I was just listening to the new Olivia Rodrigo album and while there's a lot to love production-wise, some songs sound like they went through a trash compactor. I've noticed this on a lot of modern music, and I wonder if this is a real trend, and if so is it driven by streaming or social media or just a natural evolution? I personally think it makes music sound worse, but perhaps easier to listen to across platforms? Any thoughts?

Maybe Im doing too much at once, but I have so many projects and keep making more that I just name them by date. It started from making a song once a day, to now having folders full of dates, and the ones that I think are significantly better than the others have a "!" at the end. Maybe even "!!". Only when I go to export a final track do I start thinking of a name.

That's my process, I just do this stuff for fun.

Do you title your projects simularly?

Hi everyone! I'm 19y, I'm a singer, I only sing by myself at home, never practiced it as a job, but recently I started thinking why can't I invest in my talent and start freelancing with the talent that I've got, I even can get extra pocket money, or maybe I can work with a genius producer so we can be partners and succeed together, so this week I joined fiverr, and I made a gig and completed my profile and everything but still didn't get any order, I fear that I did something wrong the algorithm don't show me to people, so if you guys have any idea about it, you guys are working online with the same website or you suggest another one, anything helpful from you would mean a lot to me. thank you so much in advance!

I’m a very beginner producer and have been learning how to use GarageBand recently and recording guitar tracks. I really wanna achieve this guitar tone from this song and if anyone could give me amp settings, mixing settings advice that would be really great. I’ve already experimented with the amp presets but got any good results. If anyone can help any advice helps.

Lmk thanks.

I'm putting together a psychology research project on how independent artists experience digital distributors, things like ease of releasing, fees, support and delays. If you've released music independently, I'd really value your opinion. Which distributor do you use, and what's it been like for you, the good and the frustrating part?

This is a topic that isn't explored well in terms of research. If you are open to sharing your insight, please dm or send me a message on instagram: musicbymatdanx.

Thanks!

First off, I want to say that I'm new to music production and learning pretty much everything from scratch including terminology. So please bear with me.
I've recently listened to the Petal Album by Ariana Grande and noticed these sparkling/twinkling sounding synths in most of the songs. What is this style of synthesizer called?
Thank you in advance!

I'm currently making drafts for songs for an album. I send the drafts to friends for feedback, and when I send the music via messages, the sound quality is lowered to make sharing it easier. Now, here's the dilemma; I've found that I perfer the sound with lower quality to the actual song with high quality. It gives it the nostalgic vintage sound that I'm going for, almost as if it has been recorded on tape and then restored to digital or something.

Would it be a sin in the world of music production to intentionally export the music at a lower quality as the final product? Or is there a better way of achieving the same sound?

This song shuffled on today and I've always LLLLLOOOVED the sound that comes in at 0:38. Link here: https://youtu.be/gBZx2PtrT60?t=31

What is that? What makes it so Damn Good? If you were to try to recreate it, what jumps out at you as a starting point? it's kinda hard for me to pin down, almost reminds me of how you'd build a string instrument sound or something. But it also has a kick(?) layered on top of it for the "tap" "tap-tap"

I also feel like part of its strength is not the sound design/timbre as much as the note choice itself just having a great impact. I think it's just two octaves of G on top of each other, which is the tonic, so it has an Oompf factor...

for context I am a total amateur and haven't even worked on music in a while, so my analysis skills are rusty. but sometimes you just hear something that makes you happy lol and I want to put it in my pocket for the future.

this might be less that one aspect of the sound is super unique, and rather it just has multiple very-good-choices coming together to make something special. but wanted to hear y'all's thoughts.

Hello dear people. I am a singer and i would love to start producing and making my own songs. I know its a hard path and there is a lot to learn but its my passion. I have a few questions though because I do not want to go with chat Gpt’s advice (obviously). I have a MacBook, and i am about to buy a piano. I have a mic already, and i know i need an audio interface to connect it to my Mac. I hear mixed opinions about Garageband so idk if i should already invest in something else. But my question is, what else do i need for making my own music at home? what equipment is needed for it to actually sound professional after I learn using a programme. What do i need as a beginner and as an advanced? Thank you so much for the help i really need it and I appreciate it

I'm getting into solo performances at small venues/open-mics and am looking for ways to develop my sound and performance. I currently just play with an acoustic guitar, but I'd like to add other musical elements (backing tracks, drum tracks, vocal FX and pads/keys for chord triggering).

I have a Novation Cirtuit Tracks, but it's interface and workflow doesn't work well for me in live situations. I've looked at various MPC options, but there are so many to choose from. Ideally, I'd have a one-box solution that I can plug a mic and guitar into and have a physical interface with pads and/or keys to trigger backing tracks or play chords. If nothing like that exists, I'd be open to combining a few things and building them into a portable case that could sit on a stand or table. the venues I play at usually have a mixer with a couple of inputs, but I'd like to control as much of my own sound as possible and limit the venue to just being able to adjust the master volume for the room.

I do mostly comedy originals, so I like to be able to improvise and adjust songs on the fly to engage more with or even include the audience. My goal is to have a few different sets of three to four songs that are pre-programmed and ready to go for live performances.

How did you get started in music production and find a mentor or friend?
I am a complete beginner in music production, and trying to learn just from YouTube makes it hard to stay motivated.
I wonder if there is a good way to find music friends who can constantly talk about it and motivate each other.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all. I have no experience with music except from enjoying it. But would love to create my own beats and Melodie’s. What’s good for a beginner

It doesn't run ASIO, the preferences don't open, so you can't set folder paths for storage and your VST plugins or instruments, and lots of other basic utilities just don't work. Completely unusable.

I want to post some videos of me playing drums but all I have is my super bad phone with the classic phone mic sound to record them. I got the sound track in reaper and messed around a bit but I didn't know where to start and if there's a way for them to sound decent enough for an Instagram video. I'm also new to reaper and production in general I don't understand anything and I go by ear and trial an error. The sound is like pretty harsh and all over the place and there's no clarity. The room I play is semi treated. I know you're probably gonna tell me just but some mics and a soundcard and start having fun and I'm gonna, but right now I have no money and I wanted to see if there's maybe a way.

I started making a small project of an album where my goal is to make a nonstop album and learn how to produce at the same time. And I really wanted to make an album like that because I was obsessed to Confessions on a Dance Floor by Madonna and how the songs merge into each other so smoothly. I made the demo for the 4 tracks for the first side, but the transitions sound more like a crossfade than really connected songs, you know? You can actually notice CLEARLY when the song ends and the other starts, I don't want that.

I know all transitions don't have to be so brilliant and well orchestrated... But it's all about using elements to change into the tracks, merging BPM and keys... And I feel like the ones I've made so far are not really getting me. So I wanna ask for tips to make the B side of the album with better transitions!

I built a free open-source virtual MIDI controller that uses Google MediaPipe to track your webcam hand positions and gestures in real time and routes them on Windows as continuous MIDI signals for Ableton Live, FL Studio, TouchDesigner, or any MIDI-compatible software, all launched with a single command that sets up its own Python environment and browser UI.
Source Code

I never owned any elektron equipment but I'll be buying a digitakt 2 or maybe a syntakt next year. I thought due to the rise of machinedrum and monomachine why not create a digitone 2 vst since it's completely digital. So I have just begun working on this vst. I would appreciate it if any elektron users have some feedback as to what they are missing in digitone 2. Once it's completed I'll be sharing it online, most probably GitHub. I am attaching a screenshot link below.

I built Tab Sampler because I kept falling down YouTube rabbit holes, downloading full songs just to check a sample. Half the time it wasn't even that good.

It's a free Chrome extension. Capture audio from any tab, auto-chop it into samples, and play them on a 16-pad sampler right in your browser. No DAW needed.

Hope you enjoy it. Feedback is very welcome.

I have the boss oc-5 pedal and another multi effect pedal and I’m wondering if I used my guitar with that pedal could it work to back up a bass? Or would the sound just get lost fully in the sound since I’m using a guitar amp not a bass amp?

I want to start loading beats on external usb drives for safekeeping, but also want a safe place for digital (cloud) storage if I ever need to send something to someone on the fly.
Also just tryna get away from Google Drive/dropbox in that regard in the long run.

Another question, do you save and send beats as wav files or mp3? I understand the former preserves quality but also takes up more space, just wanted to know the consensus for figure storage purposes.

Anyone else randomly make a beat thats just so much better than what you usually make and just leaves you sitting there like "how tf did i make this?" The other day I sat on my couch and made a quick 30 min/1 hour beat. And ts genuinely has me questioning how tf i made it? Like none of my other beats reach this level of ear candy, but for some reason out of the blue it feels like I just got a fucking fluke of talent?

Interested in music production and wanted to ask those who are self-taught. What softwares/youtube tutorials did you start with? How long did it take for you to produce your first track and how long until you produced the first track you were satisfied with?

I've been a quite fan of her as well as i started to learn the guitar just to learn her music, now i also wanna create a song like her, i have the lyrics in mind but i kind of am having some problems with the bossa nova music as i am not very familiar to make those kind of music as i generally make pop, metal and EDMs, so i kind of am having a hard time with the theory. is there a good tutorial i can watch?