I am curious about this - what is the main obstacle that keeps you from recording your stuff and putting it out there? Me, I LIVE to hear the "unrefined demo"! I love to hear what people come up with to try and polish their recordings, and it's always enjoyable to talk about what people used to get their tones, their process, etc.

Is it time? Is it a fear that the end product won't be good enough? Is it that folks feel like their works might be judged unfairly based on fidelity that they don't know how to achieve? Is it technical knowledge, budget constraints? Maybe one just doesn't have the physical space? Or is it that you feel like you have to be a virtuoso before you have something to share? (Simple music is just as valid as complicated music in my opinion)

I mean, not everyone can afford to shell out for a Mac Pro, an apogee Ensemble interface, protools or cubase or whatever, a bunch of killah plugins, some microphones, etc etc etc and then, where the heck do you put (host) your music?

I just get the sense that maybe some discussion on "how" to document one's works might be in order, so here goes...

Hi Jaye.

I just don't want to spend a lot of money on something that I know is relatively shite.

I'm happier to keep working on my playing, knowing that I can't put off recording forever, but that I can hear how I need to work things up before I press play and record.

Next year for a solo release for sure. I'm quite partial to the old crusty demo as well.

Thanks for giving cause to pause.

Pro studio level? Money, mostly. I do a lot of home recording and I definitely notice that I'm not a professional sound engineer.

Yeah, that first step is a big one for me. I've griped about this with Claire for some time, she's not buying my excuses anymore. I did recently have a few lessons with a cat named Jerry DiPhillippo - he is OUTSTANDING.

https://www.ableton.com/en/certified-training/jerry-diphillippo/

This helped, but there is so much to know about turning analog music into digital music. It always ends up sounding kind "H3Ll0 woR7d"-ish...

I always thought that we need courage to put something on the net and then to be afraid of being judge by others. I put a lot of things where I'm almost a beginner...on cello, the stick or piano for example. While I have a lot of experience on guitar and bass, I barely put the 2 last instruments. In fact, with the 3 first instruments I mentionned, it's more to let people ear my evolution...I don'r really care about being judged...lol.

I visit a cello forum and a guy wrote a comment on my last cello recording and it was a bit rough...lol. I just laugh about it because I know he's a classical music expert. So, I don't really care...some other people can appreciate differently.

Well this is interesting , there's never been a better time to be alive if you want to capture your music in some way shape or form.
I should point out that in a previous life I had a studio for about 8 years and lectured at a university in Audio technical production and all things studio related.
I like to post videos & audio from time to time , for me though it just a timemark in some ways and its nice to share and see what others are doing with an instrument that has such a small niche in the world still.

You can can get semi decent results with Cheapish gear now , which is great for developing ideas & showing people. The power of Logic X for the money is a complete steal, but then it depends what you feed it with conversion wise.
My little Apogee DUET into Logic is a sweet signal path compared to "the old days" and goes in my backpack, I'm old enough to still think this is awesome. Audio engineering is still a beautiful mix of art/experience & science where there's no " right answer" which I like. Though some artists I worked with never quite knew when to stop as the mix & processing options became increasing endless during the digital revolution.
It's all exciting but I'm no longer a card carrying T-Shirt wearing member of the Gearslutz.com community though I miss it a bit. I can only do so much & playing is where its at now.
I think I went off topic , oops, but as Alain alluded to , it can be a bit daunting also perhaps as to how people might perceive a reaction. Post something and reactions are generally few & far between in such a small community , all be it a generally supportive one. One day I might make a set of recordings , I have enough experience with all the gear I still have to pull the sounds , but my dream is to hook up with friends still in the business and do it in a real room drinking too much coffee behind the big console , old school style. It wont happen overnight but we'll get there in a year or two. If any of that makes sense... On a different tack , my custom flight case is now under construction to hold the Alto & Grand, saw the case guy at his factory yesterday for a measure up, stand by for pics next week.
And like Rad said "" Thanks for giving cause to pause.""

Wow--a great topic and I'm afraid this one will run a bit long. [Puts on some background music and chills...]



Man, Alain, I sure did agree with your post there, every point that you made. We need lots of courage to put something out on the net and then get judged by the entire world. Or ignored by the entire world--and I'm not sure which is worse. I'm really not sure.

Constructive criticism is hard to give well and even harder to take. I give it better than I can take it. I'd like to be better at taking criticism. I even know that about myself and am still unable to take a pointed criticism of my music to heart without taking it personally.

If I'm new to an instrument, I have no shame at all about showing off what little I know, comfortable in the cushion of being able to say "It's only been 27 days since I started!" or "I taught myself!" or whatever excuses that I'm sloppy, have bad technique, or am overusing some particular new "trick" that I think I invented.

Then when I start to actually get some proficiency, I'm shy. Now, I have no excuse for sloppy technique and inability to execute. I'm also embarrassed (on Stick) that I can do things on each side with two hands, but not really play both bass and treble sides together the way that I want to. And there are so many players that are doing things I can't even imagine me being able to do (yet).

Because I'm self taught, on all the instruments I play crappily, I've always used that as a crutch and a shield against criticism, particularly when it comes to technique. And if I don't do covers, no one can criticize that I'm not playing the song right.

But what I want to do is write songs. And record them. And get other people to listen to them and hopefully ask for more. "Be so good they can't ignore you" is still some of the best advice from banjo player, Steve Martin (he does a little acting and comedy, too).
******************

But to Scott's question: What keeps you from recording your music?

At first it was lack of equipment and lack of skill. All I had was a Baldwin Fun Machine that Grandma left us when she passed, when I was 16. I was the only grandchild to take an interest in it at her house, and she left it to me. I used the shit out of that little thing. Then I started breaking into churches at night to use their pianos. And constantly just make my little tunes. I just played for hours and hours, trying to figure out things, like major and minor and chords and triads and all that. Never playing anything that I knew, until I finally bought a "Learn to read sheet music" book and a Journey song book, and after a couple of months, finally plunked out "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)." Which I played the right hand parts with both hands because I sucked and couldn't play both bass and treble at the same time--hey, that sounds familiar!

But I'll be honest--it was abject poverty that really kept me down for the longest. It's hard to have time and energy and money for equipment and music when you can't even pay the rent and eat. I've had a fulltime job of 40 hours a week since I was 16--which is also when I started playing the piano!

But I had so many little "piano ditties" that I just knew the world was dying to hear! Made up at night at the piano of the local 7th-Day Adventist Church. And no one else (that I knew of) was doing this New Age Progressive stuff. Until I heard George Winston, and now I had a name for the style and genre, and a kindred soul, stylistically.

And I started recording myself soon after I started playing, on anything that would record audio. Since it was the 80s, it was usually a boombox just sat on top of the upright piano. I just couldn't believe this stuff that was coming out of me, and I thought other people would like it too. But in hindsight, it was pretty crappy--although there were occasional flashes of something better that made me keep working at it.

At first I used my roommates' stereo equipment as a two track and used two synths into each channel and recorded one track at a time with the fancy tapedeck of my roommates.

It took me fricking 13 years of working in restaurants to buy a 4 track and a mini mixer, some bass amps from a friend, a keyboard from the music store on rent-to-own payments (the Korg DW8000!), a Fender Rhodes, an organ, a couple of guitars, then later a Casio D-10 and others. And I try to make music in bands, but people only want to play covers and no one is writing songs but me, and I can't sing, play drums or guitar or bass. I just play the keyboards, man!

So maybe bands and rock music is not for me--maybe I should be a "serious" composer. And write "Serious" music.

So I enroll in the music program at K-State and double major in music and English. I learn names for things I made up, was taught the circle of 5ths--which I never figured out for myself, and studied 12-tone serialism and harmonic theory(ies) and microtones and all that "serious" stuff that cannot be hummed or toe-tapped to. And I like melodies and riffs, and headbanging and long instrumental jams, and the sound of distorted guitars. But I was learning lots and lots and lots, and being exposed to lots I would never have discovered on my own.

But more than anything in the world, I had a professional-level studio available to me at night (I had the key code to the basement studio in the Music Building!!! The power of Grayskull--I HAVE THE POWER!!!) Those were heady, awesome times. I'd work in the school studio at night instead of playing the church piano via a door and a credit card slipped into the door jamb.

This was my very first studio project at K-State and I've been hooked on recording ever since. From 1990!

So I finally finish K-State in English, short 12 credits for a combined Music Composition and Digital Sound Synthesis degree, and instead get the Literature/Creative Writing degree.

I finally graduate from school and get a real office job (in Japan!) that would let me pay off student loans and slowly buy back all the musical equipment I bought doing cooking and then sold to go to Japan.

So now I have equipment and some slight skill, and some training and some education. And an addiction to making music with whatever I can find, steal, beg, borrow, invent, make, rent, and use.

What I've never been able to do--and never even really tried--was to make a living doing recording in the studio. Being from Kansas, there weren't a lot of studios to be engineers in. And I've just recently begun to suck much less than I used to--since I discovered Stick and the Stick community, actually. And piano players are the most common of musicians--perhaps next to guitars. If I'm not doing my own music, I don't have a lot to offer that other people with better sightreading and chops have.

Somewhere after music school--where they make you learn a bunch of instruments, because as a composer or a possible music teacher, I needed to know how to crappily play almost everything--I picked up guitar, some drumming and programming drums, the rudiments of singing, and a little bass. And I had my own home studio. So now, I had all the instruments of a band, could play them well enough to get it down on tape, and didn't need anyone else at all, and had no excuses for not rocking shit out. And knew enough about recording and engineering to fake my own Tom Schulz Boston-style recordings.

Now what keeps me from recording is the family that I love. And the job that pays for it all. I have very little outside life at all, that isn't family or studio time. Except for the fractals, which is another story and another addiction for another time. I've put the two together, and now get to be one of the few doing that. Sticks + Fractals + Original Music = about the nichiest thing you could imagine. But I'm having a blast!

I must also say that I've learned a lot and been inspired by and encouraged by many people here on the forum, with Jayesskerr (Scott Kerr) and BSharp (Emmett Chapman) as some of my biggest fans and supporters. And critics! Whose criticism and support has only made me a better musician.

So what keeps me from recording my music? Time. Sloth. And the biggest enemy of them all: SELF DOUBT. That small, still voice that says "You suck, Steve, and everyone knows it!" (Did I say small and still? Loud and moving!) No one wants to hear you bang around on a piano or a Stick for 5 minutes and never even keep to the beat, or play any covers, or listen to your stupid chord changes, lyrics, and warblings. That voice is cruel and I stifle him by posting "works in progress," that allow me to start out with an idea and see what people think. Every time I play the stupid Soundcloud file that I posted, I cringe, and make another change and re-upload the file and hope no one heard that first, second, or third version. Until finally it becomes complete, and I say "God damn! " when it plays and the hairs on the back of my arms stand straight up, and I say again "God damn, that's pretty good."

That's what keeps me recording. Those "GD!" moments. And encouragement from you fine players of the Chappy Stick! Thanks guys!

--Sticking with it, and recording it, and sticking fractals on it
Steve Sink

Bruce posted just as I finished this. Good thoughts also, Bruce! You rock!

lack of interesting ideas...

playing an instrument is one thing

writing and recording music is a different ball game

Loving the sound what you play - the actual instrument is awesome. But the sounds it makes when someone else plays my instrument verses what it sounds like when I pick it up are two very different things.

I know the note landscape. I know enough about what notes work and not work together. But When I play it's a bit like two trains hitting a bus and they are all filled with tone deaf chickens with ear plugs and no sense of time.

If I could solve that- I might record more.


Really, it's just time. since I am not a professional musician and time for making music was not built into my life schedule earlier, carving out time to become better is hard to do. I enjoy talking music. I love hearing people push their instruments to do and say new things. I am not one of them yet.

It's a lot easier than before to record music. You just need a computer, an interface and play directly in it...or use a microphone for some acoustic instruments. I forgot the programm you use. Some are really cheap or free. Ok it's not like the expensive good one but it's possible to work with it. I started in the mid '70s to record and at that time I paid 2,000$ Can to get a 4 tracks recording machine...Tascam...don't remember the model. It was really expensive if you compare to what you can get today...and I'm not talking about the quality...1000 times better.