released 3 songs. That's not because I haven't made more it's because the other songs I've made I actually really dislike. For me, making music is a really long and hard process of much trial and error and frustration. That's why I love doing it so much! It's something that provides me with a big challenge and when I finally make something I like it's that much more satisfying. When I say it's hard for me and takes a while I mean 30+ hours of my FL Studio open and I'm working in it per project. If you guys want I can post a bunch of the projects I never finished but most of them are pretty bad lol. So don't worry Navron, it may not seem it but I am dedicated, I'm not going to quit, I'm always gonna try my best and I'll try to figure out FL Studio better before coming here and asking for a babysitter next time I get stumped lol.

[Gray Ham]

Well, seeing as I've only been here since March, I don't really know what it was like before the registration spam that was named Balloon Party. I realise that I've probably posted and added nothing to a thread on a lot of occasions, and I understand why you want the good ol' days back.
*makes conscious effort to tone down offtopic posts in music threads*
*makes second conscious effort to tone down empty remix promises*

[Fimbulin]

Hmmm.. I seemed to have missed this thread. To busy learning how to music at college.

[Dr. Plague]

My personal experience after joining this forum more recently rather than back in its apparent "glory days" has definitely been what everybody's been saying. But I actually came to this forum looking to improve, to get better. After looking through some threads, I was just really discouraged from posting myself. I don't wanna be ignored, and that's exactly what happened to most of my posts anyway.

Anyway, the point of this post isn't supposed to be to whine about my situation. I just wanted to offer another newbie's point of view on this matter, and it's that I just feel less compelled to post because I don't like being ignored (I guess that stems off fear of rejection or something).

[Nine Volt]

My personal experience after joining this forum more recently rather than back in its apparent "glory days" has definitely been what everybody's been saying. But I actually came to this forum looking to improve, to get better. After looking through some threads, I was just really discouraged from posting myself. I don't wanna be ignored, and that's exactly what happened to most of my posts anyway.

Anyway, the point of this post isn't supposed to be to whine about my situation. I just wanted to offer another newbie's point of view on this matter, and it's that I just feel less compelled to post because I don't like being ignored (I guess that stems off fear of rejection or something).

I looked through your ten posts and, I'll be honest, you weren't ignored any more than anyone else on the forum. Don't judge this forum after posting only ten times in like three topics.

Don't feel afraid to post your stuff, either. MLR is a very friendly community as long as you're friendly enough back, and most of our members just want to help.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly discouraged you from posting?

[Dr. Plague]

My personal experience after joining this forum more recently rather than back in its apparent "glory days" has definitely been what everybody's been saying. But I actually came to this forum looking to improve, to get better. After looking through some threads, I was just really discouraged from posting myself. I don't wanna be ignored, and that's exactly what happened to most of my posts anyway.

Anyway, the point of this post isn't supposed to be to whine about my situation. I just wanted to offer another newbie's point of view on this matter, and it's that I just feel less compelled to post because I don't like being ignored (I guess that stems off fear of rejection or something).

I looked through your ten posts and, I'll be honest, you weren't ignored any more than anyone else on the forum. Don't judge this forum after posting only ten times in like three topics.

I didn't mean to come across as trying to be some kind of prime example, haha, I just meant to say that's the feeling I got. (I suppose being shy, even on an online community, doesn't help. :P) And I just want to clarify, also, that I do recognize that there are people here who are active and do their best to help everybody; I didn't mean to lump the entire forum into a negative view.

Don't feel afraid to post your stuff, either. MLR is a very friendly community as long as you're friendly enough back, and most of our members just want to help.

Definitely good to know, though hopefully that doesn't mean sugarcoating otherwise useful criticism. I need to learn this stuff. All of my friends keep giving me sugarcoated criticism like "Yeah, this isn't quite my cup of tea, but it's definitely better than what you showed me last," which is nice but just doesn't help me. Nobody wants to really point out specifics, like "Hey, this one synth at XX:XX could probably do with some polishing up," or "This section of your song is kind of dry, maybe [some arpeggios, a stabbing synth, whatever] would help it out," anything like that. Hopefully I'm not ranting too much (god knows I get carried away sometimes with stupid examples), but you see my point. I wanted to come here for more professional and expert advice, not just casual advice that casual listeners would make. I need these people that love this music -- not just the music, but the entire process of creating it.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly discouraged you from posting?

In the end, a combination of shyness, not wanting to be ignored, and also definitely fear of being told I'm bad, haha. I know nobody would really just straight up say that, but after listening to some stuff other beginners have made, I'm even more discouraged 'cause I can tell my stuff's still a few steps short. (That being said, I wouldn't be in denial if someone were to tell me that. I'm not looking for the one someone who's gonna say my shit's good, lol, nothing like that.)

[Dabrenn]

I'll admit, I'm not as dedicated to music as most people on this forum. Its very much a hobby for me and I'm honestly not very good at it; but I desperately want to get better and become more dedicated, but I'm having trouble motivating myself to do so.

I love this forum and have received some very helpful insight from it. I likely want to see this site succeed as much as the next guy, but I've also recently been frequenting this place less and less for quite a few reasons, most of which have already been said, but also because the forum itself just seems painfully slow sometimes.

Honestly, I feel really bad sometimes because I am a "noob" as mondogreen would say. I have a ton of questions I would like to ask you guys specifically since I value your opinions because you are all very personable and kind unlike any other forum or just a flat google search. I, however, have trouble contributing to the forum myself outside of my uninformed opinions or echoing something I've heard more experienced producers say, so I, in turn, do not want to ask my questions because I don't want to come off as a a guy who is abusing you all for help without giving back.

Like you guys have said, the Music sub-forum is dead. Every time I've ever posted there I've been almost completely ignored. However, the last time I posted a WIP and asked about something specific in the Technique forum, I was criticized for not posting it in the Music forum, where it would have just been ignored.

If we are going to attempt a "resurgence" of sorts on this forum, I'll try to make a mental note to frequent here much more often and be as helpful as I possibly can.

One last thing though, I do want to sincerely thank everyone who has ever helped me out. It really does mean a lot to me and it has been what has made me love this place as a whole so much.

[Freewave]

I have to think that with the music section as dead as it is you may want to allign yourself with some fellow musicians on mlr skype chat or that you may find others who you have interests in common with. Asking a stranger to help you each and every time isn't as good as a friend or two. Biggest problem you will have is that the newer you are the less helpfull people of the same skill set will be in getting your track better. They just won't know better techniques quite yet. But there is a learning curve to this that you should be able to improve AS you make more music, as you continue to try to learn better techniques, and as you make friends that you can collab with or have can give feedback on wips. It will take time but don't get discouraged if youre planning on putting at least a year or two in to getting better.