YOUTUBE AND YOU!

[MiuMiuChuu]

So I need help.

I wanna put a study for you guys as brony musicians on how you make music, collabing with each other, and finally puts up on youtube. Most of us here use YouTube as the final outlet, so basically what I'm studying is your creativity process on making music and how you maximize the use YouTube to convey that artistic product of yours.

I know you have lots of testimony for YouTube with being a musician and all. The good and the bad. You can rant about anything in terms of your creative process and making it available in public via YouTube. I can send you specific interview questions if you want to or you can just blabber it aimlessly here.

Thank you all and appreciate your help!

[vladnuke]

So you want us to make a youtube video?

[the4thImpulse]

I would prefer specific questions so I know what to rant about

[colortwelve]

Allow me to break the ice.

[rant]

Youtube is just a temptation for me. I work on so many projects, and every time I hit save I could render up an .mp4 and upload it to Youtube, but the few times I have in the past have seen me quickly regretting it and taking the video down out of sheer embarrassment. Of course, this could be because most of my tracks are unfinished even when my work on them is done, at which point they become my collaborator's issue. So I guess that at this point YT is just something looming off in the distance, but for now it's utterly worthless to me. At one point, I even started a thread about how pointless I thought it was, and the discussion went on for a bit. And while it made its point to me, I remain unconvinced that I need a YT channel. Soundcloud serves my purposes much better, but this is probably only a product of my station in music - just posting a lot of ideas without fully finishing and polishing anything for an actual release.

[/rant]

[MiuMiuChuu]

Allow me to break the ice.

[rant]

Youtube is just a temptation for me. I work on so many projects, and every time I hit save I could render up an .mp4 and upload it to Youtube, but the few times I have in the past have seen me quickly regretting it and taking the video down out of sheer embarrassment. Of course, this could be because most of my tracks are unfinished even when my work on them is done, at which point they become my collaborator's issue. So I guess that at this point YT is just something looming off in the distance, but for now it's utterly worthless to me. At one point, I even started a thread about how pointless I thought it was, and the discussion went on for a bit. And while it made its point to me, I remain unconvinced that I need a YT channel. Soundcloud serves my purposes much better, but this is probably only a product of my station in music - just posting a lot of ideas without fully finishing and polishing anything for an actual release.

[/rant]

Okay, thanks! And yeah, your thread was a good income for me actually. But I know again it depends on how the artist want to use it. But knowing that you have an interesting point of view it helps me a lot.

And if anyone wants to be interview specifically about this I would be very grateful. <3

[Freewave]

[vent]
Man I really wish I knew how to utilize my youtube account better than i do. I'm quite happy with my 160 followers on soundcloud and the feedback i get there from comments, favs, and downloads. Youtube is a lot more of a mystery to me.

I've been on EqD 3 times and I've only got 195 YT subsciptions which seems to be something I'm missing on my part. Part of that may be that I created my account as thefreewave and still have it listed as that (and can't changed it due to yt restrictions), have 100+ videos of when i was making music weird amateur music as thescientist the year before i joined the brony community still in that archive, and because using Dj Pon-3 as my musician name was kind of a dumb original decision that I'm still trying to overcome with persistence (as that's generally frowned upon using a charcter name). I wouldn't be surprised if there's confusion over that.

Likely the biggest real reason I'm not getting traction there is I'm still a remixer vs putting out my own original tracks, I favor midtier artists remix vs 16th remix on Rainbow Factory or collabing, and I still enjoy making my own pmv's even if that means they aren't as good as those who excel on the video side and specialize in pmv's (rarely musicians but video artists) and they are often a bit weirder than the norm. As I said in the past maybe i just need to conform and just pick a thumbnail art for my videos and spend less time trying to do things differently and syncing in show footage with my music as its likely not doing me any benefit and likely is holding me back elsewhere. Still it's what I like to do and identify my work as being different from the rest. Still it would be nice to be getting my music out more as when a video hits EqD I get 4,000-6,000 views, when it doesn't I'm getting on average on about 100 to 300 views which is a lot more hit and miss. But few people stay and subscribe. Still I thank what i got and it's silly to not think that this IS some level of success and to feel frustrated, BUT its something I need to clearly work on. I still believe youtube IS the easiest vehicle TO the brony audience and I'm still missing utilizing it well.
[/vent]

[@ppleBukker]

I like the two previous rants and vents. Let me put some words in for more of a beginner...

[rant]

Youtube can be very pleasing and it can be very frustrating. At first glance, it seems like all you have to do is make a song, slap a picture to it, and upload it. Then, you profit from thousands of views and hundreds of subs. Wrong. It takes a lot of work and knowing a lot of ponies. Then, you may only get a few views and fewer subs.

Being fairly new (being serious about music production since January), everything seems like a frustrating mystery. How come this brony has so many views and I don't? Why do I even bother? These are only two of the many questions that goes through my mind. Maybe that's why I only have three of my earliest creations up on Youtube. Is it the disappointment? Is it the fear of others opinions? Procrastination? All three. So, that's why I've started worrying more about Soundcloud and EqBeats. It's more music oriented. There are fewer trolls and haters who give the ol' "Dis suxx, y u maek gayy mewsiks?" and more true music lovers and real bronies who give you "This sounds good, just put some more time and effort into it."

In conclusion, maybe I'll give Youtube another try. It's worth the ridicule and the praise. Remember, it's about the expression and not impression.

[/rant]

Also, I'd be happy to do individual questions. PM me if you're interested.

[vladnuke]

ranty mc rant rant rant

I rather like youtube, it's very accessible and has a large userbase (and 12 year old commentators). My main problem with it is that I despise using video editing software as it muddles the sound and turns my tiny sized .wav file into a memory hogging, overbearing .avi, and I'm not particularly fond of making slide shows. If I could just have the music on there with a nice picture to go with it, I wouldn't be so against it, but as of right now, I don't like using it (unless I want to make a music video or something). Or maybe I just need to lrn2videoedit, but that takes time away from actually making music. And that's why I use soundcloud, but nobody other than people who want to make music use soundcloud (nobody makes an account just to listen to others, unlike youtube) which makes soundcloud not the best option either.
end ranty poo
Now excuse me as I go wrestle with Sony Vegas again.

[CommandSpry]

Rant incoming (:

I basically use Youtube for everything; I have a Soundcloud, but I only put up WIPs and troll project out there; Youtube is where I promote my stuff. Basically, if it weren't for youtube, I would have never found out about Brony music in the first place, and that's where I find all the new stuff anyway. So the way I see it, Youtube is the easiest way for people to find your music; of course, this doesn't mean that you can put up anything you want on Youtube and get a load of subs; when your song gets on EqD, it doesn't have to mean anything, it can give you a boost of let's say, 30-50 subs, but if it's amazing, and it gets featured on EqD, then people will like it, subscribe, share it around, so it's not just about appearing on the website, people need to like your stuff aswell.

I can't help but feel that people believe Youtube is just a goldmine where you get 4000 subs in no time with 5 songs that get featured on EqD; it doesn't work like this at all. The reason I don't have a load of subs is easy; my music isn't good enough, but I keep striving to improve, hopefully one day, I'll be decent (: A lot of musicians are obsessed with their subscriber and view counts..I can't say I don't care because that would be a stupid thing to say, I do check it out regularly, but don't you think it's more important to satisfy your current subs and keep them watching your videos/listening to your songs? If your stuff is well made, people who search around for brony music (was one of them) will find it in the related videos, listen, and if it's good, subscribe and possibly comment, so Youtube is nothing to be scared from and it's not a goldmine of popularity; it's just a place with more users, which is a double-edged sword; you're gonna get more feedback, but possibly less-quality feedback, beacuse it's not a music-oriented website.

Rant ended (:

Cheers