How do I be a Bad musician ?

[Ben]

I need advice on how to be a bad musician
I appreciate any responses (Those humble enough to answer)













I expect trolls

[itroitnyah]

Pirate FL. You can't make good music without FL, and that shit's expensive so don't waste money on it. Then pirate Massive. That's the only thing you're going to need to make good bass and shit. It's also expensive as balls, so don't waste money on it. Then pirate some of the vengeance club essentials packs. They have all the drums and synth one-shots you'll ever need to make good music. That shits also expensive. Good job pirating it, you've just saved yourself a good $600 or so.

Now just go and find some whatever skrillex bass presets for massive. They're the only ones that sound good. Place down some kicks and some sick wobbles, put a bass boost on the kick and bass, and then increase it as loud as you want to. Export, upload to various music hosting sites, and you're golden. Should get signed in no time.

[Injustrial]

Don't forget to use Soundgoodiser, push all the sounds to the 0 dB mark, to make the mix as loud as possible. Everybody knows that the more sound you have at the same level, the louder your mix will be. Real pros have so much expensive hardware that they are always pushing the sound above +5 dB, which is why professional masters sound so much louder than the amateur ones!

The most important part is to NEVER change your drums from kick-snare-kick-snare. That's the ONLY rhythm you should use and the drums should both be raised to 0 dB for MAXX LOUDS!

[CDPP]

become me

100% success rate of being bad

[the4thImpulse]

dr drum

[Injustrial]

Use only drumroll samples and have a new one for each bar. NO REPETITION! That's what uncreative people do

[Facade]

get dr drum youll instantly be skrillex and excision

[CitricAcid]

Copy-paste. Copy-paste everything. Made 1-bar drum loop? Repeat it for the entire 5-minute song. Made bass line? Do the same thing. Everyone loves songs whose waveforms look like a hair comb for the entire song. The hair comb shape means that it sound good.

[Stu Beef]

No no, I wanna answer this one seriously.


Honestly, like most things it almost takes a bit of effort to truly be BAD at them, rather than just ok/whatever/meh (though to many artists "ok" is essentially THE WORST POSSIBLE THING TO BE). Plenty of people ( I do this too) like to do the thing where they barely try at something and their immediate reaction is "OH I'M SO TERRIBLE I DON'T WANNA DO THIS". I mean, yeah, of course whatever you do is gonna be shit because you aren't even really doing the thing you're trying to do. It's like dipping your toe into a pool and instantly shooting back and declaring, "oh yeah, yep, I'm an awful swimmer."

I suppose we aren't really talking about that though, we're talking about people we believe to be making some misguided effort only to end up with an OBVIOUSLY terrible product. Y'all seem to be fixated on the production side, offering up silly techniques that you probably consider tasteless, trite, etc. I'm not here to declare those unwarranted, but I think being a bad MUSICIAN is a lot more than trying to copy Skrillex (or something I guess? is that the universal objective quality for bad? I just kinda skimmed through).

I'm gonna talk about tonality, because even though it's "dead" I'm sure if you tuned into a pop station and heard some 12-tone/serialist shit you'd lose your gourd (not necessarily because you don't "get" it, but why the fuck would they play this). According to one of my theory professors, some asshole once described music as "unseen matter". If you think about it, music is probably the most abstract medium of art we've got. There isn't a whole lot of tangible stuff to go on, yet everyone seems to know when they hear it what good music is, or even what that music is trying to communicate!

Obviously it's not a god damn accident; "good" musicians are often incredibly consistent in their production of "good" music, and these days professionals are EXPECTED to be able to handle and excel in many different genres. So what makes the kid in their bedroom worse than these guys; bad even? Well, s/he's probably lacking in experience, education, resources, time, and much much more! Does that make them a bad musician...well...they are certainly probably making bad music! I'm not implying that JUST because they're young or JUST because they're not properly educated is what is causing the badness. I was certainly young and ignorant for most of my life (pretty much still am), and hell, even though I choose to listen to mostly metal and hip-hop, I can still jam out in the orchestra.

The reason that this kid doesn't know any better is because they don't know how to listen! It has nothing to do with preference of a certain style because, y'know what, the differences between most genres are almost completely negligible in a macro sense. This person hasn't built up a substantial library in their head that allows them to understand just how this shit works. And when I say listen I do mean physically with the ears and your "inner ear". How else are you supposed to read a passage and know how to play it the first time? Beethoven was pretty much deaf by the end of his life (and I mean, yeah, some of his latest works weren't the greatest) but damn, you think you could out write him? If you put this collection of sounds in the context of a piece or a key or a phrase, you have to realize that the context that they exist in dictates where they GO. In nearly all styles it's about motion/direction. If you have no understanding about what your writing is telling you (and I don't just mean do you have complete technical, descriptive knowledge of the factors that are driving your work. A lot of what I do is deliberated yes, but in a very innate/visceral way) then how could you possibly write something worthwhile?

Music should speak to you, and I don't mean in some abstract/spiritual kind of way. If you are versed in the music of whatever culture you come from, music works in pretty specific ways. I'm not gonna elaborate on that, because I don't really find it necessary for this discussion, but that is basically my point. If you can't "hear" what you're writing; if you can't in anyway understand how it works, then you are a bad musician. If you wanna sit on a shitty loop for a minute because it sounds bangin' to you, then you go off and fuck with something else well, I guess it depends how that actually ends up working out, I mean, some may call you tasteless, but if you can justify it I dunno if I could call you a bad musician (though I'd probably be inclined to call your music bad).



Now I'm worried that I made it seem like it's easy to be a good musician. No, you're still probably shitty ok. Being able to hear things is the BASIS of being a musician. People will say "yeah, fuckin duh, you listen to music asshole" but now that I'm done being super general I will say the next step (pretty much the first step) is differentiating the certain subtleties that I glossed over earlier. Ex. I have a melody here, how do I approach it, what notes are emphasized and how, if it's going to be put into the context of a certain style what am I gonna specifically do to reflect that. That's just one element, but you get the idea.


e. It's not entirely clear, but the reason I bring up tonality is because if you are in the key of Buttholeflat and you play a major buttholeflat chord and then play the dominant of that, I bet you're gonna wanna go right back to butthole because your EAR is telling you. That kind of harmonic direction is still present, even in extreme genres like metal.

[TranquilHooves]

This circlejerk is glorious.
Other than that, I think Stu Beef has the right idea here.

[JSynth]

If you decide to pirate massive, be sure to only use presets or sounds that Skrillex uses.

[itroitnyah]

You guys really know your overrused production jokes, dont you?

We sure do. They're the only thing we're fed when we're beginners, and hence they're the only jokes we know. It's a massive cliche circle jerk.

[Stu Beef]

This circlejerk is glorious.
Other than that, I think Stu Beef has the right idea here.

Yeehaw! I can't wait to tell my momma how my education was all worth it, if only for this moment.

[CitricAcid]

Always remember that people will like your music more if you tell them how hard you worked on it, how crummy your synths are, or how cheap your mic is. Pity votes are the best votes!

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Disregard everything to do with music theory (basic chords and scales included), detune every sound far too much, bass boost the shit out of every kick drum, boost the 200hz range SHARPLY as far as it will go on every snare. Layer 5 different vengeance snares with an accoustic one. Compress all of them with the gain at +10 (limitted of course). Do not time your sounds at all, they need to be spastic like a five year old pressing record shitting on a midi controller, or like a highschool doucher pressing record and actually trying (the bitterness helps you be terrible. Embrace it.) limit the master. Limit everything. With the gain turned up to +10. Go ahead and use Fruity Limitter and compress it with the limiter. Try really hard to make pony music because you want to be like the Living Omni S. Hound Renardstone and use a demo version of massive only.


Then you'll make music just like I did when I was starting out! :D

[R1der]

Use Soundgoodizer on EVERYTHING if you have FL Studio
IN FACT: Put Soundgoodizer on EVERY track in ALL 8 Mixer Slots

[Facade]

how to be a bad musician: be me

[ClaviSound]

Make sure you compress vocals until even the ambient noise between your voice is clipping, and make your breaths the loudest in the mix. Double check to make sure your instrumental varies in amplification, like this:



It's not imbalanced, it's dynamic!

[Wisp]

Just remember the 4 S's:
Soundgoodizer
Sausage Fattener
Skrillex Wubs
Super Loud

[JSynth]

Remember the louder your song is, the better.

[ph00tbag]

Above all, avoid being so bad you're good.

That's the worst.

[Fl Brony]

Use Chrome and Modern Talking in massive for the most heavy bass then add all 8 slots of soundgoodizer and set them to the same level. Go forth young skrillex

[JSynth]

You are the greatest musician ever. Everyone who critiques you is stupid.

[FLAOFEI]

Easiest way to be a bad musician is to find some obscure part of the internet with music that's not on soundcloud or youtube yet, pirate that music, post it on youtube and soundcloud and claim it is your own stuff.

People might think you're good, but you will know you suck.

[ROFLPIZZA]

This thread is actually making me feel like a dunce. I count at least three of these practices that I use almost consistently. I had no idea!