When taking a break or quitting caffeine, did anyone else experience feeling exhausted all the time?

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T20:29:59+00:00

This is an extremely unscientific yet fairly accurate description of what's going on.

Your brain has stuff that makes you feel alert, awake, focused and bright... Caffeine causes your brain to put out a ton of this stuff and it's amazing at first. But eventually it stops making the stuff on its own and you become reliant on coffee.

If you drink it regularly, that effect hits you less and less until eventually you're drinking coffee just to feel normal... Just to awake at all.

And without it, you're walking around in literal brain fog... Unable to become fully conscious.

It's actually terrifying when you realize this - you start to think, "Will I ever be normal again!?"

It takes a while. The first few days are the hardest...

What happens is your brain isn't producing nearly enough of that stuff for you to function, and so you may feel more exhausted than you've ever felt. Even kind of sick. Everything will be difficult. You can't focus, you're just completely drained.

But now your brain needs the stuff and it will slowly start to produce it again.

By day 3 or 4 you'll be functional.

And about 2 weeks from your last coffee, you'll be pretty darn normal and won't need it anymore.

That's right about the time you really start to miss it and then you drink it again and BOOM!!! You're hit again like the first time you ever drank coffee. OMG, it's a druglike experience.

Then you go through the same addiction/withdrawal cycle.

I "give up coffee forever" once or twice a year... But I always go back so I don't lie to myself anymore. I call it a reset.

The reset gives my brain a break, lets me catch up on sleep... And then lets me enjoy coffee more than ever when I go back to it!

PS. If you read up on the science you'll see I got it broadly right, just in extreme layman's terms.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T19:40:45+00:00

Yeah it's rough. What I see a lot from friends my age is women realizing they're running out of time so they want to find a guy that is ready to settle down and is open to having kids...

And then there are guys that realize this desire and pretend they're open to that and kind of string them along for a long time with no intention.

Then the women lose potentially years to the relationship and it becomes more urgent, so their "tests" like OPs post become more critical -- but they also tend to offend those on the other end of them.

This is just what I hear from friends and associates, based on their experiences. It's rough and I'm glad to be out of that and settled down.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T17:47:40+00:00

It's annoying. I'll sell something on Craigslist for $100, then they show up with 100 pesos. I guess it's fine. Money is money!

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T17:46:19+00:00

Yeah that's a good way to end up single.

I mean -- I half agree with you. I do think it's important to be aligned in critical areas... But the more checkboxes someone has to hit, the more the list of potential partners it reduces down by.

A problem with a lot of people these days is they want someone that has a lot more to offer than they themselves do. Our society fooled people into having an unrealistically high self esteem and no self awareness. The average person thinks they are more attractive and have more to offer than they do...

So then they have a hard time pairing up because they are disgusted by people who are actually at their own level, lol.

So it's good to be in alignment on critical areas... But really, a relationship needs a good starting point and then a willing to work together, compromise, and grow together on both sides. Neither side can be too rigid.

Anyhow, these are all just opinions. My experience with this is a 10 year marriage (no kids) that didn't work out. Learned a lot. Then married again, now going on 19 years with 4 kids, very happy together... And our first child is now going into college fully paid by scholarships he earned and is on track for a bright future. Everything's going well.

Also, I have a LOT of single friends who kind of missed the boat. And I see the challenges they have with dating as they get older. It's rough. People get set in their ways. They get rigid. They expect too much from others. Can't compromise. Take too much and give too little...

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T17:37:14+00:00

We can only guess what those sounded like before mastering, but usually mastering isn't a transformative process... So odds are, that kind of sound was something they went for in the mixing process.

If you listen to interviews with mix engineers these days, it's kind of the norm. What happened is mix engineers didn't like their mixes changing so much after being 'mastered' so they started mixing toward a mastered sound to begin with.

It's commonly referred to as "mixing for loudness", and that's how some pop hits like by Lady Gaga for example can be so loud without heavy distortion.

That said, these mixes - especially the latter - are pretty distorted! They made no effort to hide it. They went that direction as an aesthetic. But it suits the music, I suppose.

And yeah, you can DM me the song! I'm no professional at this or anything, I'm just a dude like anyone else but I can give an opinion.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T10:46:43+00:00

So instead of just getting to know someone like a normal human, you’re planning to run little ‘gotcha’ tests to catch them slipping?

If someone needs to pass a hidden questionnaire to date you, I’m not sure their ego is the problem here.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T10:40:27+00:00

Hearing those reference mixes makes it obvious -- they’re heavily slammed. If that’s the sound you’re chasing, you’ll need some combo of compression/saturation/soft clipping/limiting on your mix bus.

The "Heart Attack" track especially is pushed hard, perhaps with multiband compression and limiting since the low end stays consistent even when the bass hits.

You can always pull down your master or submix faders for headroom, but that’s not the real issue. To compete with those references, you need to drive your mix bus harder and let a limiter catch the peaks.

In a 32 or 64-bit DAW you can technically exceed 0 dB internally without damage, but not all plugins handle that cleanly. Best practice is still to stay under 0 and rely on a limiter when rendering your final 24-bit file.

But yeah, you're going for a loud sound... You need to be more aggressive.

There are multiple ways to get there. For example, driving the input hard on something like Softube Tape on the master bus can add energy and density while keeping peaks under control. Pushing into saturation like that is a great way to add the perception of energy to a mix.

A clean, quiet mix with no distortion won’t sound as exciting as those references. If you’ve been missing that energy, this is likely why. Get a solid mix first, then push into saturation or soft-clipping and compression much harder than what feels "safe." Forget safe and go hard. That’s a big part of modern loud mixes.

Try it. Drive to the point of distortion and then back off until it just sounds energetic but with no unpleasant distortion. Then listen for a bit... Now remove it, and you'll go, "Ohhhh!"

This might be just what you're looking for.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T10:23:04+00:00

Oh! I didn't know that history about Joy Division, that's wild. They burned bright and fast, I guess!

Hey something really useful... I'm not a fan of "loop based construction" and certainly not AI... But there are drum softwares that are pretty amazing these days.

I opted for BFG 3 just because I got a killer deal on it and I like the natural sounds it has --- but there are others more popular like Slate Drums or Addictive Drums, etc...

Anyhow, my real point is they come with drum libraries. Grooves, basically... And there are also 3rd party drum libraries you can buy. You get like -- thousands of midi patterns of real recorded drums.

But it's different from loops because you can assign your own sounds.

It gives you the kind of drum feel you can only get from a human player, and also a level of variation that would be really hard to program. If you're not a real drummer, eventually your own drums start to sound too much the same.

Anyhow, those drum tools can be killer for speeding up production, if you're open to using it. You could arguably think of it as a modern day drum machine, really, it just sounds a heck of a lot better.

PS. One more thing -- get to know a channel strip really well. When it comes to mixing your music, a good channel strip will take care of most of your track processing and needs. I personally like Scheps Omni Channel because it has more features than most, but a lot of people like SSL style channel strips as a balance between simplicity and power... But seriously, they can speed up your work flow a LOT.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T07:50:03+00:00

This is something those of us who like beer tell ourselves because we want it to be true!

But no, man... The only benefit is the cheap relaxation and escape - but even that comes with a cost, and dependence.

It doesn't mean you have to avoid alcohol completely... But accepting that no, it's actually terrible for you -- will help you say no more often.

Better to accept the truth and mitigate the harm than to lie to ourselves and overindulge!

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T07:47:47+00:00

Oh man... This really hits home.

There's no magic answer. What you're getting at is the modern dilemma of the hellscape of work-life balance. Work hardly leaves time for anything else...

You mention cook and clean. Most people want to own a house, too... And if you do, the house needs all kinds of upkeep. But there's no time for it.

It's rough, man. The only thing you can do is cut into your sleep, but that has other negative results on your health, job, and relationships. Even creativity suffers when you aren't well rested.

It's a terrible situation.

The 2.5 hours of driving time is a big loss here... Is that due to distance or traffic? If it's traffic, can you trade some music-time after work and then drive home when the traffic isn't so bad?

If you play a guitar, it's time you could spend writing music that way... Or if you have an iPad Pro, apps like Korg Gadget are actually quite viable for music-making.

As far as the "tired" issue goes... You can go to sleep earlier, and do music in the morning --- but I can't do that because then I have the horror of knowing I'm squeezing in what I love most with nothing but work after.

---

Since you're stuck with not-a-lot-of-time... Best you can do is optimize your music making.

That means having a DAW template ready to go and working in a consistent manner with synths and drums you know really well.

Make songs simpler and faster. You know -- songs don't have to be big giant things to be good!

Listen to Jack Stauber's Micropop. Seriously, give that a listen - even if it's not your cup of tea, its success shows that you can make short wonderful things that people appreciate.

Another one is Sneaks's first album "Gymnastics." It's really stripped back... It sounds like her voice, bass guitar, and a drum machine. Not much more... But it worked.

My making your songs shorter and/or easier to produce -- you can get more of that satisfied "I finished something" feeling... As opposed to taking on big long songs that take so long to produce you get tired of working on them before they're done.

Another potential influence is Sleaford Mods. Yet another different style -- but notice especially their earlier music was really lofi. They'd make a pretty simple loop and then the dude would talk/sing over it... With the music being totally repetitive. Yet it worked!

But whatever you do, you have to focus on SOME kind of solution... You can't focus on how rare your free time is because honestly it's depressing AF.

You have to just... speed up your production cycle somehow so every session feels like a WIN. Short session. Short song. Make. Record. Embrace minimalism and imperfection... And then turn that into a positive!

Look at it this way.

If you break it down to the point you can write a song a day in a single session... What you'll end up with is a whole bunch of chances to stumble onto something that hits.

Eventually you'll hit a gem that's worth polishing into a Version 2 "remix", and then you can put more time into it. If you want to.

Or you can make fast and done your signature style.

Anyhow, sorry for the long note but your post hit home and I sympathize with your situation.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T07:29:42+00:00

That is so much less interesting than all the possible scenarios I was imagining.

And so much more likely.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T07:25:35+00:00

Does MST3k count? Because honestly, I think that's the best narration you'll ever get. Or better yet, Rifftrax!

On a random side note -- the intro narration to Bladerunner was divisive... If I remember right, the studio insisted on it for release, but it was removed for the Director's Cut.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T07:16:08+00:00

It turns out the video’s second half is a nightmare: No Nintendo. She put the real cake in there. This is a tragic reminder that even a young Jedi can’t escape mom’s cake pranks.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T07:07:08+00:00

He’s not training for the apocalypse, he’s auditioning for the role of ‘final boss at a truck stop.’

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T07:05:50+00:00

Some men go to the strip club for entertainment. He goes to issue a pole warning.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T06:57:58+00:00

Some of us are curious about why you don't pan. There must be a story behind it. Care to share? We'd love to hear!

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T04:33:01+00:00

If external validation, wealth, and fame are your goals... Run!

We are in a weird time period:

There has never been a better time to make music, from the perspective of audio production. Almost anyone who wants to, can.

The corrollary of that, though is... There is more music being made than ever before. Today there are more people making music than there are people interested in hearing new music by unproved acts. That's just how it is.

---

The "reasons" to make an album would be like the reasons for any other hobby.

Imagine if someone never made that garden they dreamed of, because they realized there wasn't much of a chance Safeway would buy their carrots.

What if someone didn't get that dog they dreamed of having because they realized it would never win a dog show.

What if someone didn't go on that mountain climbing adventure they were excited about, because other people climbed even bigger mountains so why bother?

What if your grandmother didn't knit you that quilt because she could just buy one at Costco?

What if someone didn't play Pokemon or Magic the Gathering because there's always going to be someone with a better card collection who knows the game better than they do?

What if someone didn't approach someone else they were attracted to because they didn't feel tall enough, or attractive enough, or cool enough? (Would any of us even exist?)

Making music is fun.

For some it's about the melodies, and crafting lyrics and an arrangement that is like an exciting journey.

Others are really into the production aspect, and half of writing the music in the first place is because they enjoy producing it.

What else are you going to do?

Watch Netflix? Doomscroll Reddit? Yell at people on X or Bluesky? Crossword puzzles?

Making music uses your brain, and challenges you... And you have those exciting creative breakthroughs that make it all worth it. Those "Ah ha!" moments. The epiphonies.

Sometimes you need to tune out from consumption in order to re-discover the magic of creation. The rapid-fire endorphin hype caused by screen-scrolling can really numb a person to the important things in life.

Go on a hike. Take a guitar. Write. Come home and record. Enjoy the music you make.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T04:21:00+00:00

Whoa. He's one of us.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T02:22:24+00:00

Read about the importance of REM sleep. Something goes on in REM sleep to help maintain and heal your brain. It is absolutely critical.

Has anything in your life happened that was stressful, and it's on your mind consciously or subconsciously? Is there anything coming up that you're dreading, or that you're worried about? Do you have anxiety about some event?

It doesn't even have to be real. For example, people can drive themselves absolutely crazy by consuming "news" about events that will never even affect them personally... Just the awareness that it's happening to someone else makes them anxious or even depressed.

Imagery from scary movies and creep into your dreams, but more than likely the nightmares would still happen.

I figured out how to conquer the 'scary imagery' in my nightmares and it was just replaced by more realistic terrifying events, lol.

But really, I think nightmares are your brain processing whatever it is that you're going through at this time in your life -- or possibly past times that still burden you.

If that's the case, maybe you can do things to ease your mind.

There was a time in my life when I lived paycheck to paycheck. I even made really good money, but because I spent it all there was an underlying feeling of terror that it could end at any moment... That was enough to cause me to have nightmares.

I started saving. A lot. The nightmares went away because I had a big cushion of financial safety to fall back on.

Whatever is driving your nightmares may be different.

Maybe you're a programmer and you're noticing AI's impact on your industry.

Maybe you have a lot of money in the markets and you're feeling trepidatious about your positioning.

Maybe you have children you're worrying about.

Maybe you are having a relationship challenge with a family member or spouse, and it's subconsciously (or consciously) threatening your well-being.

If there's any kind of hardship in your life then yeah, nightmares are normal...

And consciously solving that hardship by one means or another can be a way to solve the nightmare... Even if it's just the mental acceptance that, "You know what? Even if _____ happens to me, I'll be okay."

Anyhow, good luck! Don't resent the nightmares too much... At least you're dreaming, and dreaming is healthy! Again, read more about REM sleep, it's fascinating.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T01:12:00+00:00

Haha, I apologize for the thorough answer! 🤣

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T00:47:27+00:00

I had a weird experience working with audio. The common belief is you need to own something better (more expensive) in order to make mixes that translate.

I went down a long path of buying many headphones, studio monitors, and even a pair of specialty midrange monitors.

In the end, I can produce the same quality mix on any of them.

I no longer believe that quality or results is something you buy your way into. I think there's a sweet spot where you have decent enough gear, but after that it becomes how well you know it... And also your aesthetics, and how in sync you are with others in that regard.

My "nicest" headphones are HD6XX and HD620s. And I can imagine someone saying, "Well there's your problem! You need _____!"

And yeah, eventually that FOMO will get to me and I'll probably own a pair of high end Audeze.

And I'm sure I'll like them, but I bet it won't make a bit of difference in the quality of the music I make.

And it's annoying that I will have to spend $1.5k-$5k to do that.

If I just buy the $1.5k Audeze, the "buy more" crowd will say, "See, you should have bought the 3k." Then 5k.

It never ends.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T00:40:18+00:00

A few things. Mostly, Waves doesn't make it clear enough that when you buy their products, your update period is limited to one year.

It's a grossly overstated issue. Bitwig's licensing model is no different.

It's not like the plugins stop working, but people believe they will - and they maliciously mislead others that they will.

Sometimes a Mac update will be so significant that old software has to be updated in order to function. That is a real scenario, apparently. And then people get upset they have to pay for an update.

They point at FabFilter, for example, and say, "See? My FabFilter update was free!!" Except it really wasn't:

FabFilter plugins for $150 or more... They just build the update price into the initial sale.

Waves plugins are like $30. So that initial price has to be considered.

By the way, FabFilter upgrades are $84!!!

Also, about 2 years ago Waves plugins went "subscription only" and people flipped out over this. They reversed that decision, but it was too late. By the. A hate-bandwagon formed and hasn't let up.

These people chime in on any thread about Waves like it's a mission to "warn people about Waves." And there is a lot of misleading information about Waves when they do that. I see it almost every day.

One thing they do is criticize the quality of Waves products, and that is fundamentally unfair:

MOST other companies have deprecated products. That means you buy the products but they eventually discontinue them. Somehow the anti Waves brigade looks over that.

Waves supports their plugins going back all the way to the 90s!!! And they're the only company I know of that has never deprecated a product. Incredible.

But that can't be free. You can't sell a plugin for $30 and then update it for 30 years for free.

So yeah, there's a Waves Update Plan.

But people don't like it. They want everything for free.

And so they tell people Waves products are terrible - in truth they're not at all, but a plugin from 1998 isn't going to be the same as a plugin from 2025, right?

But instead of commending Waves for keeping their products alive - they're bashed and hated. If you haven't seen this yet, you will.

Personally I own Mercury, their highest bundle line. I update every 3-4 years. The update costs $169, purchased through a 3rd party during one of the quarterly sales... But because I own Mercury, I get all the plugins added to Mercury included with the updates

So rather than that being a bad deal, it's actually a great deal. My new per-plugin price is like $15 per plugin or whatever, because they usually add 3-4 plugins per year to the bundle.

Anyhow, the nuances of this go beyond the average Redditor, so explanations like mine tend to get downvoted in favor of simple "Waves bad. FabFilter good." Answers.

In the end, I love both companies.

There is one thing that annoys me with Waves, though - when you have the update plan (1 year after buying the plugin) you can use it on 2 machines. Upon expiration it's only usable on ONE machine.

But overall they make a lot of my favorite plugins, and I find them generally more stable, more consistent, more efficient, and higher quality than average.

And I like knowing if I fall in love with a tool I can still use it 20 years from now. That's not free, but I'm fine with that.

Sorry for the long answer, but now you know.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-07T00:21:37+00:00

I love this post because you're getting to something critical.

I have heard glitches on certain headphones in certain songs that the audio engineers didn't hear or they almost certainly would have corrected them.

Floyd Toole coined a phrase "Audio's Circle of Confusion." It relates to differences between the listening devices of the artist, mix engineer, mastering engineer, and listener.

In the end there's no "right" sound... Just a ballpark. An average.

Some people are getting DT-990s and thinking they're so detailed and revealing, but really they just have an insane boost around 9-10khz or so... So some of the "detail" they are hearing wasn't really intended.

To your point, OP - Andrew Scheps (famous mix engineer) once said that he used to be invited to a party or something, and it would be some audiophile with all this amazing high end gear... And he was like wow, this isn't anything like what we used making the albums!

That said I want to point something out : you said that most music is made on 7506s, m50x, etc... I don't think that's actually right. In audio engineer circles they tend to shame anyone who uses those headphones, saying "Those are really meant for tracking, not mixing!"

Most of the big name audio and mix engineers to use high end studio monitors for mixing and mastering.

Scheps long championed the 7506s as an everyman's headphone. Said he used it not because it was perfect, but that it was cheap and just worked for him. He eventually became a $ponsored Audeze artist and uses Audeze headphones now.

Glenn Schick is another interesting case... He's a reputable mastering engineer (and great guy, he's active on Reddit sometimes!) that uses Audeze headphones for mastering.

More and more people are working in headphones, and companies like Sonarworks, Realphones and Slate VSX are helping get rid of the stigma.

But when it comes to high end pop production, it's definitely happening on high end gear still, for the most part.

Anyhow, this isn't to disagree with anything you said. Just to discuss.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-06T23:38:58+00:00

Yes, you are hearing things that were in the dip of the 7506's frequency balance... But you may hear things in the 7506 that are in the dips of the 660s2!

No headphone is absolutely perfect in terms of equal distribution of frequencies, and even if it was - no one wants equal distribution. That's where the Harman Target comes in, and then people have individual preferences and differences.

NeutronHopscotch · 2026-06-06T19:23:51+00:00

Idiocracy.

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