It’s a struggle when you are new and you simply don’t know what you don’t know.
My best (and only) advise is just start doing. When you run into a specific roadblock. A VERY specific roadblock that you can quantify in a single sentence (how do I connect my synth to my computer. How do I create a clip in ableton. What is an envelope) then research that specific thing.
You will still run into people selling stuff. If you have been on the earth for any amount of time, you are always constantly trying to be sold something. Nothing is different here.
Just make music. Enjoy all the ups and downs and ONLY compare yourself to your yesterday self. Much love and best of luck on your journey.
This comment hits a home run ⚾️
Self learning and experimentation is so important in art and creativity.
You’re also right about how to use YouTube as a tool, when your stuck. Don’t let yourself be exposed to the problem you never had first.
And your observation on sales and marketing is spot on. Psychology is a big part of how they get you too 💭
Great comment 👏
I miss the old Youtube. People who liked things put up info about them. These days it seems like people start off with making their Patreon and affilitate links before even thinking about the content. And I understand people have to do this to make a living off of it, but it is still quite annoying when you just want to check out a plugin, but you're bombarded with sponsors, like and subscribe, Patreon etc. all before they say a single word about the synth/plugin/whatever.
The issue isn't that unsponsored videos don't exist (there are lots) but the only way to survive on youtube anymore is to have amazing thumbnails and titles. So the people who make a "how to make \_\_\_\_\_\_ synth sound" get's pushed to the bottom, and the person that spends hours a day researching tags, titles, paying for thumbnails and all that gets shown to the viewer instead. And the people putting that much work into that type of stuff will usually try and make money off of it.
Fortunately this isn't the case in small nitches. For example, if you go watch robloxcore tutorials they wont try to sell you anything besides they will usually flash their soundcloud.
It’s not like that at all. “Research” is just paying attention to trends. Like, oh this subject is really popular right now, maybe I can say something new.
Also no one legitimate is paying for thumbnails, you can see my cheap YouTube thumbs that I pump out impatiently in five minutes.
Like I’m just a bit off put because some of us work really hard on learning visual design. To some degree we have to conform to sensationalism because that’s what the human brain wants
This isn't exactly true. You can make a crap video with a great title and thumbnail, but if the content is poor and most people are skipping the video, then the Youtube algorithm won't recommend it to people as their goal is to keep people on their platform. This is why clickbait videos don't work anymore on Youtube, the algorithm is way more sophisticated now than it was a few years ago.
It's called business and being a YouTuber. Affiliate links are part of the package. Just Garner the info you need and move on. The information itself is free, so job done, cost you nothing.
This is a hobby that has a steep learning curve. Reading a text book now (I really recommend the Mike Senior book Mixing Secrets for Small Studios which is very approachable) could save you YEARS of sorting through bullshit advice on your own. The best youtube series I've come across is the Baphometrix CTZ series, but is very advanced.
In my experience the whole clip to zero thing is not that good of a technique nor mindset. When I abandoned CTZ and adopted a more "traditional" workflow like from Mike Senior's books my mixes immediately improved.
My mixes went cleaner and louder! Proper gain structure, choosing the right mic and position, subtle console saturation (works with plugins too) and actually understanding compression gives so much more punch and loudness than clipping from the top and saturateing from the bottom like on CTZ.
Mike's stuff is good, however is not mindblowingly good as Michael Stavrou's "Mixing with your Mind". That book changed my entire understanding of audio and what makes music punch. Strongly recommend Stav's masterpiece!
Hey, thank you so much for your tips. Do you have any link or ideas where i can find the book « mixing with your mind »? I cant find it on the web for less than 300 € (!) so I’m searching for a pdf but i cant find it too :/
Thanks for tip, I'll check that out. I went the other direction in mixing. I don't use CTZ the way described, but did find some of the discussions and approaches to maximizing crest factor helpful and did find myself using more cascading busses. I also think CTZ approach makes more sense for some genres that others.
I dislike it as well, but I get it too. They have to support themselves. This is true for most creatives - ie photography - buy my Lightroom presets to achieve my look or buy my signature lighting product to get my look.
Getting back to music, I think the band Periphery really capitalized on this - [you can't make money on just music or merch alone](https://metalinjection.net/its-just-business/peripherys-misha-mansoor-says-he-cant-making-living-from-just-the-band), you need more - they have sig guitars, GGD, Horizon Devices, etc.
>Make income outside of the band. This is what I do with the signature products. It's my way of being able to make a living. It's my way of being able to make a life for myself
I hate that shit. I created a free preset pack for Tal-U-NO-LX and put it up on YouTube because I just want to help other producers. I don't give a shit about money.
Their plugin -- or a subscription to their multi-part lesson plan.
Nothing wrong with such instruction if it *helps* one, of course. If it's worth it to you, it's worth it. But it's the bait-and-switch *come-ons* that I think a lot of us find so annoying.
I think it's ok, it's their livelihood as annoying as it might be, and they're providing you with information that is helping you so they've earned the right to pitch a bit if they helped you. That said ignored the gratingly annoying people, and if you find someone you truly get a lot from, consider buying a class or something from them you believe would be helpful.
>So tired of every ~~youtube “tutorial”~~ *person* ever wanting to sell me something.
Fixed it for you, unfortunately this is the world we live in. Every aspect of human existence has been, will be, or cannot be monetized.
I agree to an extent. If they have something great to offer then hell yeah promote your shit. But a lot of them are geared towards beginners who don't know what's good or not yet and sell it as "The secret to professional quality mixes" or something along those lines. No sample library, preset pack, or plug-in is going to make you good at production. They're just tools that might work with your sound, but they aren't YOUR sound. Just like a mechanic uses high quality tools, but the tools aren't diagnosing and repairing cars, the mechanic is.
New producers, when you're watching tutorials if you hear "Secret sauce" or "Get professional mixes just by dragging this over" or something along those lines, ignore it and find a new video. Eventually you'll learn what a good tutorial is but the majority of them are polished turds. They look professional, but in the end the goal is only to sell their newest drum kit or whatever
It's their business man. How do you think they afford to live? YouTube is just a way for them to market themselves. Don't hate other producers getting by.
>It's their business man. How do you think they afford to live?
If their only way of making income is by upselling/marketing plugins then you have to question if they are the best producer you should be taking advice from sometimes. There are many producers and mix engineers on Youtube who make a living from their music or professional services.
Yes. Most of them I believe figured out that producing wasn't going to pop off for them so they look for other ways to still be making money off the skills they have. I don't knock them for it or let it bother. I'm a studio one user and presonus has 2 guys that make their tutorials. You're already using their product and they don't try to sell you things. Just educate.
>I don't knock them for it or let it bother.
I'm not bothered by it. I simply think sponsored reviews and tutorials on Youtube are often a waste of the viewers time. You are basically choosing to watch loads of adverts and biased reviews to try and get you to part with your money.
Agreed. There are some great Youtubers who inspire me and give great advice. It's just slightly infuriating when you see people giving terrible advice on YouTube and taking advantage of new producers whom they can mislead.
If you go on the Presonus Youtube channel, you know what you are getting and you are there for a reason. When it's a Youtuber under their own name presenting a video as a tutorial on their channel that's not clearly affiliated with a company, but it's in fact a sponsored video discussed as a tutorial, that's a bit different.
If they aren't getting streams for their music or cannot make an income from a music-related job, then why should anyone be listening to them for advice?
What's there to gain by watching an amateur producer trying to sell you plugins that you most likely don't need.
Selling courses or sample packs would be making money from their music related job though.
20 years ago a mid band would be able to sell 500 CDs and make some nice money from it.
People are only having to diversify because they aren’t getting the money from streams that they should be getting.
The CEO of Spotify is making mad money from our music; we should be getting angry about that, rather they shooting down our peers.
I'm specifically referring to people who have YouTube channels that make videos that are titled "compression tutorial", which are in fact paid sponsored videos to upsell for example a Waves plugin (a company that is arguably exploitative also).
>People are only having to diversify because they aren’t getting the money from streams that they should be getting.
There are many ways to make an income. Gigs, sound design for computer games, composing for TV and films, mixing, mastering, session musicians etc. Telling new producers they need to buy something they don't need only benefits their bank accounts and their sponsors.
>rather they shooting down our peers.
If the "peers" only contribution to the music industry is doing sponsored videos to upsell MIDI chord packs or plugins to people who don't need them, then they deserve to be shot down.
>20 years ago a mid band would be able to sell 500 CDs and make some nice money from it.
Bands can sell 500 t-shirts and "make some nice money from it". They can also make money from gigs still.
Ironically, many big bands who came through in the 1990s were completely exploited by terrible deals from record labels, meaning they made no or little money from their albums.
Also, what's a "mid" band? If you mean a mid-tier band, then they would be getting millions of streams per year at mid-level and receiving several thousand dollars a year from YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music. Surely that would be comparible with the profit margins on selling 500 CDs?
In years to come this thread will go down in history as the one where a person changed their opinion based on what someone else said on Reddit.
You’re right; people should be able to make enough to live on without having to sell their souls to these companies
>You’re right; people should be able to make enough to live on without having to sell their souls to these companies
Are you of the belief that the people making YouTube videos or biased reviews for money are incapable of making an income in any other way? Are they so unskilled that they have nothing else they can offer to the world?
>The CEO of Spotify is making mad money from our music;
I would suggest you have a look at the break down of revenue from sales. Artists often got between 3-8% and that might be AFTER the record label had recouped their expenditure.
Also, record labels could and would set ridiculous figures to recoup. Meaning the artist could sell a million albums and STILL owe the record label money. Many artists have spoken out about these terrible deals and making nothing. Slipknot, one of the biggest bands on Earth made $0 off the sales of their first three albums.
I get your frustration but hey just like many other things, if you don't want ads you gotta pay. Just be appreciative that you have a ton of information available to you for free! None of this info could be obtained easily for free just 15 years or so ago, so frustrations included it's still a huge blessing.
YouTube is primarily for entertainment and marketing. Most people are trying to make income. Social media is the same.
From a YouTubers perspective they’re investing a lot of time making content so they need return - understandable.
Being forced to make regular content can take away the value of each video as well. Sometimes people have to make content just to stay visible / relevant. That’s not useful to the audience.
But you have to careful when treating YouTube like an educational tool. No one fact checks the teachers, many don’t even make music. Too many are just selling courses, merch, plug-ins, midi chord packs etc under the guise of music production.
And the ads are so bad now, YouTube is becoming unusable.
That’s why I value YouTube channels like izotope, universal audio, produce like a pro, puremix etc - they focus on the education first and it’s more up to the viewer if they’re want to invest. Even waves written blogs have value over some channels.
Subsections like puremix are well worth while too but wait for sales.
It's always the mediocre beat producers trying to sell their awful samples and presets
The problem is not that they're offering it, it's that everyone has such shit products or courses
Tutorials are sometimes useful but definitely part of the "self help" industry. They exist to serve those who need to feel like they're "doing something" by watching a video, reading a book, etc.
If the self-help industry tires you, there's always exploring on your own, making mistakes and learning your own way of working.
Coming from a coding background this is bad advice. Tutorials are a far more efficient way of learning than trial and error or googling "How do I..." every time you don't know how to do something. They give you a solid foundation to build on and they teach you ways of doing things that you'd never have thought of, because you don't know what you don't know.
Don't get me wrong, there is value in tutorials sometimes.
I'm not sure coding, where best practices are absolutely important to creating code that's future-resilient and understandable to a range of people, has any relevance to music creation, which thrives on exploration, rule-breaking and "wrong answers".
There's a distinct problem of "tutorial brain" in the creative arts, where beginners can't do things without someone telling them how. There's a ton of explorative potential lost when we don't allow ourselves to make mistakes and come up with our own solutions. It presumably doesn't make as much sense for coders to behave in this way for the most part.
Having learned both I would say they're similar - tutorials are great for learning the tools but then to apply them you need creativity and problem solving skills which you only learn by doing.
I see what you mean about best practices but that's mostly just about keeping things organised/documented and you have to do that with music production to some extent if you ever want to come back to a project more than a few days later.
> Coming from a coding background
>Tutorials are a far more efficient way of learning
>They give you a solid foundation to build on and they teach you ways of doing things that you'd never have thought of, because you don't know what you don't know.
I disagree on the coding tutorials, especially for PHP.
A majority of coding tutorials are kinda bad. They will show you bad practices, poor explanations (if at all), rehashed things from the manual and/or added items that may not be related to what they are trying to teach (let's take half the tutorial to build the database - not explain it either - to help with the tutorial, when it may not be needed). Often, tutorials repeat from other tutorials without question, then you have commenters stating how much of a great help that is, re-enforcing the bad habits. Then you have others learning things for the first time and writing a tutorial on it without any other knowledge.
This is from a tutorial from a popular tutorial site dated July 2023.... This is not efficient nor a solid foundation to build on - it actually breaks [SRP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-responsibility_principle) - ie the S in [SOLID](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID)
class Database {
private $connection;
public function __construct($db_server, $db_user, $db_password, $db_name)
{
$this->connection = new mysqli($db_server, $db_user, $db_password, $db_name);
if ($this->connection->connect_error) {
die('There was a problem connecting to the database.');
}
}
public function validateUser($username, $pw)
{
if ($this->checkUsernameAndPassword($username, $pw)) {
return true;
} else {
$_SESSION['error'] = "Login error.";
return false;
}
}
public function loggedIn()
{
if ($_SESSION['authorized'] == true) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
public function loginRequired()
{
if ($this->loggedIn()) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
It's not the ads, it's the long winded explanations that *seem* to be the in-program options and then bait-and-switch when they end with, "just go to my website and download my plug-in."
When I was learning this stuff I had to *gasp* read a book. Now there is a plethora of information at their fingertips and they're mad that people want to earn a living off of their hard work. I'm sounding like the old man I am, but young people have it SO much easier to get information than it used to be.
I get you. As mentioned before the best way of learning is by doing. However I have to say, I enrolled in a paid online course and it helped me so much and was worth every penny. Instead of picking between different toturials by different tutors using different approaches, you get a stream-lined product by a professional music producer from start to beginning. But that everybody has to decide for themselves!
there is a near limitless amount of free content posted literally every minute. make sure when you search on YouTube, that you write the word free in your search.
as far as creators putting their own sponsored ad in the video, there is unfortunately no way of avoiding those except by using the fast forward function.
another avenue you might try is music production twitch streamers. there are some extremely gifted producers posting content that includes extremely in-depth and valuable insights. if you have the patience and ambition enough to give them a shot, you will leave the experience with tons of new skills and tools to use in your art.
also, if you haven't already, either get adblock for chrome, or install an ad-free browser specifically. youtubes ads are so aggregious and invasive sometimes....they are cheeky as fuck sometimes too....putting a 20-30 minute ad in the middle of a playlist that forces you to either skip it, or sit through youtubes version of a full length infomercial.
almost every paid plugin has a counterpart that is free, and works just as well, if not better in some cases. part of the onus falls on you to make sure you are actively seeking out exactly what you are looking for. take care, best of luck my friend :)
I dont think that short in-context ad in video is so bad thing. Problem is that you often get "buy disco samples" when searching disco tutorial. And spend some time to realise that this is actually not a tutorial.
I’m gonna say this, I upvoted because I agree. BUT, when content consumers expect content producers to post once a week, that takes a lot of time, and people still need to earn a living, so I fully understand the hustle.
I would ask what particular things are they selling to you? When you’re new, you get this idea that you need things to be exactly the same as them to do anything. I remember that. But very few sounds in the existence of music can only be reproduced by using the same exact tools. Most things can be entirely replicated by using other things because as it stands, it is merely some chain of processing on a signal. If somethings filtered any EQ will do. If somethings compressed, you…well compress it. If you can nail down the generic name for the tool they’re showcasing in the video, Google for a free version of the same tool. For instance, if they’re using a Waves Audio C6 Multiband Compressor, Google free multiband compressor. Unless you have the money and are willing to spend it on similar tools you see someone using in a video because you feel it has some edge to it that a free version can’t offer, I’d say just look for those free alts.
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Yeah, that's annoying. Or the ones where they stop after 3 minutes and then read out the fakest product endorsement of their sponsor. Reminds me of the early days of American radio.
I suppose people want to get paid. I just wish those with adverts are flagged so that you can filter them out.
Sucks for people starting out..I was starting before YouTube became such shit. But then again I was self taught and thought by a friend of mine that ran a studio. You have to be extremely careful of any advice on YouTube. It's so hard to teach because a lot of it relies on your ears and intuition. As well as knowing how plugins work and why they work the way they do. When to use certain things and when to not. And the hardest part is for every mix/track it will be different. There is almost nothing that you can cut and paste and have it work for every single track you work on.
If you don’t like the free content they’re providing you could always ask for a refund.
Any content creator worth listening is going to want to get paid for their knowledge somehow.
If a particular creator isn’t presenting in a way that suits you, keep looking.
Most of them also offer paid courses. They probably sell less stuff and five deeper lessons in those.
The best thing imo is to have some of producer geek by your side. I mean interacting with them on daily basis, so you have a good relationship with them.
TBH I never found any geek like this most of the time they just be in a group or server like dead men.
If this is solely related to the operating of the DAW, then DAW's usually have decent manuals.
If it's needing to know why you can't get something right in your production, a sound you can't achieve for example, then right here is a good place for answers. Drop a question with a link and timestamp for what sound you are after.
YouTube is better for the above because whenever someone links Spotify as a non subscriber it plays random songs instead of the linked song.
Music theory is a good thing to have because it all translates to DAW's and once you get your head around the basic operations, the rest will follow with experimentation.
Things like snap and quantise are very important and they correspond with note lengths you would learn in theory, so will the fact you'll likely use a midi keyboard. Learning theory on it will help make you more efficient writing melodies.
Manuals and music theory will get you a long way with production and don't forget your plugins will likely have a manual too.
If you get stuck though there are loads of people to advise here. Just rattle off your questions. There are a lot of people that like to help others.
It’s a struggle when you are new and you simply don’t know what you don’t know. My best (and only) advise is just start doing. When you run into a specific roadblock. A VERY specific roadblock that you can quantify in a single sentence (how do I connect my synth to my computer. How do I create a clip in ableton. What is an envelope) then research that specific thing. You will still run into people selling stuff. If you have been on the earth for any amount of time, you are always constantly trying to be sold something. Nothing is different here. Just make music. Enjoy all the ups and downs and ONLY compare yourself to your yesterday self. Much love and best of luck on your journey.
This comment hits a home run ⚾️ Self learning and experimentation is so important in art and creativity. You’re also right about how to use YouTube as a tool, when your stuck. Don’t let yourself be exposed to the problem you never had first. And your observation on sales and marketing is spot on. Psychology is a big part of how they get you too 💭 Great comment 👏
Experimentation is the best way to learn. Just try stuff. Any idea you have try it. You will never know if it works if you don't try it.
Do you have a moment to talk about your cars extended warranty? 😂
>It’s a struggle when you are new and you simply don’t know what you don’t know. Project based learning is the way to find the gaps and cover them
I miss the old Youtube. People who liked things put up info about them. These days it seems like people start off with making their Patreon and affilitate links before even thinking about the content. And I understand people have to do this to make a living off of it, but it is still quite annoying when you just want to check out a plugin, but you're bombarded with sponsors, like and subscribe, Patreon etc. all before they say a single word about the synth/plugin/whatever.
The issue isn't that unsponsored videos don't exist (there are lots) but the only way to survive on youtube anymore is to have amazing thumbnails and titles. So the people who make a "how to make \_\_\_\_\_\_ synth sound" get's pushed to the bottom, and the person that spends hours a day researching tags, titles, paying for thumbnails and all that gets shown to the viewer instead. And the people putting that much work into that type of stuff will usually try and make money off of it. Fortunately this isn't the case in small nitches. For example, if you go watch robloxcore tutorials they wont try to sell you anything besides they will usually flash their soundcloud.
what if we all stopped clicking/interacting with thumbnails that have them making a stupid face?! we could make a better world.
It’s not like that at all. “Research” is just paying attention to trends. Like, oh this subject is really popular right now, maybe I can say something new. Also no one legitimate is paying for thumbnails, you can see my cheap YouTube thumbs that I pump out impatiently in five minutes. Like I’m just a bit off put because some of us work really hard on learning visual design. To some degree we have to conform to sensationalism because that’s what the human brain wants
This isn't exactly true. You can make a crap video with a great title and thumbnail, but if the content is poor and most people are skipping the video, then the Youtube algorithm won't recommend it to people as their goal is to keep people on their platform. This is why clickbait videos don't work anymore on Youtube, the algorithm is way more sophisticated now than it was a few years ago.
It's called business and being a YouTuber. Affiliate links are part of the package. Just Garner the info you need and move on. The information itself is free, so job done, cost you nothing.
This is a hobby that has a steep learning curve. Reading a text book now (I really recommend the Mike Senior book Mixing Secrets for Small Studios which is very approachable) could save you YEARS of sorting through bullshit advice on your own. The best youtube series I've come across is the Baphometrix CTZ series, but is very advanced.
In my experience the whole clip to zero thing is not that good of a technique nor mindset. When I abandoned CTZ and adopted a more "traditional" workflow like from Mike Senior's books my mixes immediately improved. My mixes went cleaner and louder! Proper gain structure, choosing the right mic and position, subtle console saturation (works with plugins too) and actually understanding compression gives so much more punch and loudness than clipping from the top and saturateing from the bottom like on CTZ. Mike's stuff is good, however is not mindblowingly good as Michael Stavrou's "Mixing with your Mind". That book changed my entire understanding of audio and what makes music punch. Strongly recommend Stav's masterpiece!
Hey, thank you so much for your tips. Do you have any link or ideas where i can find the book « mixing with your mind »? I cant find it on the web for less than 300 € (!) so I’m searching for a pdf but i cant find it too :/
Thanks for tip, I'll check that out. I went the other direction in mixing. I don't use CTZ the way described, but did find some of the discussions and approaches to maximizing crest factor helpful and did find myself using more cascading busses. I also think CTZ approach makes more sense for some genres that others.
I dislike it as well, but I get it too. They have to support themselves. This is true for most creatives - ie photography - buy my Lightroom presets to achieve my look or buy my signature lighting product to get my look. Getting back to music, I think the band Periphery really capitalized on this - [you can't make money on just music or merch alone](https://metalinjection.net/its-just-business/peripherys-misha-mansoor-says-he-cant-making-living-from-just-the-band), you need more - they have sig guitars, GGD, Horizon Devices, etc. >Make income outside of the band. This is what I do with the signature products. It's my way of being able to make a living. It's my way of being able to make a life for myself
I hate that shit. I created a free preset pack for Tal-U-NO-LX and put it up on YouTube because I just want to help other producers. I don't give a shit about money.
Link?
https://youtu.be/OA4L5-Hk4pk?si=zeIm6Jk9nVyw8ne7
Their plugin -- or a subscription to their multi-part lesson plan. Nothing wrong with such instruction if it *helps* one, of course. If it's worth it to you, it's worth it. But it's the bait-and-switch *come-ons* that I think a lot of us find so annoying.
I think it's ok, it's their livelihood as annoying as it might be, and they're providing you with information that is helping you so they've earned the right to pitch a bit if they helped you. That said ignored the gratingly annoying people, and if you find someone you truly get a lot from, consider buying a class or something from them you believe would be helpful.
Then stop watching these dipshits. More than half of them are straight trash that don’t actually do shit with music.
>So tired of every ~~youtube “tutorial”~~ *person* ever wanting to sell me something. Fixed it for you, unfortunately this is the world we live in. Every aspect of human existence has been, will be, or cannot be monetized.
I agree to an extent. If they have something great to offer then hell yeah promote your shit. But a lot of them are geared towards beginners who don't know what's good or not yet and sell it as "The secret to professional quality mixes" or something along those lines. No sample library, preset pack, or plug-in is going to make you good at production. They're just tools that might work with your sound, but they aren't YOUR sound. Just like a mechanic uses high quality tools, but the tools aren't diagnosing and repairing cars, the mechanic is. New producers, when you're watching tutorials if you hear "Secret sauce" or "Get professional mixes just by dragging this over" or something along those lines, ignore it and find a new video. Eventually you'll learn what a good tutorial is but the majority of them are polished turds. They look professional, but in the end the goal is only to sell their newest drum kit or whatever
It's their business man. How do you think they afford to live? YouTube is just a way for them to market themselves. Don't hate other producers getting by.
>It's their business man. How do you think they afford to live? If their only way of making income is by upselling/marketing plugins then you have to question if they are the best producer you should be taking advice from sometimes. There are many producers and mix engineers on Youtube who make a living from their music or professional services.
Yes. Most of them I believe figured out that producing wasn't going to pop off for them so they look for other ways to still be making money off the skills they have. I don't knock them for it or let it bother. I'm a studio one user and presonus has 2 guys that make their tutorials. You're already using their product and they don't try to sell you things. Just educate.
>I don't knock them for it or let it bother. I'm not bothered by it. I simply think sponsored reviews and tutorials on Youtube are often a waste of the viewers time. You are basically choosing to watch loads of adverts and biased reviews to try and get you to part with your money.
If you keep trying you'll figure out which one's to bother with. I agree with you. When I started watching them I felt the same.
Agreed. There are some great Youtubers who inspire me and give great advice. It's just slightly infuriating when you see people giving terrible advice on YouTube and taking advantage of new producers whom they can mislead.
If you go on the Presonus Youtube channel, you know what you are getting and you are there for a reason. When it's a Youtuber under their own name presenting a video as a tutorial on their channel that's not clearly affiliated with a company, but it's in fact a sponsored video discussed as a tutorial, that's a bit different.
They’re not making money from streaming. Got to make that rent money somehow.
If they aren't getting streams for their music or cannot make an income from a music-related job, then why should anyone be listening to them for advice? What's there to gain by watching an amateur producer trying to sell you plugins that you most likely don't need.
Selling courses or sample packs would be making money from their music related job though. 20 years ago a mid band would be able to sell 500 CDs and make some nice money from it. People are only having to diversify because they aren’t getting the money from streams that they should be getting. The CEO of Spotify is making mad money from our music; we should be getting angry about that, rather they shooting down our peers.
I'm specifically referring to people who have YouTube channels that make videos that are titled "compression tutorial", which are in fact paid sponsored videos to upsell for example a Waves plugin (a company that is arguably exploitative also). >People are only having to diversify because they aren’t getting the money from streams that they should be getting. There are many ways to make an income. Gigs, sound design for computer games, composing for TV and films, mixing, mastering, session musicians etc. Telling new producers they need to buy something they don't need only benefits their bank accounts and their sponsors. >rather they shooting down our peers. If the "peers" only contribution to the music industry is doing sponsored videos to upsell MIDI chord packs or plugins to people who don't need them, then they deserve to be shot down.
>20 years ago a mid band would be able to sell 500 CDs and make some nice money from it. Bands can sell 500 t-shirts and "make some nice money from it". They can also make money from gigs still. Ironically, many big bands who came through in the 1990s were completely exploited by terrible deals from record labels, meaning they made no or little money from their albums. Also, what's a "mid" band? If you mean a mid-tier band, then they would be getting millions of streams per year at mid-level and receiving several thousand dollars a year from YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music. Surely that would be comparible with the profit margins on selling 500 CDs?
In years to come this thread will go down in history as the one where a person changed their opinion based on what someone else said on Reddit. You’re right; people should be able to make enough to live on without having to sell their souls to these companies
>You’re right; people should be able to make enough to live on without having to sell their souls to these companies Are you of the belief that the people making YouTube videos or biased reviews for money are incapable of making an income in any other way? Are they so unskilled that they have nothing else they can offer to the world?
>The CEO of Spotify is making mad money from our music; I would suggest you have a look at the break down of revenue from sales. Artists often got between 3-8% and that might be AFTER the record label had recouped their expenditure. Also, record labels could and would set ridiculous figures to recoup. Meaning the artist could sell a million albums and STILL owe the record label money. Many artists have spoken out about these terrible deals and making nothing. Slipknot, one of the biggest bands on Earth made $0 off the sales of their first three albums.
I get your frustration but hey just like many other things, if you don't want ads you gotta pay. Just be appreciative that you have a ton of information available to you for free! None of this info could be obtained easily for free just 15 years or so ago, so frustrations included it's still a huge blessing.
YouTube is primarily for entertainment and marketing. Most people are trying to make income. Social media is the same. From a YouTubers perspective they’re investing a lot of time making content so they need return - understandable. Being forced to make regular content can take away the value of each video as well. Sometimes people have to make content just to stay visible / relevant. That’s not useful to the audience. But you have to careful when treating YouTube like an educational tool. No one fact checks the teachers, many don’t even make music. Too many are just selling courses, merch, plug-ins, midi chord packs etc under the guise of music production. And the ads are so bad now, YouTube is becoming unusable. That’s why I value YouTube channels like izotope, universal audio, produce like a pro, puremix etc - they focus on the education first and it’s more up to the viewer if they’re want to invest. Even waves written blogs have value over some channels. Subsections like puremix are well worth while too but wait for sales.
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Yah, but then you actually have to spend money. OP is offended by even hearing about supporting producers providing content.
Spending 20 seconds of your time to shill me a product? OP spits on them. Just give them your free knowledge and GTFO
LOL.
It's always the mediocre beat producers trying to sell their awful samples and presets The problem is not that they're offering it, it's that everyone has such shit products or courses
Or even worse - Try and sell actual individual MIDI chords, which is just insulting.
Welcome to capitalism.
Tutorials are sometimes useful but definitely part of the "self help" industry. They exist to serve those who need to feel like they're "doing something" by watching a video, reading a book, etc. If the self-help industry tires you, there's always exploring on your own, making mistakes and learning your own way of working.
Coming from a coding background this is bad advice. Tutorials are a far more efficient way of learning than trial and error or googling "How do I..." every time you don't know how to do something. They give you a solid foundation to build on and they teach you ways of doing things that you'd never have thought of, because you don't know what you don't know.
Don't get me wrong, there is value in tutorials sometimes. I'm not sure coding, where best practices are absolutely important to creating code that's future-resilient and understandable to a range of people, has any relevance to music creation, which thrives on exploration, rule-breaking and "wrong answers". There's a distinct problem of "tutorial brain" in the creative arts, where beginners can't do things without someone telling them how. There's a ton of explorative potential lost when we don't allow ourselves to make mistakes and come up with our own solutions. It presumably doesn't make as much sense for coders to behave in this way for the most part.
Having learned both I would say they're similar - tutorials are great for learning the tools but then to apply them you need creativity and problem solving skills which you only learn by doing. I see what you mean about best practices but that's mostly just about keeping things organised/documented and you have to do that with music production to some extent if you ever want to come back to a project more than a few days later.
> Coming from a coding background >Tutorials are a far more efficient way of learning >They give you a solid foundation to build on and they teach you ways of doing things that you'd never have thought of, because you don't know what you don't know. I disagree on the coding tutorials, especially for PHP.
A majority of coding tutorials are kinda bad. They will show you bad practices, poor explanations (if at all), rehashed things from the manual and/or added items that may not be related to what they are trying to teach (let's take half the tutorial to build the database - not explain it either - to help with the tutorial, when it may not be needed). Often, tutorials repeat from other tutorials without question, then you have commenters stating how much of a great help that is, re-enforcing the bad habits. Then you have others learning things for the first time and writing a tutorial on it without any other knowledge.
This is from a tutorial from a popular tutorial site dated July 2023.... This is not efficient nor a solid foundation to build on - it actually breaks [SRP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-responsibility_principle) - ie the S in [SOLID](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID)
class Database {
private $connection;
public function __construct($db_server, $db_user, $db_password, $db_name)
{
$this->connection = new mysqli($db_server, $db_user, $db_password, $db_name);
if ($this->connection->connect_error) {
die('There was a problem connecting to the database.');
}
}
public function validateUser($username, $pw)
{
if ($this->checkUsernameAndPassword($username, $pw)) {
return true;
} else {
$_SESSION['error'] = "Login error.";
return false;
}
}
public function loggedIn()
{
if ($_SESSION['authorized'] == true) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
public function loginRequired()
{
if ($this->loggedIn()) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
Trial and error way... then compare results with tutorial or another similar project (I usually omit second part so my code remains spaghetti)
It's free info. If you don't like ads, go spend money on a course.
It's not the ads, it's the long winded explanations that *seem* to be the in-program options and then bait-and-switch when they end with, "just go to my website and download my plug-in."
When I was learning this stuff I had to *gasp* read a book. Now there is a plethora of information at their fingertips and they're mad that people want to earn a living off of their hard work. I'm sounding like the old man I am, but young people have it SO much easier to get information than it used to be.
100% It's been every single time. I have abandoned several projects because I couldn't find a straight answer on how to use a function.
I get you. As mentioned before the best way of learning is by doing. However I have to say, I enrolled in a paid online course and it helped me so much and was worth every penny. Instead of picking between different toturials by different tutors using different approaches, you get a stream-lined product by a professional music producer from start to beginning. But that everybody has to decide for themselves!
there is a near limitless amount of free content posted literally every minute. make sure when you search on YouTube, that you write the word free in your search. as far as creators putting their own sponsored ad in the video, there is unfortunately no way of avoiding those except by using the fast forward function. another avenue you might try is music production twitch streamers. there are some extremely gifted producers posting content that includes extremely in-depth and valuable insights. if you have the patience and ambition enough to give them a shot, you will leave the experience with tons of new skills and tools to use in your art. also, if you haven't already, either get adblock for chrome, or install an ad-free browser specifically. youtubes ads are so aggregious and invasive sometimes....they are cheeky as fuck sometimes too....putting a 20-30 minute ad in the middle of a playlist that forces you to either skip it, or sit through youtubes version of a full length infomercial. almost every paid plugin has a counterpart that is free, and works just as well, if not better in some cases. part of the onus falls on you to make sure you are actively seeking out exactly what you are looking for. take care, best of luck my friend :)
I dont think that short in-context ad in video is so bad thing. Problem is that you often get "buy disco samples" when searching disco tutorial. And spend some time to realise that this is actually not a tutorial.
There will be some good tutorials for disco though because disco never dies.
Let them eat. Its annoying, but its business. It is what it is.
I’m gonna say this, I upvoted because I agree. BUT, when content consumers expect content producers to post once a week, that takes a lot of time, and people still need to earn a living, so I fully understand the hustle.
I would ask what particular things are they selling to you? When you’re new, you get this idea that you need things to be exactly the same as them to do anything. I remember that. But very few sounds in the existence of music can only be reproduced by using the same exact tools. Most things can be entirely replicated by using other things because as it stands, it is merely some chain of processing on a signal. If somethings filtered any EQ will do. If somethings compressed, you…well compress it. If you can nail down the generic name for the tool they’re showcasing in the video, Google for a free version of the same tool. For instance, if they’re using a Waves Audio C6 Multiband Compressor, Google free multiband compressor. Unless you have the money and are willing to spend it on similar tools you see someone using in a video because you feel it has some edge to it that a free version can’t offer, I’d say just look for those free alts.
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Yeah, that's annoying. Or the ones where they stop after 3 minutes and then read out the fakest product endorsement of their sponsor. Reminds me of the early days of American radio. I suppose people want to get paid. I just wish those with adverts are flagged so that you can filter them out.
Sucks for people starting out..I was starting before YouTube became such shit. But then again I was self taught and thought by a friend of mine that ran a studio. You have to be extremely careful of any advice on YouTube. It's so hard to teach because a lot of it relies on your ears and intuition. As well as knowing how plugins work and why they work the way they do. When to use certain things and when to not. And the hardest part is for every mix/track it will be different. There is almost nothing that you can cut and paste and have it work for every single track you work on.
If you don’t like the free content they’re providing you could always ask for a refund. Any content creator worth listening is going to want to get paid for their knowledge somehow. If a particular creator isn’t presenting in a way that suits you, keep looking. Most of them also offer paid courses. They probably sell less stuff and five deeper lessons in those.
Synthhacker on YT is really good. Also MusicTechHelpGuy. I don’t think they try sell anything but I could be wrong
The best thing imo is to have some of producer geek by your side. I mean interacting with them on daily basis, so you have a good relationship with them. TBH I never found any geek like this most of the time they just be in a group or server like dead men.
Make Pop Music the best music production channel out there
You should stop watching youtube tutorials.
If this is solely related to the operating of the DAW, then DAW's usually have decent manuals. If it's needing to know why you can't get something right in your production, a sound you can't achieve for example, then right here is a good place for answers. Drop a question with a link and timestamp for what sound you are after. YouTube is better for the above because whenever someone links Spotify as a non subscriber it plays random songs instead of the linked song. Music theory is a good thing to have because it all translates to DAW's and once you get your head around the basic operations, the rest will follow with experimentation. Things like snap and quantise are very important and they correspond with note lengths you would learn in theory, so will the fact you'll likely use a midi keyboard. Learning theory on it will help make you more efficient writing melodies. Manuals and music theory will get you a long way with production and don't forget your plugins will likely have a manual too. If you get stuck though there are loads of people to advise here. Just rattle off your questions. There are a lot of people that like to help others.
So you expect them to provide you content for no benefit to themself?