I really wish I knew what it was I was doing

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MrFigg
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22 May 2020

Well, after 35 years of making music I'm still in the category NRTFM (the N being for Never). Anyway I've been working a while like this...get an instrument then fire a scales and chords (or similar) on it. Combine them and add a matrix, run my mouse over the pattern up and down a bit then do the same clicking here and there on the tie button. Then there's a Note Alter in there somewhere to..well the name of the device tells you that. So as I'm listening to the melody progressing I maybe add some effects...reverbs, delays whatever. Maybe alter the speed of the Matrix. Listen to that a bit more...maybe take some sort Randomisation and then some In Range because some of the notes are too high or too low. All the time I'm doing this, adding players and such I'm finding myself having to move them above and below each other because I don't actually know where they should be in the stack. Out with the fact I know what I WANT to do I don't actually know WHAT it is I'm doing. Yep...RTFM. Despite repeated attempts it would appear that is not an option. Just doesn't work. So there you go...trial and error. I get some (in my opinion) excellent melodies and runs and stuff. I really do. I wish I knew what it was I was doing :).
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Faastwalker
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22 May 2020

Sounds familiar! I think I'm about the same! :?

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MrFigg
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22 May 2020

Faastwalker wrote:
22 May 2020
Sounds familiar! I think I'm about the same! :?
It's either a blessing or a curse. :)
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DaveyG
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22 May 2020

I think you have just described both the strength and the weakness of players. You can throw random shit into them and they do their best to make something musically or rhythmically sensible out of it. But you've no idea how they did it. I do read manuals and sometimes they don't help much - a great recent example being the manual for Evolution. For every person who understands the polynomial XYZ stuff there are another 20 who just fiddle randomly with the menu.

It's the end result that matters, not how you got there. If your wish was granted wish you might gain full understanding but lose your muse. I have a friend who is (proper) classically trained in violin. She's played in orchestras since the age of about 10 and can play pretty much anything off a score but is terrible at improvising or creating, and she can't bear it when my chords, scales and notes don't meet "the rules".

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MrFigg
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22 May 2020

DaveyG wrote:
22 May 2020
I have a friend who is (proper) classically trained in violin. She's played in orchestras since the age of about 10 and can play pretty much anything off a score but is terrible at improvising or creating, and she can't bear it when my chords, scales and notes don't meet "the rules".
My three kids all play instruments. My eldest daughter plays violin by both ear and can read music too. She's pretty advanced technically but as you say about your friend she can't improvise for toffee. My youngest also plays the violin and she's totally cracked the musical code. She knows instinctively where the notes go and how they work so she can carry that over to just about any instrument I've got lying around the house...she's even actually getting pretty good at didgeridoo which isn't bad for a 9 year old. When I think she's been looking at her telephone too much I suggest a jam down in the studio and she usually hops at the invitation which is one of the things in life which make everything worth it :).
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aeox
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22 May 2020

MrFigg wrote:
22 May 2020
DaveyG wrote:
22 May 2020
I have a friend who is (proper) classically trained in violin. She's played in orchestras since the age of about 10 and can play pretty much anything off a score but is terrible at improvising or creating, and she can't bear it when my chords, scales and notes don't meet "the rules".
My three kids all play instruments. My eldest daughter plays violin by both ear and can read music too. She's pretty advanced technically but as you say about your friend she can't improvise for toffee. My youngest also plays the violin and she's totally cracked the musical code. She knows instinctively where the notes go and how they work so she can carry that over to just about any instrument I've got lying around the house...she's even actually getting pretty good at didgeridoo which isn't bad for a 9 year old. When I think she's been looking at her telephone too much I suggest a jam down in the studio and she usually hops at the invitation which is one of the things in life which make everything worth it :).
That's awesome!

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challism
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22 May 2020

MrFigg wrote:
22 May 2020

My three kids all play instruments
Glad to hear you have managed to keep the bagpipes away from your kids. Could you imagine them practicing bagpipes in the house?


I'm not sure if you are asking for clarity of how Players work together or just venting.

I absolutely love playing with Players and stacking them together, it's so much fun. They always give me such wonderful results. I pretty much understand what they are doing most of the time, but I do have some happy accidents, too. One of my favorite Players to use is the player utility MIDI-CV Convert to send player notes from one stack to another stack. You can come up with endless possibilities using that device. And Receive Note (as we both recently found out in one of your other threads) can be used to turn the player stack on and off, which opens up a new world of possibilities.

I've got to get my hands on Delta.
Players are to MIDI what synthesizers are to waveforms.

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MrFigg
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22 May 2020

challism wrote:
22 May 2020
MrFigg wrote:
22 May 2020

My three kids all play instruments
Glad to hear you have managed to keep the bagpipes away from your kids. Could you imagine them practicing bagpipes in the house?


I'm not sure if you are asking for clarity of how Players work together or just venting.

I absolutely love playing with Players and stacking them together, it's so much fun. They always give me such wonderful results. I pretty much understand what they are doing most of the time, but I do have some happy accidents, too. One of my favorite Players to use is the player utility MIDI-CV Convert to send player notes from one stack to another stack. You can come up with endless possibilities using that device. And Receive Note (as we both recently found out in one of your other threads) can be used to turn the player stack on and off, which opens up a new world of possibilities.

I've got to get my hands on Delta.
I need to look at that MIDI-CV thing Now that you just mentioned. I had it in my head that it had something to do with external instruments. Isn’t there another RE which makes it possible to send notes to different RE instruments at the same time. I’m pretty sure I’ve got one in the pile somewhere. I may be wrong though.

I’m pretty glad about the bagpipes too but I’ve got to say when you hear a full pipe and drum band playing it really fills your heart. You can feel the vibrations of the instruments going through your whole body.

Now I’m Swedish-ified though so I’m pretty keen on getting a nyckelharpa. It’s a bowed instrument with keys and sympathetic strings. They’re amazing. I got one free a while ago but it was really broken.
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MannequinRaces
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22 May 2020

challism wrote:
22 May 2020
I've got to get my hands on Delta.
Yes you do! It’s awesome. And to MrFigg I hope my two boys pick up music. They bang on my drum set and strum my guitar and play with some other stuff.

I think Players greatest strength are the happy accidents they can assist us with.

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challism
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22 May 2020

MrFigg wrote:
22 May 2020

I need to look at that MIDI-CV thing Now that you just mentioned. I had it in my head that it had something to do with external instruments. Isn’t there another RE which makes it possible to send notes to different RE instruments at the same time. I’m pretty sure I’ve got one in the pile somewhere. I may be wrong though.
Lectric Panda's CV Tap Player will do the trick, but it's monophonic and it can be kind of buggy, actually. I never reported any bugs because 1) it is a free device and 2- more importantly) the bugs I get seem to come and go, so they are hard to reproduce. It seems to happen more after a loop, song, session has been playing for a while.... the device starts skipping notes. If the bug starts to happen, I close the song and reopen and it's gone. I started to write a bug report to Rob @LP and when I opened the song up to check something, it was gone. So it's hard to report stuff, if you can't reproduce it on command. But who cares, it's a free device.

Anyway, I don't really use it anymore since I got my hands on MIDI CV Conv. It's amazing. It will take notes from one stack and send them to another stack. As you can imagine, you can come up with some really cool combinations by spidering stacks around your rack. It's easily become my favorite device.
Now I’m Swedish-ified though so I’m pretty keen on getting a nyckelharpa. It’s a bowed instrument with keys and sympathetic strings. They’re amazing.
Sounds amazing. I love bowed instruments. Imaging throwing a pickup on that thing and running it thru some effects pedals.
MannequinRaces wrote:
22 May 2020
challism wrote:
22 May 2020
I've got to get my hands on Delta.
Yes you do! It’s awesome. And to MrFigg I hope my two boys pick up music. They bang on my drum set and strum my guitar and play with some other stuff.

I think Players greatest strength are the happy accidents they can assist us with.
I completely agree about the happy accdients.

I wish I could justify buying Delta right now, as it's on sale for $45, but COVID put me out of work for the first 4 months of this year and I am really having to be careful with my money right now. No MayMadness purchases for me this year. Maybe I can pick it up during Black Friday.
Players are to MIDI what synthesizers are to waveforms.

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Reasonable man
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22 May 2020

For myself , i find initially rtfm destroys musical thought and creativity as your're just goin through the motions of 'this button does this, that setting does that' ..'now i combine these two settings and get that' followed by opening up one of the preset combinators and thinking ' hold on ..whats goin on here?' ...'ah feck this!'

Before the whole covid thing ..and because i have a crappy laptop instead of a normal computer i found that it was better to seperate the two things and i used to go to the local wi-fi coffee house after work and sit there for hours just goin through manuals for rack extenstions.. For me it was so much easier to zone out there than when being home and sometimes being surrounded by people who don't really appreciate how tedious and necessary reading manulas are..ha ha

Anway i got into reading manuals over and over sometimes. I'll tell you what though ..you might gain essential information on how these things work etc etc but speaking for myself..since i started doing it ...i've become a proper horrendus boring cnut..

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MrFigg
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22 May 2020

Tried MIDI-CV Converter for about 2 minutes and bought it. Excellent-. Thanks @Challism :)
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motuscott
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22 May 2020

Reasonable man wrote:
22 May 2020
speaking for myself..since i started doing it ...i've become a proper horrendus boring cnut..
And this is because you RTFM?!!
Holy Cow, Knowledge IS power
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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challism
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22 May 2020

motuscott wrote:
22 May 2020
Reasonable man wrote:
22 May 2020
speaking for myself..since i started doing it ...i've become a proper horrendus boring cnut..
And this is because you RTFM?!!
Holy Cow, Knowledge IS power
Remind me to keep the manuals away from my wife.
I think my mother in law might have gotten into them.
Players are to MIDI what synthesizers are to waveforms.

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motuscott
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22 May 2020

You poor bastid
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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challism
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22 May 2020

motuscott wrote:
22 May 2020
You poor bastid
Have you been looking at my bank statements?
Players are to MIDI what synthesizers are to waveforms.

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motuscott
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22 May 2020

Too busy watching your wife and MIL cheat on you...
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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selig
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22 May 2020

MrFigg wrote:
22 May 2020
Tried MIDI-CV Converter for about 2 minutes and bought it. Excellent-. Thanks @Challism :)
This one device totally opened up Players for me, adding what is essentially the "missing" MIDI cables I always wanted in Reason. :)
Selig Audio, LLC

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motuscott
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22 May 2020

Really Selig?
Do you really feel like you need to guide this conversation onto safe rational ground?
Just cos you escaped from the city...
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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demt
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22 May 2020

organized kaos allways im actually adding sum structure to my music ive blown my own brain i need DIMNESS there again the yin and the yang symble has started to spin anything could happen including boring me to death with a missing audience , did i tell you the won about being the front man for 350,000 coders etc etc etc,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Reason 12 ,gear4 music sdp3 stage piano .nektar gxp 88,behringer umc1800 .line6 spider4 30
hear scince reason 2.5

PhillipOrdonez
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22 May 2020

Så gammel er du, MrFigg! 😂

Now, I'm curious about that CV midi thingy you mentioned...

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MrFigg
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22 May 2020

PhillipOrdonez wrote:
22 May 2020
Så gammel er du, MrFigg! 😂

Now, I'm curious about that CV midi thingy you mentioned...
Du vet att jag är en riktigt gammal gubbe nu :)

That MIDI-CV converter is probably on of the most useful things I’ve bought in ages. And to think I’d just passed it by. Check it out Phill.
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motuscott
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22 May 2020

demt wrote:
22 May 2020
did i tell you the won about being the front man for 350,000 coders etc etc etc,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
No you didn't, Luv
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

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motuscott
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22 May 2020

BizarroWorld, I always knew I'd wind up here
Who’s using the royal plural now baby? 🧂

danc
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22 May 2020

I'll join the rambling... Regarding having no clue..

RULE #1 - If you DON'T know what you are doing... use your DAW and its tools to give you some 'Order out of your Chaos'.

RULE #2 - If you DO know what you are doing... use your DAW and its tools to give you some 'Chaos out of your Order'.

One day we should aim to follow both rules - because the best music is creating something with both Order and Chaos. Even if you didn't mean to - who cares as long as the music is worth listening to... people don't start questioning the competence of its author.

I wouldn't worry about it and enjoy whichever angle you approach music making.


As for why we do it...
I see people cycling their bikes for endless miles... they seem to love it. Years ago I followed my brother for like 700 miles around France and I conclude 'I hate it'.
I see people holding a rod for relentless hours next to cold water.. they seem to love it. I've never tried it and can think of thousands of reasons why I don't ever want to (e.g. my local Fish and Chip shop have solved the problem for me getting my fish quota).

Instead I get loads of fun sitting in front of a DAW and playing around... however clueless I am... I love it. It helps me relax.
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