hey yall - I was thinking about this earlier today - has the idea ever come up to add an online clinic section - maybe contest winners could be asked to (on a voluntary basis) describe the steps they took to create their winning entry (maybe even the struggles, the reworks - I dunno) - maybe put that in the liner notes of the CD - I’ve been working with FL a little here and there on my own, and the tutorials did help (thx for the pointer, Victor) - but I’m still far from imagining how some of the killer tracks out here were put together - just a thought - peace - C

what i did, and still do, is check out the web. there´s quit a number of pages that offer mixing tutorials….
try this : http://tinyurl.com/8lztg
or: http://tinyurl.com/c9upg

just for a start….

Quote:
try this : http://tinyurl.com/8lztg
or: http://tinyurl.com/c9upg
just for a start….

mein liebling deutscheunmixter! Thanks! I’ll check out those sites. I also have a gift cert for Amazon from a recent birthday, and I was thinking of getting one of the books by Backbeat: Making Music with Samples
Tips, Techniques & 600+ Ready-to-Use Samples

http://www.backbeatbooks.co...

Anybody read it?

As far as the Clinixer suggestion, I wasn’t just thinking of my own benefit from having access to people’s song construction steps. Just as much, I was thinking the experienced mixers could gleen a lot from getting some views into the approaches their peers use. You sure can tell people are already extending each others’ abilities through the feedback in reviews and just through having the incredible variety of material out here available for listening and remixing. I think some more structured process sharing might increase that collective heightening effect. And yes, maybe the less experienced people like me would build their chops faster, and then they would innovate, share their innovations,…..acceleration of innovation…..that’s where I was going…. thx agn deutcheunschuld

This suggestion has come up quite frequently as the site grows — we’re definitely looking at ways to harness the knowhow that’s built into the community.

The currently thinking is flagging a really helpful review or forum post and having a way to collect all those links into an organized way — Hardware tips, software recommendations, mixing hacks, determining BPMs etc.

What you specificially suggest is a little scary because of the staff man hours required to hunt down and sit on the artist until they write something, then edit it so it’s (at least) English… etc. etc.

Whereas as I said, there’s already this organic thing happening where great tips get completely buried in the 1000s of reviews/forum entries.

Makes sense?

Victor

Quote: currently thinking is flagging a really helpful review or forum post and having a way to collect all those links into an organized way
Yes, that would help, although even that might take considerable time for y’all to initiate, maintain, etc.


Quote: What you specificially suggest is a little scary because of the staff man hours required to hunt down and sit on the artist until they write something, then edit it so it’s (at least) English… etc. etc.
I guess I wasn’t thinking of it being quite like that with the prodding of artists and editing. I actually think no editing would be required - people seem to write well enough from what I’ve read. What I have in mind could be as simple as adding a new "howididit" database table (sorry to get technical here) keyed by track ID, fkeyed by artist maybe, and including a big open text field the artist could use to describe the technical steps they executed to complete a project. The poster of the track would have the option of entering the information via a button in the UI labeled, "Describe How I Did It". And then all of these "howididit" descriptions could be accessible via a separate link (maybe called "Artists Share (How To)" under "Visitors") to just the songs represented in that table. No maintenance at all once the infrastructure is in place, just user optional like a person deciding to write a review or not.


Quote: Whereas as I said, there’s already this organic thing happening where great tips get completely buried in the 1000s of reviews/forum entries….Makes sense?
Sure does. It would definitely help to abstract the buried stuff so people can find what they’re looking for. thx.

Quote: What I have in mind could be as simple as adding a new "howididit" database table…

reread this - sorry it’s overboard - sometimes I get in design mode - just an idea

I believe the people behind this site have designed it brilliantly and lovingly - I’m sure you’ll find a good way for artists to share their methods and effectively make that information accessible

C

no actually you’ve given food for thought for sure … I guess I’m worried the feature as you describe it would just be clutter for the 90% where artist isn’t inclined (because of time or anything else) to use it.

I’m hardly an app designer person, but one of my personal design goals has been to keep it lean. There ain’t a lot to do here except listen to music and (if you’re registered) comment on it. My attitude toward this site has been: more music, less everything else.

This might satisfy what you’re looking for: after the close of the Magnatune contest we’re going to open up the beta of ccMixter 2 which we’re testing privately now. It will be possible to upload solo tracks, loops,midi files etc. associated with the ‘primary’ upload. In other words, you can upload multiple things into the same song page. So if I upload a remix and I want to share the guitar part, I just zip that up and add it to the same record as the remix.

This is interesting to me because, again, it leverages what we’re all already doing (combining tracks into a mix) and sharing the parts together with the results. I don’t have to do any extra steps (except upload the guitar part) to give people a peek at how I put the thing together.

Then, when someone asks me how I did it (yea, how’d you miss all those bass notes in a row and not fix it, eh victor???) it’s right there in the comment threads attached to the remix (and the sources).

Making sense?

Quote: more music, less everything else

print it out in big letters & tack it up (sample it in a James Earl Jones voice) - it’s working….yeah, when I reread my post, I thought of how it would be if every rogue designer had their way with the site [shudder]

Quote: beta of ccMixter 2….upload multiple things into the same song page….Making sense?


Interesting….it does make sense to make the main object on the site a "project" with one or more tracks & other items inside each project….most will still be single tracks + reviews, but the flexibility will be there if needed….I think that will be a cool enhancement that people will use, and as you suggest it does go in the direction of the idea I described, just a bit differently - I like it