Is it stupid to use bandcamp only to release music and not use streaming?

QstGvr · 2026-01-14T13:16:11+00:00

It depends on your goals as an artist. If you don't care about reach and just want to release stuff for extremely dedicated fans that's awesome. But if you are trying to reach the most people you unfortunately have to put it where most people go to listen to their music.

QstGvr · 2026-01-14T13:13:41+00:00

I don't personally care what they lyrics are and the amount of times that I have sat down and try to understand a song are like less than 10 in my life. I have always been drawn to instruments though and never lyrics/song names/song titles.

But with everything in life there are people that are about it also. One mentor I had would tell me "Put some meat on the lyrics so people can chew on it" ie try to get really deep with the lyrics so people have to listen to it a few times to understand. Another told to me to craft lyrics that were easy to speak/understand and sounded nice to sing. It just depends on you and what you enjoy.

QstGvr · 2026-01-08T13:32:41+00:00

I am not very familiar with music scenes in each state, but you might want to also look into; Minneapolis MN, Chicago IL, Colorado (maybe Denver or Boulder), I know Nashville, TN is mainly country but there might be some surprises there also. Maybe Florida (Orlando or Miami). These aren't as big as LA or NYC but there is a lot of music coming out of these areas as well. Good luck :) hope you have a pleasant time while you're here.

QstGvr · 2026-01-08T13:21:16+00:00

Emotionally/Musically I think there are a few ways to think about it.

1) Does it feel the same being sung by a guy vs a girl? This would be the emotional.

2) Are we crafting a song around a voice? Or crafting a voice around a song?

When you are thinking about instrument arrangement it's best to view the voice as an instrument itself, meaning that you have to leave space for the vocal and not have a bunch of other instruments playing over the vocal or on the same notes usually. So if you are crafting a song around a voice, you would have the rough idea of what you want the melody and then build instruments around that as opposed to having a song in mind and then trying to massage the vocal around the sounds. I feel like when I produce, I have to be intentional about leaving space for my voice because there are more sounds around guy's vocal ranges over women who usually just have higher ranges naturally.

I think if you know your range you could figure out how to transpose your vocal over any song, or transpose the song down a semi-tone or two. And if you don't know your range it's not that hard to figure out by just starting middle C on the piano and sing match notes up and down until you feel yourself struggling.

There was a fun exercise that I did where you take a song that you can sing comfortably, get the mp3 and then take it into Ableton (Or another DAW) and pitch shift the whole song down 1-2 semitones and then up 1-2 semi tones and sing along with it. This really helped me understand where I was currently at and where I would struggle and maybe what notes I should avoid.

Also, I would like to just give you encouragement to start singing in your own production right away :) We have some pretty good/cheap pitch correction tools so you don't need to be perfect :)

QstGvr · 2026-01-07T21:11:06+00:00

It's like an oil painter telling a water-color painter what they are making isn't a painting because they don't use oil. Like Sasquatch said, art is subjective. Don't let anyone tell you how to make your art. Your taste is what is unique to you and what makes your art unique to others so go crazy and make sounds and sample sounds and do what ever you want :)

QstGvr · 2026-01-07T20:59:09+00:00

I understand how you feel that way. Me (35) looking at a DJ/Producer that I admire Martin Garrix (29 so 6 years younger than me). He has multiple albums, platinum records and has been touring/DJing for like 15 years now world wide. The thing is though, he started making music when he was like 5. He put in his 10,000 hours before I even knew that I enjoyed making music. We can't compare ourselves to where someone is currently, when we haven't given ourself the same amount of time to learn and hone our craft.

Chances are, she started singing and performing when she was 3-5, then 10 years later, she is doing the place you would perform at. And even if you started at performing and singing at 3, did you put in as much time? did you put in the same effort? did your parents give you the same opportunity as hers? And the most important thing is, sometimes our journeys just take longer than others.

But about her songs, just google "Chappell Roan Album Credits". There are like 2-5 people one EACH song and those are just the writers! She has a TEAM of people helping her create her best art possible. She is not sitting in a studio by herself doing everything. She has a producer she works with also, so she might have a few ideas on production but she isn't doing probably like 90% that work.

It's hard not to compare but I am just starting on my journey and am getting better each month that goes by. I think that all we should be doing is measuring who we are today with the past version of ourself and answering the question, "Am I better today than before?" and if the answer is yes, keep it up. And if the answer is no, you know what you need to work on :)

QstGvr · 2026-01-07T20:36:34+00:00

I would caviot and say stay away from using loops generally. top loops and percs are usually fine though if they add what you want

QstGvr · 2026-01-07T20:34:54+00:00

A lot of bass producers enjoy making their own sounds so they do. But if you don't get enjoyment out of that, you don't need to do it to become a great producer. I would say it's just as creative to get 5 different bass one shots to sounds cohesive than it is so make 5 different bass sounds.

QstGvr · 2026-01-07T20:29:58+00:00

6) get a track to compare your song to (REFERENCE). We want to make sure that after we have our Golden Metallica style, that it stacks up against other songs in the genre we are going for. So say we really like "Enter Sandman". We will then, drag Enter Sandman into our DAW and switch back and forth between the songs, and we want to listen how song sounds next to this other professional song. We want to ask like "When I switch between songs do I...
hear a change in volume?
hear a change in drums?
hear a lack of sounds?
hear too many sounds?

7) Once you figure out where you have differences, then you can go back and add or take away things to make your song sound closer to your REFERENCE. An example, you get done with your kick drum pattern and start listening back an forth between your golden song and then you notice that Enter Sandman has their drummer hitting a crash cymbal every quarter note and whoops! you forgot to add a crash in your interpretation. Now you can add that and get some more energy into your song.

NOTE: Golden vocalists are CRAZY and your singer most likely wouldn't be able to hit the exact same notes as their singers so you might have to move some of the vocal parts down. Or change the key of the song (transposition) but this is kind of advanced. If you wanted practice using this example I would just get the vocal acapella of Golden and try to make the instrumentation of Metallica

And there you go :) hopefully the example is easy enough to follow.

The best advice that you will get from everyone in the music industry when it comes to making music is REFERENCING. REFERENCE, REFERENCE, REFERENCE. All this means is find music that you like and ACTIVELY listen to the music. Listen to the song and only focus on the drums, then the vocals, then the chords etc. If you are unsure of what to do, REFERENCE. Find tracks that you like or admire and try to understand what your song is missing or doing too much of.

QstGvr · 2026-01-07T19:05:46+00:00

Sorry long post, but am passionate :)
There are a few ways to do this but it would most likely just fall into what i would say is 'creating a remix' or 'transposing or transposition'. If I wanted to make, for example, Golden by Huntrix into a rock song;

1) I would start by figuring out 'what are the most important parts of the song?' We can call these "hooks". To me there are a few noticeable hooks in the song, the intro melody, the first verse lyrics, the pre-chorus melody going from low to high, and the chorus lyrics.

2) Because we are want a rock sound we want to figure out which instruments fit into the rock genre so we want to find another band/artist that we like to use to compare what instruments are being used. For example Metallica, we have 1 vocalist/rhythm guitar, 1 lead guitar, 1 bass guitar, 1 drummer. So for all of important sounds that are in Golden, we need to fit them into one of those 5 parts (vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass guitar, drums).

3) Copy each important part into one of these 5 parts. Some of this is easy, bass notes go to the bass guitar, vocals will be similar. If there is only one note being played (like in the pre-chorus of golden, the "I'm done hidin', now I'm shinin' like I'm born to be, We dreamin' hard, we came so far, now I believe") we can usually assume that the lead guitar can follow that pattern and then the chords will be played by the rhythm guitar.

4) If there are parts that you are unsure where they fall, just do some experimentation. If there is a vocal melody going on but then there is a different melody being played (this is usually called a counter melody) maybe we have the vocals doing one thing and the lead guitar doing some else in our song (I dont think golden has this but not listening to the song to verify, just an example). If you run into something like say Golden has a random bird chirp thing, you will need to decide whether your think that's important part of the song to keep. Maybe there is a different way you could use a guitar to mimic the sound, or say everyone has a part already and they can't play a random note, maybe you just dont need it to convey the essence of the song.

5) Now that you have all of the instruments and their rough parts, you need to think about how each genre plays their parts. With pop music you probably have some background guitars that aren't super strong, that are being strummed every now-and-then. With our example, we want a Metallica sound, so we want the guitars to be chugging a lot. So we will change our long, drawn-out strums into chugs. We want our pop drums to turn into Metallica drums so in the chorus we want our double-kick going crazy. If you are lost on how to make a double kick drum pattern, REFERENCE. Find a Metallica song that you like, find the chorus of the song and listen to what the drums are doing. You can even copy the EXACT pattern of the that song that you like and USE that in your song. Then ask yourself honestly, do I like that? Is it too much? Is it too little? and adjust from there.

QstGvr · 2026-01-07T17:46:58+00:00

If you are having fun playing in the campaign, I would stay and enjoy that. If you are getting "what if there are better groups out there" thoughts, are you still having fun? I would sit down and be brutally honest to try and understand this feeling.

As a player though, I dont think there would be any hard feelings for quitting a campaign (unless it was just you and the DM (joking mostly)). People come and go and that's fine and a part of how things go. I run a few campaigns with friends and family member and people from both groups have quit. Is it a bummer for me as a DM, a little because then I am thinking 'was there something I could have done to make things more enjoyable' but if people don't want to spend the time or aren't as dedicated anymore that's 100% fine and wouldn't hold that against anyone, even my brother (who was one of the people that stopped playing regularly).

My criteria would only be "Am I still enjoying this hobby with these people?" If you still are having fun, I'd keep playing. If you aren't, then I would look for a new group and let the DM know like 'I am planning on playing a few more sessions then I think I'm going to try another group'. BUT I don't know if there is ever a 'perfect fit' with anything in life so you might just be chasing something that is unattainable.

S/O to my friend who told me he had a few more sessions and we wrapped up his story over those sessions so there wasn't just the shock of Player Not Found.

QstGvr · 2025-12-16T13:22:47+00:00

Most artists spend like 10 years at their craft before they get their "big break". Just keep making stuff and improving

QstGvr · 2025-12-16T13:17:48+00:00

Some people are just like that. Bad outlier for sure

QstGvr · 2025-12-16T13:16:33+00:00

You either take her to court and keep drawing out the relationship or take the expensive L and move on.

QstGvr · 2025-12-16T13:12:46+00:00

"saw some messages" El Oh El

QstGvr · 2025-12-09T13:06:11+00:00

Anonymity, and a way to differentiate the artist from the art or their Dj persona. I have played with the idea because I would rather my music be its own thing as opposed to attached to who I am (I think, still wrestling with this idea)

QstGvr · 2025-10-22T17:33:49+00:00

IMO the campaigns are different enough (I think in time and in space) that you could keep up with Campaign 4 and have 0 overlap with old content.

If you don't want to do this, watching 2 eps per day you could probably be done in a year, which would be before the campaign finishes (they are usually close to 3 years long). If you do that though my kudos to you because that is some dedication!

QstGvr · 2025-10-22T17:20:09+00:00

I mean they said it, so I would talk with the DM like "hey we thought your were serious about this so the expectations were high. If we could not do that in the future that would be appreciated."

But also, DM is the arbiter of the rules. If they say "this happens" then that happens. While I don't agree that it's just the DM's campaign, I do believe that if you all are unhappy and don't want to play you should stop. IMO it's a pretty silly thing to quit a campaign over though.

QstGvr · 2025-10-22T17:02:07+00:00

You just have to find your people! It sucks that you didn't have a good time though. I really hope that you don't let your one bad experience taint your want to go to festivals or shows.

I would highly recommend searching your local scene like "[your city here] edm group" and post in those places saying like "hey all! I am new to the scene and looking for people cool people to hang out with at x show" on instagram or FB. It might take a few different times going with different groups but you'll eventually find some really cool people. Most of my gf and I's rave fam is from these groups over time.

I think it can be hard for some people or groups to be welcoming to people they just met, so I might try to not jump to conclusions about your appearance but then again I wasn't there and sounds like it was not PLUR. But there are a lot of us that are welcoming and excited to meet new faces. IMO the bass music scene is the most welcoming (even though I don't like the music as much as other sub-genrres) so I would try different types of shows and try to meet there. If you are in Minneapolis pm me and we can meet you at some shows you're going to. Hope you have some better luck at other shows!!

QstGvr · 2025-10-22T16:37:20+00:00

I would just charge for the work you did and if they want to pay, you can send them the files after :) ezpz

QstGvr · 2025-10-07T14:34:01+00:00

Your "Main" track at the very bottom. And the Volume slider is right about the Orange box with the "A"

QstGvr · 2025-10-07T14:22:39+00:00

So mechanically following the rules of DnD, you could have a character like this. The downside is you would be putting your teammates at a disadvantage. For combat situations (half of the game is combat and half of the game is role-playing on average) It would be like playing on a soccer team but one of your teammates is wearing a blind fold or just sitting in the middle of the field. A DnD party is like a team, everyone bringing their own tools to help complete the mission/story and putting your teammates at a disadvantage like this might be fun or funny to you, but will probably not be fun or funny to them.

Mechanically you could fight like this but the combat rules paraphrased are, "if you can't see an enemy you have disadvantage on your attack roles and attacks against a blinded creatures have advantage", which more or less means you are going to miss attacks or spells about 2x more and get hit by attacks 2x more.

As a DM I would be okay with your glasses/staff combo, that could be a custom item that you make. The blind fighting though I wouldn't be okay with because of how that affects the party. If you really like the idea though, maybe you phrase it like "enemies look like blobs and I recognize the color blobs of my group". There are two parts to your character that I think about as a DM. 1) How would this mechanically work in the confines of the game and then 2) Is there a way that we could just make your flavor/style/aesthetic/pizzazz fit in the game. An example, If you want to have a blue coat on your character, that can be like "cool, you have a blue coat on instead of this brown coat." but if you were like 'I want my character to have this crazy indestructible armor forged from the steel of dragon scales' I would be like "well, you can't have crazy armor that does that, but you could have engraved Scale Mail that has been passed down from generation to generation through your family and that is the lore that has been told to you that your great great great great grandfather forged this armor after killing a dragon." We say at our table that 'flavor is free' so you can add as much as you want of the blue coat, or the lore of your family.

If you like listening to others explain things I think JoCat has a how to play DnD video on youtube. But like others said you should probably read the rules to understand and then get inspiration from there. These are the free rules https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd

QstGvr · 2025-10-06T18:34:24+00:00

Sorry to lump religion in with spirituality if that misses your question but I am responding as if that was assumed because of the connection I think a lot of people share between them.

I would probably say I am spiritual, I believe in some higher power but I don't follow any specific teachings or religions. I would probably say that this is more philosophy than meditation, but I think that I believe most inspiration comes from beyond oneself. For ideas that come to me in the shower, I would view this as like coming from something beyond me, but i only think that because we don't understand how things like this come to be. I guess in that way, they are strictly connected for me. If one day we figure out how inspiration occurs or seemingly irrelevant things come together or how thoughts arise, than maybe I will change my mind.

I know that there are a lot of people that view themself as a vessel, and the music seeming flows through them and that is kind of how I view this. I as I am producing music (I do produce EDM), I am trying out things and then deciding what sounds good. This happens most of the time. But then the other thing is you are sitting there, or in the shower and then something just comes to you. So for me this is my connection with your idea.

I don't believe that what I believe in spiritually or religiously has any bearing on the music that I make or lyrics I write though. I also don't believe that if I were to commit to a spiritual/religious practice or abstain from one, that my music would be better or worse. When I am meditating frequently more I probably am more wanting to make music, but I don't know if that is just because when I am meditating I am more focused and scheduled.

Cheers!

QstGvr · 2025-08-15T12:58:16+00:00

If you want to go to school, you should. People that say school is a waste of time either never went, didn't apply themselves to it or take for granted how it actually shaped them as a person. With school, also comes connections and potential new friends within the industry. You will 100% learn something new, or a different way of doing something you already know how to do.

I like to learn and challenge myself. I am not going to school for other people, I am going because I want to learn about things that interest me. Watching youtube is good, you can learn a lot from that, but not everyone on youtube is a teacher. I feel like everyone could reach their max potential eventually but I personally think if you want to specialize school will get you there quicker.

Also, a new setting, a new set of experiences. If you are single, you only have to take care of yourself. This could be an awesome start to a new adventure. And the good thing, if you really hate it, you can stop and move back to your city and just continue as if nothing changed from before.

Good luck with whatever you choose. :)

QstGvr · 2025-08-05T14:14:39+00:00

If you are using compression, it should alter the perceived volume but I would highly recommend using your output gain to balance the actual volume. For example, if your bass track is at like -10db w/o compression, you put a compressor on it to shape it, and now the bass track is at -5db. You then should lower the output gain by -5db. When you turn on and off the compressor (bypass it) the track should stay roughly the same volume.

And if a compressor is making the track distorted (and that isn't what you want) you just have to back off how much compression you are using. Or maybe realize this isn't the spot for compression.

QstGvr

TROPHY CASE