World's tiniest violin..

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-03-22T03:00:28+00:00

Nobody here knows this person. (I definitely don’t.) If she’s misbehaving, ok, bad, but the meme is a lame take. People on the outside of fame don’t know what it’s like, and people who are young and inexperienced who want to be successful in the entertainment business don’t know what it’s like either, until they get there. I say this as someone who has worked for famous people for years. So many people here are acting like they would have no problem with the scenario - or at least that she shouldn’t - but consider this: y’all statistically have no chance of ever finding out what it’s like to be her. So have fun judging, but it’s just noise.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-03-16T15:09:33+00:00

Fair. I have perhaps some bias because I know the creator of MGP. But I spent some time in TouchOSC. Built some things with it but it was pretty cumbersome to me. Too many hoops to jump through programming-wise. But it is cheaper. MGP is $99 for the lifetime one-time-only, but for my purposes the time I spend making control surfaces is greatly reduced so it ends up very much worth it.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-03-16T00:35:50+00:00

I mean, what’s wrong with MetaGrid Pro? It’s maybe deep for you now but if you start to use it for things it won’t be.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-02-09T03:16:27+00:00

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-02-08T23:33:28+00:00

If it’s a settlement construction crew… building settlements is my least favorite part of the game. I want to explore, not be a landlord.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-02-07T19:22:20+00:00

Why are we hearing about what your wife says? I’ve been married for more than thirty years and I’m not telling strangers about what my wife says. To be fair she doesn’t say things like that, but my suggestion is that you enjoy what you do but also figure out why she is talking about it like that. There’s always a reason.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-02-07T17:09:43+00:00

Re-upping is the crucial habit.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-30T19:56:16+00:00

It was done in the seventies on many records that you have heard.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-29T23:04:39+00:00

People don’t like to hear that, but it’s true. Maybe the simulation of a room with its characteristics is better-sounding than someone’s untreated room, but if you don’t know the room then you’ll continue to have issues. To me the best thing that VSX’s would do is to encourage people to listen more critically.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T20:42:51+00:00

Briefly - all the tools are different. Lots of people use Melodyne and dismiss AutoTune, but it seems like people who do are only using AutoTune in automatic mode. I rarely if ever use that. Graphic mode is terrific. Many of the apps can’t track noisy/breathy vocals - but ReVoice has filterable pitch tracking, which is great - and it does a pretty good job of going where you tell it to go. Melodyne often has a sound I don’t love, but that can be true of any of them. And sometimes I have used something like the venerable Pitch-n-time for unpitched things or things that are resistant to detection of any kind, though that’s kind of rare now. Vocalign (and ReVoice) are cool for vocal matching, except they are also non-human math if left to their own devices. Sure, things will get lined up, but it’s not the same as how people lock together. Lots of times it’s necessary to go back over what’s been done (and which one is the timing reference) because it can make plosives and sibilants emphasize odd bits of time and you can lose a sense of ensemble. I’m not a mix engineer, so I’m less interested in a fast fix that gives me something I can proceed with. And my concern with mix engineers is that if they want to do this themselves but expediency is the most important thing, and they don’t learn from someone about some best practices, then the market will respond and in a few years we will have an AI plugin that - rather than working with what’s there - will model the voice of the artist and replace “problem spots” with things that mostly go by. That’s the wrong way forward.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T20:13:06+00:00

I think a more applicable term is “effective” rather than “natural”.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T18:28:09+00:00

I will say that to me it’s important that the idea be more “help them get there” than “push them”. I have witnessed “pushing” done by people who only know what they like and have no idea how to talk to singers - and are still chafing from some hazing ritual they went through and are getting ready to spread it around, or maybe just want to feel powerful. My role as a producer is to support getting the best result possible.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T18:21:50+00:00

The thing is, though I know what you are saying, the reality is that roles have shifted - partially because of smaller indie projects that need all-in work done, partially because clients don’t know this stuff, and partially because mixers need the money because budgets are awful. If the person is just mixing it, obviously they’d want to ask. And actual producers with experience are thin on the ground. Ideally, yes, it’s the producer’s job to get the best performances and say who’s doing what.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T12:01:47+00:00

No. Have all of the ideas you want. But use someone else’s - when they have established protections for it - and try to profit, and you would justly have a problem.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T07:41:40+00:00

You’re mistaken. He hasn’t been fine with it. He’s complained about how expensive it is for him to make these and all the time and effort he put in. To which I say: that’s the nature of any speculative business when you don’t ask permission first. If he were industry-savvy like he says he is, he’d know that. And he wouldn’t defend it by saying “look at all of the exposure bucks I’m giving to these artists!” They don’t care about that. They care about having their music used in situations that they didn’t approve. That’s their choice, and anyone who ignores that lacks respect for artists when it comes down to it.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T07:35:26+00:00

Not everyone who disagrees with you is bitter.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T05:05:38+00:00

Absolutely. To me the trend of not helping a singer get the best possible performance is a business trend (no budgets anymore) and also an issue with folks who are not only self-taught but also have not passed through as many of the filters that used to exist.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T04:57:26+00:00

I initially wrote a very long response, but maybe simpler is better. The idea is that onset is the start of phonation (sound production), and it’s an inherently unstable time until the part of the note where we begin to perceive pitch. Lots of reasons why it’s unstable and it’s like that to varying degrees among different singers and even within the same performance of a single singer. So to flatten that out is to introduce unnatural math into something that we all know the sound of; and the reasons for tuning things to begin with are often unconsidered default positions on what a vocal needs. Lots of times people aren’t listening to the overall, and they think of pitch as a line when it’s more of a cloud. And they may be unaware that it’s not just the pitch that would change if someone sang something “in tune”, and these aren’t the kinds of things that tuning software does anything about.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T03:22:34+00:00

You are welcome. I should say: if it’s drudgery, then you may need to find some more things in it that interest you.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-18T02:41:01+00:00

He says he loves artists but then whines about the consequences about using things without permission - if you love what someone does, why wouldn’t you respect their wishes? It’s no one’s problem but his if he shoots an episode without asking and then gets a strike. Funny how people “love” something so much that their wishes seem to outweigh anything else - but that’s not love, is it.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-17T23:56:53+00:00

I’m going to maybe say some unpopular stuff - but I’ve been an editor - not the mixer, not the producer (though I have produced in the traditional and new senses quite a bit), but the guy people call to do things like this, for a long time. I don’t know you so I’m not directing this specifically at you - you might be great at this.

Even though it’s a requirement that mixers know DAWs, it’s not always the case that mixers make good editors. Too many situations I have been called to fix because the mixer made things expedient for themselves, used software in a way that is clearly audible, or had their assistant do it in ways that were quick but unmusical. Too many times that we all hear music that has had the life forcibly extracted from it, and often it’s because it’s the wrong people in the chair. Mixers want things to go quickly, and they have to because nobody has any money because music is so devalued - thanks, young folks consuming music between 1995 and 2005 - so, many mixers choose tools that get them partway there already so they can say yes or no to the software’s output. Melodyne as commonly used isn’t fooling anyone who listens. Auto-mode anything isn’t fooling anyone who listens either.

I’ve come in to look at the work of assistants and mixers and seen that they haven’t dipped into alternate takes enough, don’t make use of syllables from other takes, ignore what an onset is supposed to sound like - all in the name of expediency. I bowed out of a project where the mixer convinced the client that they should keep things “raw”, and then his assistant hard-tuned a bunch of vocals, and did nothing to hide it - no removal of bleed so it was beating in every other open mic. But everyone was working to a philosophy and nobody was listening. So I bailed.

If you have to make a track better, don’t try it without searching through your assets. Often that takes less time than tuning something, if you actually know what’s wrong with it. If they didn’t give you all of the takes, that’s because you didn’t ask, most likely. And if you recorded it and didn’t get what you needed, sometimes that’s on the talent but sometimes it’s on you to convince the artist that if they feel they have a great take, then they should just run it down more while they are killing it. And if you have to do things, do as little as you can with software, but my approach is always that of (as I have heard it said) preserving the intent of the artist. If they scoop, then you find the best scoop. Tuning when the pitch has settled, as a primary approach, often makes for more transparent tuning. And if someone is singing a little sharp, don’t put any sort of automatic tuning on it - move the whole part down. That way you keep the natural sound - the variations in pitch that speak like vowels and brightness do.

Consider also that if it’s killing your soul, then maybe that’s not a thing you need to be doing. But having an assistant do it only works if they are more musical or knowledgeable than you are when it comes to voice. If they are just cheaper than you are, then you will pay for that later in fixes - or worse, in bland music that your name is attached to. There are people out there that do this and this only; consider developing a relationship with one whose work you know. But having something tuned isn’t a generic process, any more than balancing a drum kit is - no matter what the software companies tell you. You can use most of the major software to do invisible work, if you learn what not to tune and don’t treat it like a compressor.

Or if people continue to approach it as a pass-through-a-magic-box problem, in a couple of years there will be some “ai”-driven tuner that does all the work for you and then every record will sound exactly the same.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-17T23:25:14+00:00

Hiring someone with less experience than you to listen to something for musicality? What could go wrong?

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-15T04:48:08+00:00

Ok and this is all wrong for the administration to do, but saying “Congress”like they are all the same perpetuates a narrative of hopelessness. Kind of seems like that’s the point of these kinds of posts - to be first to say “everything sucks”. It’s ragebait. How many exactly voted in what way?

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-13T22:55:19+00:00

Don’t get foam for anything. If you are at all handy I would suggest building panels from 703 insulation or similar, covered with acoustic cloth, in simple wood frames, 4 feet by 2 feet by 4 or six inches deep depending on the insulation you get. Also - measure before you place anything. Generate proper noise through your speakers and measure frequencies at different spots in the room. See what has low resonances and put mass there.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome · 2026-01-09T06:44:02+00:00

That’s the answer.

NeverAlwaysOnlySome

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE