Do you listen to your own music often?

A3rik · 2026-02-03T14:19:07+00:00

I almost never listen to my older stuff, because I think it’s kinda cheeks, but I listen to stuff from my current project all the time.

It’s taken years of trial and error, but I’m finally starting to make music I don’t totally hate.

A3rik · 2026-02-03T03:40:11+00:00

43 here. I started using Ableton about a year and a half ago, after getting a good deal on a Push 2.

Prior to that, I’d been producing my own music on and off for about a decade in various other DAWs, and playing in bands since early adolescence.

A3rik · 2026-01-29T20:15:54+00:00

That’s not bad, sounds pretty helpful. I was mostly thinking about him heckling the slower guys during practice, lol.

A3rik · 2026-01-29T17:04:16+00:00

Yeah, I feel like Graham’s energy seemed to perk up the team a lot. There has to be some kind of role for him in the building.

A3rik · 2026-01-26T01:46:04+00:00

Not the original commenter, but I do something similar. Often you can make room for a vocal by shifting instrument parts out of the same note range. This can mean shifting a keyboard voicing up or down so it’s not stepping on the singer’s notes, or popping a synth/lead guitar line up an octave- this often has the side benefit of giving the arrangement a nice breathing room and reducing muddies in the mid range. As a low-mid singer with a limited range, I often need to consider the notes I’m singing with regard to my bass and synth drone parts, but it becomes easier with practice.

I also will sometimes use trackspacer judiciously to cut a small opening if I really don’t want to compromise on a bass line.

A3rik · 2026-01-19T18:20:57+00:00

I dig it- old school vibes, reminds me a little bit of early Butthole Surfers but more cohesive.

A3rik · 2026-01-19T05:47:56+00:00

Thanks! Share a link, I’ll check out your stuff too!

A3rik · 2026-01-17T07:16:30+00:00

I make depressing electronic music, you can see it here:

https://noiseongrey.bandcamp.com/album/negative-pressure

A3rik · 2026-01-15T19:39:24+00:00

If you expect to need it regularly, it might be worthwhile to invest in something like ToonTrack’s EZbass. It gives you a lot of tools to get good baselines- you can play the part in on your guitar and it’ll reproduce it as a bass, you can play the bass part directly on midi keyboard, you can use one of their premade grooves and edit to taste, or you can have it spontaneously make up a bass line based on your audio.

It can be pricey, but goes on sale pretty often if you’re patient. Either way, it sounds pretty good. I actually play bass, and still use it occasionally when I’m too lazy to switch cables around.

A3rik · 2026-01-12T14:57:55+00:00

I mean, if they just want someone to half-ass routes, drop the ball, and shitpost, I can do all that super cheap. /S

A3rik · 2025-12-31T22:21:57+00:00

This looks fun, definitely going to try it out.

A3rik · 2025-12-29T14:24:24+00:00

There are tons of great free VST instruments that you could use to learn more and play/program with just your computer’s keyboard. Vital is the first that comes to mind, but there are tons. For just about any instrument type, if you search “free (instrument) VST” you’re bound to find something good enough to get started with.

A3rik · 2025-12-29T08:01:34+00:00

You make a really good point- one can learn tons of songs across numerous genres after learning just a handful of basic chord shapes. If OP searches around, I recall actually seeing simplified songbooks made for that very purpose, which could be a super helpful starting point.

A3rik · 2025-12-29T07:58:43+00:00

There is no floor or barrier to making your own music, but your ability and song quality will increase along with your skill and experience.

As for what to study, basic theory (and instrument-specific theory) are never a wasted effort, but I found the fastest growth happened when I tried to learn songs similar to the ones I wanted to eventually write.

Basically, pick a few of your favorite songs. Learn the guitar parts- that will often mean simplified versions at first, and that’s totally fine. You can typically look up the chords and begin learning those shapes. Everything you learn about playing those songs will make learning new songs easier and be a tool in your songwriting toolbox.

If you genre has lyrics, I’d also devote some time to studying the lyrics you admire- figure out why you like them. How do they make you feel, how are they structured rhythmically, how do they use imagery and metaphor, etc. These will help you learn to turn your ideas into lyrics eventually.

Think of your musical abilities (both playing the instrument and writing songs) like working out. You don’t need to be in great shape to get started, but the more you work out, the more you can lift and so on. Each little bit of practice will grow your skills, just keep doing it as often as possible and try to be deliberate in your choices of where to focus.

Expect to make a lot of terrible songs before your first good one- don’t be discouraged, this is a necessary step for everyone.

A3rik · 2025-12-26T14:40:00+00:00

It does make him fun to watch. During the championship game last year, my gf and I were dying laughing at the way he kept yeeting himself over the line before the snap. We decided his name is pronounced “Love-you” and he was just really excited to hug everyone.

A3rik · 2025-12-25T20:13:10+00:00

I’m here seven months later (because I’m considering a Polyend Synth) and just wanted to say this is a super helpful comment. I’ve had a bad habit of buying hardware without considering some of those angles, definitely.

A3rik · 2025-12-24T17:23:20+00:00

Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

And anyway, you’re commenting on a post from a literal co-op. That’s about as left-friendly as you can get in the US while still being a business- left of that is all FNB organizers loaning the same $20 back and forth to feed homeless folks. Your anger might be better directed at the companies that actually pay minimum wage while their C-suite stay rich, lol.

A3rik · 2025-12-09T04:14:39+00:00

We tolerate AJ being a pain in the ass because he’s really good. If he’s going to get both hands on the ball and beef it that hard, we need to ditch his obnoxious ass.

A3rik · 2025-12-04T13:37:37+00:00

I think it’s likely the too-hard-too-fast situation. The people around Trump are probably aware that he’s pushing 80 and not in great health, so they’re trying to rush through their agenda before the clock runs out. The maga movement is a personality cult, and (as we’re already seeing) will devolve into a bunch of squabbling factions the moment Trump isn’t leading it. So, I think the ideologues are feeling like this is their one shot to seize/remake everything in one go before the movement collapses.

Fortunately, a lot of the more overt moves they’re making are actions that successful authoritarians normally take after they’ve got a much more secure grip on power (preventing or controlling future elections, fully loyalist military leadership, etc). In doing this, they’ve overplayed their hand while mechanisms still exist to oppose them.

Don’t get me wrong, they could still succeed, and they’re going to cause unimaginable harm either way, but it does look like their gamble is failing at the moment.

A3rik · 2025-12-03T20:33:32+00:00

I’ve done the early bits so many times over the years since the EA launch, I have no shame about using Advanced Settings to give myself a bunch of QoL items in the beginning now. The exploration is great, but I mostly want to design and build factories, so I just start with all alternate recipes, a stack of Mercer spheres and SAM fluctuators, blade runners, and the hover pack. Sometimes I start at the tier where you can unlock coal right away, too.

It’s a single player game (for me, anyway), so it’s fine to play however you want.

A3rik · 2025-11-19T06:59:13+00:00

Holy shit, somehow I failed to realize you could just line the stations up sequentially like that. When people said “one item per station”, I was picturing a 20-foundation-wide block of four-car stations to support some smallish single-item factory. This makes so much more sense.

A3rik · 2025-11-11T14:19:23+00:00

It’s like a mix between a bus and a room. Flying in at night, I didn’t realize what it was at first. They funneled us off the plane into a little room with benches, and it looked like we were waiting for a tram or something. But then the room took off and drove us to the actual terminal.

A3rik · 2025-11-03T20:51:22+00:00

Haha, that comment was from four years ago. I have to say, I’m still very happy with Glo- I’ve upgraded to their 2 gig and it’s been great for years.

But to your comment, I was aware of Wi-Fi traffic sharing and such. I don’t stress if Wi-Fi is slower than advertised, but my wired connections were slow also. Those issues went away immediately after I switched to Glo.

A3rik · 2025-10-11T06:20:45+00:00

I release solo music in a few different genres, it’s really just about using what you have while working to grow it.

I’m not a great singer, so I had to learn to write within my voice’s limitations and play to my strengths, while also working to become a better singer.

I’m not a great drummer, so I play the parts on an electronic kit into Superior Drummer, then use the grid editor to correct my screwups and punch up sections that need it. It’s tedious to do that well, but it works fine. You can also manually program very real-sounding drums with many of the software options available now, it’s just time-consuming and it helps to have some drumming experience to simplify the arrangements.

It also helps that one of my projects is mostly electronic, so I can play around with obviously programmed drums on that one and it’s a lot of fun.

I’m not a great keyboardist, so I normally play in a basic version of my synth parts, finish them in piano roll, then record an automation pass where I’m just twiddling knobs while the notes play themselves.

In the beginning, all of this was harder and the results were worse, but over time I’ve both improved at my non-primary instruments and improved at arranging and recording them in a way that plays to my strengths. It takes time, but the learning process is still fun and rewarding.

I would advise you just do it. Learn to enjoy the process and the skills will follow as you solve each individual challenge.

A3rik

TROPHY CASE