PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Does all this music stuff I own actually produce better music?

Well..before we start, I totally get the idea that " the guy who dies with the most toys wins"

My office/computer room/music room/studio is beginning to look like a re-run of hoarders.

Other than the fact I need a bigger house to put all this stuff in I am beginning to wonder how damaging all this is to actually creating music.

I have spent untold hours messing around with the six zillion petabytes of music software I own.

I assume some of you are way more interested in the "tools" than the product they products. I also assume there are people who know nothing about music and don't play any instrument like trying to create music with software.

When does all this just become another video game?

Every now and then I turn all this stuff off and just play guitar through real tube amps with nothing in front of the amp. Amazing sound! Acoustic piano...what a concept!

Does this ring any bells?

Billy

I have some extraordinary music tools, although in a rather compact little home office, for composing Brazilian jazz. Among the few things I will spend big money on are speed and sound.

I am inspired by great sound. That means great speakers and the best virtual instruments for jazz big band and orchestra I can get.

The speed part means, if I have an idea, I want to get right to it and not wait for technology.

And I do play a variety of real instruments (brass and woodwinds) but what makes me want to pick them up and play is my work in BIAB.

"If you can't make decent music with a computer stick mic and most modern sound cards, you probably can't with anything!"

- Mac McDonald

That's a good point Billy, and reminds me of an old comedy bit by Pete Barbutti. He tells a story of a guy who is the leader of a big band who is the leader only because he owned all the equipment and a station wagon with a luggage rack. He would sit in a chair with the trumpet players and the song in the bit was Little Grass Shack. Pete just sat there and snapped his fingers and when the came to a break he played the 2 notes he could play. (Pete was a very good musician, by the way.) I am as guilty of gear hoarding as the next guy with my 10 guitars I can barely play and that rack full of synths to go with the 5 keyboards I have. And I am pretty much retired from music. I am also lazy, and I have like 5 or 6 things started that I lost interest in. My focus has turned now to learning how to fly my new drone so I can put it to good use on this upcoming road trip. Then my attention will turn to things I need to do on the house and yard. I doubt if I will play in the band I was in last year unless they can deliver 22-25 dates over the summer, as it is a "festival" kind of band. It's not worth the trouble to be tearing my studio apart to go play a random gig here and there and then having to bring it back and rewire everything again.

Here's the bit

As much as I enjoy having this software it has the potential to cheapen and water down the songwriting. When people who know zero about music, chord progressions and the like, can use PG demo songs and create music it takes something away from actual musicians who have paid the dues.

If you have people come in and build a house, and you do nothing more than serve as general contractor and never drive a nail, did YOU "build" a house?

That's PG software and some undetermined number of people here. Just another example of the microwave world we are in where shortcuts matter more than learning.

I told the story recently about the kid who turned in a song in college claiming that he wrote it, and I busted him because what he turned in was the demo that comes in a Yamaha DX7. I knew that because I also had a DX7. That kind of thing is why I don't listen to a lot of the songs in the songwriter's forum. I have my selected dozen or so goto people I listen to because I know they have actually entered a chord chart based on their musicianship and music knowledge. The "demo grabbers" I don't have much respect for. And I can usually spot them.

One of my bandmates from a long time ago started posting about how much he loves cooking, based on him using one of those services that sends you portioned ingredients and instructions on how to be the hands that does someone else's cooking. I told him that those things are the food version of a copy band. LOL!!

So, Billy, answer your own question. Are you a better guitar player because you own X number of guitars? In my case it means I am a mediocre guitar player on my choice of 10 guitars.

And it comes down to this. If it's the stuff that makes the music better, is it YOU making the music better or the stuff?

LOL...obviously if I did not like BIAB software I would not have bought their latest audiophile addition. And obviously, if I did not like the dozens of other software programs I own I would not have acquired them.

I have about the same equipment that Matt Finley has and I also find that BIAB motivates me to play several instruments at times. It is fun. For me, it is more fun to play live with other musicians. The software has its place.

My question is how much is too much? I own somewhere around twenty guitars, nineteen of which I rarely play. I have five computer systems. Well...these are obviously problems of prosperity...lol

I actually know people who are great musicians who have never turned on a computer for any reason.

So, just so you know, none of these questions have anything to do with BIAB directly. The "stuff" I referred to is across the board in the context of musical equipment/software. BIAB software only represents a tiny fraction.

Everything has a cost, and not just in money. Every thousand hours you spend in a DAW is a thousand hours you did not spend playing an instrument or with your wife or kids for that matter.

The question is not about right or wrong, good or bad, it is about balance.

How much is too much?

Billy

I loved Pete Barbutti's routines. this one was what he called the 3rd Trumpet Player. The guy in the 3rd Chair being the band leader because, as you said, he owned all the stuff. He would call the song, "Ok guys, page 25 in the red book" He would sit and you watch him count along with the music to his part and it was 1 or 2 notes, maybe 3! Used to do it on the tonight show all the time. He was funny, actually still is. He does some corporate events still.

Yes, great routine. It’s even worse, though: he does 4th trumpet!

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah little grass shack..."

The one about the cor-deen teacher was great too. And the "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" story. He is really funny.

I used to say if you can't work on it and fix it with a pair of lineman's pliers and a screwdriver, it couldn't be fixed.

While I would often be able to do my job as an electrician with those 2 tools, there's a lot to be said about having the right tool for the job.

Can you write and record with a guitar and your DAW? Absolutely. But now that I have BB and a few other things, that job of writing, or getting the ideas out in the most expeditious manner without hindering the flow is much easier.

It's not about having the most tools or toys, but using the ones that you have to the fullest extent.

Oh Yeah That's right!

I loved when he played the piano. Using the plunger head as a cigar holder on the side of the piano and adjusting the bench height while plinking on the keys like he was tuning it! Just all funny stuff. His eyes always sold the jokes.

No gigs, no dinero… made me trim down my stuff. And practice more.

Put me in a philisophical mood. The question I’ve never asked myself, but I do now when I consider new (better, faster, shinier) gear: did Coltrane need it?

Turns out Trane didn’t need the new archtop, Nord piano, Kontakt library, Intel9 processor. Neither did Charlie Parker. Recently discovered Chet Baker’s trumpet was so beat up in the eighties even accomplished players couldn’t get a decent note out if it. He recorded some of his best stuff nevertheless.

Still struggling with the image of Wynton Marsalis and his macbook, though. Give me some time to process that. And those state of the art trumpets he plays. Duke Robillard playing a Gibson Centennial, Michael Brecker’s mouthpiece, Metheny’s Orchestrion, Jack deJohnette’s cymbals, Jarrett’s Steinway, … still.

Wise words, Billy.

Dear Billy old Buddy,

Some of these comments on the forum make no sense to me.

I know this should sound obvious, but PG Music products have been created to, well, MAKE MUSIC. 

If Mozart were alive today I am absolutely sure he would have BIAB and use it all of the time, with glee. And he would have more plugins than me.

He was this kind of guy: you would show him a harpsichord and he would go: “Got it!  Seems kinda small, but let me see what I can do!”

Or they would lead him by the hand into an orchestra pit, tell him this is what he had to work with now, and he would say: “Oh yeah! That’s what I’m talking about, Now check this &*%^$ out!!!!”

Same thing with BIAB, eh?? And all other stuff.

With the absolute overload and glut of available tools and sounds, why are people still talking?????

Where are the amazing songs?  Why are we talking about cables and wires???? Where is the music?  Why are you still singing the blues and saying oh baby??? Why are you still drinking from the whiskey glass and saying your mama done you wrong????  Where are the tunes????????  

I have more instruments in my house than I can count and I play most of them regularly just because it is FUN!!!!  I have closets full of analog pedals and I know how to use them all.

But ALSO, I am stupefied by the potentialities created by BIAB for blending the stuff I can play with that others can play.  And as an artist, I know you don't have to do it any one way. You can sing over a demo style.  Just change two chords and you should be good. It's just a chord progression for God's sake. You can play just a beat. You can use Ozone 9 or not use Ozone 9 but for the love of God, PUT UP A SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do something!!!!!! Pluck a note!!  One!!! Or none!!

BUT POST A SONG.

So we can HEAR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost everything else is 100% pure gibberish.

If Mozart were alive he would tell you.

So there. That is my daily rant. I feel better now.

Mr Snyder, you once again hit it on the head. Summing up, what I say you say was "Don't hide behind the technology. Use it as a tool." Everybody would love to hear actual music, not planning, not recruiting people, not all of the this and the that.

Well, everybody but Beethoven...

If this does not send chills up your spine you are in the wrong place.

This is what he did it on man. Being played live. It wasn't even the best available.

As part of my recital in college I did the Allegro Movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto 21 in C Maj. That piece is so beautiful (even when I played it) that I played most of it in tears. He is my all time favorite classical composer. And it's not even a horse race. Beethoven was great as well and comes in at #2, and the darkness of Wagner brings him in at #3. I probably like Wagner because, like me, he never finished anything! LOL!! He completed only one symphony, his Symphony in C Major. WHen he was 19! After that, again much like me, it was all downhill from there...

Man, everybody told Handel he was a big fat loser and a washed up old man and everyone hated him too--and his music sucked and he was out of date. That he was totally uncool.

Then he entered a Christmas music contest.

They said what you got old fart loser.

He said:

"I call it the Messiah. The ending is pretty epic. So epic, in fact, that I predict it will be played in every church in every city in the entire freaking world every Christmas Eve for the rest of time or until Jesus comes back. Trust me."

Just sayin' man. Just sayin.'

Proof that you don't need the best tools to make great music.

@guitarhacker .... "Proof that you don't need the best tools to make great music."

Except when it comes to recording my voice. That's when I need as many "tools" as it takes to make it somewhat listenable!

To get back to Billy's original post and considering this is PG's forum, the answer to him is whatever makes you happy is good. The point is to still make/play/listen to music. I've been on this forum for over 20 years and most here are hobbyists just having some fun. There are a few true pro's but most are just messing around having some fun.

At age 76, the worst thing I see with an old person who's still pretty healthy is they get bored. They never developed any worthwhile hobbies, never developed their minds in anything. They never had a real career, just worked regular jobs because they needed to live but the jobs never meant anything to them. Now they're retired with nothing to do but watch reruns of Oprah or something. This is why when I retired from the CPA firm almost 5 years ago now I agreed to still work part time for them as a remote consultant. It's why I still gig every chance I get, like I basically froze my butt off doing two outdoor gigs for Presidents Day in Avalon on Catalina Island. I had to play bass because our bass player was sick so I needed to work up some songs that I already know well but never paid much attention to the bass lines. In addition to that I'm a high tech geek and I watch a ton of YT vids about all kinds of stuff. I have a very curious mind and can find tons of things that interest me. The internet is the best library ever created in the history of the human race.

I say this to not brag, far from it. I know there a lot of elderly people on these forums. If you're retired and do not stay active to the best of your ability both physically and mentally, you're just going to waste away. I try to, gently of course, tell people this both in person and online.

All the toys we all have are all good. If you need to get rid of some of it to make space, that's sensible just don't quit making music. There is no downside to this, music improves the mind because of how it all works. I get Eddies point about somebody using a demo song and saying he wrote it and that somehow offends him. Fine, but the person who did that and posted it is probably older and is simply keeping themselves active by doing that and I say good for them. They're not trying to go to Sony and tell them Hey, listen to this new song I just wrote! Discussions like this always revert to the musical world in general, I'm trying to keep it real, here, on these forums.

Keep it up, don't give it up. If all you can do is a rewrite of Mary Had a Little Lamb using a Biab demo song, great I'd love to hear it and good for you. It's better than watching 30 year old reruns and drinking beer on your couch.

Bob