u/Loriol_13

I have a clinical aspergers diagnosis and idm blew my mind the moment I first heard it and I never went back. It's sometimes like I'm on drugs when I listen to it, especially in my car if the windows are up and the music sounds better. It feels otherworldly, like it feeds drugs into my brain from my ears and the creative juices start flowing big time. It's when I get my best creative ideas and my synesthesia goes crazy (autists are more likely to have it. I have it, and Aphex has it)

And yet, I never met anyone who is remotely close to loving it. At best, they like the softer idm that is less glitchy and with simplistic percussion, but not enough to want to listen to it again. Everyone hates the harder stuff, like drill and bass, and wouldn't consider the generative and experimental material like post-1998 Autechre as music.

I know about the guy whose autism assessor asked him if he liked idm, and I know that it's a running joke here that we call each other autists, but how much truth do you think there actually is to it?

Are you a diagnosed autist? If not, do you even suspect it? Do you rule it out completely? Just curious.

Someone I did vegan activism with just posted very bad animal cruelty in their story. It wasn't even factory farms or anything specifically around animal exploitation, just senseless and extreme violence toward an animal that is usually a pet and not a number.

I reported it because it really shook me and I was both devastated and angry at the violent person and the guy who posted the story, but now I'm devastated and wondering whether I should have reported it... maybe it's good people see it so this animal wouldn't have experienced the violence in complete secret. People are seeing and crying for the animal, and that somehow makes it that tiny bit less terrible? The guy in the video cannot be identified because their face was covered and it's taken from far away.

What can lead to people being so cold and emotionless? The large majority of people are already cold and emotionless judging by how they feel about veganism, a way of life that seeks to reducing unnecessary suffering caused on defenceless, innocent animals, but to do something that even the typical person who hates vegans and types "mmmm bacon" on vegan posts would find revolting, toward an animal we are raised to feel compassion for... how? How do you become that person?

I'm new and I'm very excited to buy those things, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I just started learning Ableton with a Udemy course, and I have a music theory (on Ableton) course lined up.

Even though I'm enjoying myself, I'm not a big fan of placing notes in the timeline. It feels a bit non-intuitive and not that expressive. I never learned piano, mind you, but I'd rather find the right note by playing the different keys than clicking on them in the piano roll, and I'd rather find the right duration of a sound by holding down a key than stretching it with my mouse on the piano roll.

The idea of recording sounds outside and manipulating them is maybe the thing that drew me into music production. The idea of finding a sound and manipulating it into something unique, and doing this multiple times until you have a handful of unique sounds in a song is maybe the thing I'm looking forward to the most. I'm not that into rhythm and a good drum pattern, but I love me those moments where you isolate a sound in a song and go, "What is that? I never heard anything like it before and it fits so well." I know you could also do this with sounds you find in software if you manipulate them enough, but I think finding the original sound yourself in nature leads to the ultimate fulfilment in my case.

At which point do you think I should start looking into a midi keyboard and a field recorder? I don't want to get too ahead of myself. You guys are the ones with experience, not me, so can you tell me if I'd complicate things too much by using these pieces of equipment so early? Am I trying to fly before I could walk? What's your input, as an experienced producer? Thanks.

I'm a beginner to music production and when I'm stuck trying to use Ableton, I can barely express what the problem is. I try googling the issue and nothing; the results miss the mark completely and answer something else. AI chats have no idea what they're talking about either. I once asked a question here and a handful of you kindly took time out of your busy days to try and help me and I still didn't manage to fix the issue (one track was fading out quick and it would start at low volume from the second loop onward).

I am very much aware of how impressive Ableton is, but it's also very counterintuitive. I was experimenting with some randomisation, and now I can't for the life of me turn the randomisation completely off. Ableton refuses to play all of the notes from the relevant track every loop.

There's unfortunately been a tendency of me having to delete the track whenever there's an issue because I can spend hours trying to fix it with zero progress. I don't know of any good source that helps get you unstuck in Ableton. How did you get yourself unstuck when you were starting out?

I'm a beginner and I bought a Udemy course on Ableton Live 12 and the instructor really suggests Suite because it's significantly better than the other options. I can really only afford Intro and almost afford Standard.

What I'm thinking is this; what if I bought an Arturia Minilab 3 and got access to the Analog Lab to compensate for the small sounds catalog and audio effects of Intro, then upgrade Ableton from Lite that comes with the keyboard to Intro? Is that a respectable amount of tools and sounds at my disposal for a beginner? I've been playing around with the Suite version with the trial for a month and had a tonne of fun. Going down to just Intro seems dreadful by comparison. I'm not really bothered by having maximum 16 tracks because I'm so new, it's more the limited sounds catalogue and instruments and effects of Intro that deters me.

What do you think about my compromise? Thank you.

Edit: I'm really fascinated by and interested in sound design, maybe more than anything.

So I went to to a 5-hour Ableton course for beginners and got hooked. I'm super new to production at 34 and I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner. My post might be frustrating to some of you since I'm so new that I don't even know the right terminologies and probably won't explain myself well.

I really want a MIDI keyboard because the music production process is more expressive that way than placing notes in a timeline, but I'm struggling to choose one.

From the videos I've seen, it's between the Arturia 3 and the Novation Launchkey Mini 25 Mk4.

I have looked at so many videos and I think I might be overthinking this. I tried typing my reasoning for wanting both, but it keeps ending up long and I delete and start over.

Basically, this is what I plan on doing. I really like non-IDM artists like Bjork, Grimes, and Eartheater and I'm really inspired by how unique and out of the box their sound design is. On the other hand, I also like generative IDM, like post-1998 Autechre. I used to do generative art with programming. I just love giving parameters and randomness to art and letting it surprise me. I also really like Matmos and how they turn non-music sounds into music. I'm really interested in the sounds and textures, and not that much in the rhythm, and even though I adore Aphex Twin and consider Drukqs as maybe my favourite album ever, I'm not really interested in producing drill and bass (not even if it's generative).

I kinda want a combination of art pop, avant garde, and generative experimental IDM. Sound design is very appealing to me. I'm often listening to music and pointing out sounds that I consider very rare and unique. I just felt it with that altered chirping sound in Oneohtrix's 'For Residue' a moment ago. I'm really excited by the prospect of hearing a sound and altering it into something that stimulates me a similar way and finding a way of implementing it into the music. As far as my research goes, the Arturia 3 is better for this because of its sound design capabilities and its vast library of vintage sounds that become available to you when you buy the hardware. The Aftertouch feature also helps make sound manipulation feel more expressive and intuitive in a certain context.

On the other hand, I really like the idea of Novation being so perfect for Ableton that you barely even have to take your hand off it to use your mouse or actual PC/laptop keyboard, ever. Apparently, you can also do generative music production on the keyboard instead of having to go through menus on Ableton?

I'm leaning more toward Arturia 3, because at least what you can do on the Novation keyboard can be done on the Arturia 3, it's just that some of it is less convenient. However, I don't think you can replicate the same sound design standards of the Arturia 3 on the Novation keyboard. I might be wrong. I'm thinking that maybe good generative electronic music production is too advanced for beginners like me anyway, but I don't know. I did generative art already.

What do you think?

I was looking for a place to buy in 2022, then got offered a job out of Malta and just came back. I'm looking for a place to buy again and I'm not sure how much more expensive things are now.

Back in 2022, I was looking at mostly unconverted homes and now I'm looking for converted ones. I was/am looking in the three cities area both times. My budget back then was EUR 360,000 and a lot of the unconverted properties I liked would have cost me around EUR 400,000 to finish, I believe, so I was finding it tough. 2 to 3 bedrooms.

Now it looks like property is more expensive, but I'm finding fewer properties and more and more of them are converted, so it's hard to compare. A nicely converted 2-bedroom townhouse in Bormla right now is €595,000. My memory is hazy, but I think maybe this would've been around €450,000 in 2022? I say this because it doesn't have a proper roof with a view. It's closed off with other buildings. No option to build on it mentioned.

Anyone can share some insight into how the prices have changed since 2022?

I listened to them twice and that's it. I want to listen to them on repeat, but that would kinda ruin the album for me. It would be those two that I would've listened to a hundred times and 16 fresh tracks. Somehow, that throws me off. When a new album comes out, I want all the tracks to feel fresh when I start listening to it. Finding it hard to explain myself here. Some of you will be stereotypical redditors and say this is stupid and I'm sure others will relate.

Anyone else holding back from listening to the new BoC releases?

It includes veganism, but also my pets from when I was little, whom my family mistreated and I didn't know any better than to just play along with it. I never hurt or hit animals, but I would leave them alone in a tiny roof their whole lives.

I can't stand knowing what's happening to animals in factory farms, laboratories, in cruel people's homes, and even animals falling prey in the wild. I wish nature was one big reserve and the predators are separated from their prey and fed cultured meat, and all animals are safe from harm and exploitation. I wish research is done on lab-grown human parts instead of animals and everyone went vegan or cultured meat eliminated factory farms.

I want everyone to be happy, but especially innocent animals. The strong should protect the weak. It's that simple. Choose compassion.

So I know this post is kinda pointless. Why bother try and guess what is true or not from Richard's interviews? I just feel like talking about this for the hell of it.

So I saw that Aphex went silent for a few years (maybe for the first time?) in the late 90s to early 2000s and he had sort of implied that he was no longer interested in releasing anything and doing shows. Then according to him, he lost an mp3 with around 200 songs in it on a plane and decided to release some of them before the person who finds the mp3 does. I believe he used the words, "It was only a matter of time" (before they released them). That's why Aphex says he resurfaced with Drukqs.

First of all, if a person finds an mp3 with Aphex songs on a plane in the early 2000s, chances are they would think the music is absolute rubbish, and they wouldn't assume it's unreleased either. They would probably delete the music and upload their own, or sell it, or whatever.

Secondly, I find it hard to believe that Drukqs is the combination of 30 songs that Richard worked on individually, not intended to have together within the same album. I think it's one of the most thematic of his releases and the tracks go very well together. It does not feel like a hodgepodge, but the songs go hand-in-hand very well. You have that percussion that my friends can't stand, and those melodic synths that are reminiscent of melancholic, classical scores, and they're tied together very well with these short, transitional tracks, not to mention the songs that are very similar, like Jynweythek and Beshkhu3epnm. It really does feel like the album was pre-planned and the idea of the album and its direction was conceived before the songs.

What do you think?

I just added a track with the analog bass instrument, but the sound lowers gradually and restarts in normal volume as the loop restarts. Why is this and how do I fix it? Sorry if I'm not using the right terminologies, but I'm very new and I'm finding it difficult to properly articulate myself. Thank you.

So I'd been unemployed for a while, desperately looking for work, and I finally have one and I intend to keep it as if my life depended on it, because it kinda does. That said, maybe having been unemployed for a while really opened my eyes to how weird certain things about employment can be.

Like I inherited quite the backlog, and for the first few weeks people were really understanding about me dealing with this backlog. It was clear that I'd need some time to clear it and they were being patient.

Now I've been there three months and the people above me keep saying things like, "Now the training wheels are off and we expect you to really get going with this backlog" or "You're not new anymore, so expectations are higher", even though I'm making good time and things are going better than expected? I did get going with the backlog. The training wheels are indeed off and have been for a while. The quality is good and I'm meeting deadlines, exceeding the expectations they set for me. It's quantifiable. They talk about certain tasks as if they're rocket science but it's all easy to me. I'm great at what I do.

This backlog is very important to clear, I get it, but I'm a grown man and I'm handling it well. Whenever they ask about the backlog, their faces are stern and suspicious. Why? Because it's an important responsibility? I get to be treated like a child regardless of how independent and responsible I am because they're my superiors and my job is important?

I took the initiative to suggest changes to one of the procedures and speed things up. The idea is bulletproof. Quality would be better (more automation, less human error) and we would save about 1.5 hours a day. The only catch is that I'd need about two hours to build the procedure and they looked almost disgusted when I mentioned it, like I'm supposed to snap my fingers and pop the procedure into existence. Honestly, I'm not even a senior and I took the initiative to write a good procedure from scratch, which is above my paygrade. My manager and his manager then stone-faced me and after a few seconds, the head of department took a deep breath and said, "I won't mind if you do that." Who hurt these guys? Or are they afraid that I'll realise how underpaid I am if they acknowledge that I'm doing well?

Before three months ago, I used to walk right past my work building, blissfully unaware of the companies that have offices there and this damn backlog. If I came across my manager and his manager while walking past, we would've looked at each other and considered ourselves equals; just three grown men going about our day. Now I'm employed and I'm their subordinate, and I better not get any funny ideas and forget it for a second. I better not forget what I am. I'm employment contract-signing scum. I'm the backlog guy now.

Sometimes I have a strange encounter and think to myself, "I'll keep this in mind in case I ever write a book and want to have a very random scene in there."

The most memorable ones I'd say were a very distinguished old man scoffing at prickly pear cacti asking me how my country got the cactus since it's American (and I'm not in America) and judging me for not knowing the answer, and another guy who yelled at me for entering my car and not leaving my parking spot so he could take it (I was just grabbing something from my car).

Today, I got out of my car and decided to pick up some dried leaves on the seat from when I bought a plant and throw the leaves on the ground. A guy was walking by with his young son and he said, sternly, "Excuse me, sir, but you really shouldn't litter." I pointed out how the pavement we were on was lined with trees and how it was already covered in leaves, which, by the way, are nature and not "litter". He lowered his voice and winking at me, he said that he's setting an example for his son.

His son was like 9 and he might've heard him say that. He looked up at his dad when the guy said that. Also, what does the fact that he wants to set an example for his son change?

He was smiling this ridiculously big smile and I reiterated how there's nothing wrong with throwing dead leaves on the ground outside, where it's full of leaves. He said something like, "Okay, okay, I had to tell ya", and walked off.

It was kinda wholesome and I'm obviously not bothered by it. I just love weird encounters. Makes me feel like I'm in some kind of sandbox video game like Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption, where you could spontaneously encounter unusual people and it's just a brief cutscene (video) that does nothing for the plot and doesn't give you anything to do. It's just a fun little thing that happened and I felt like sharing.

Do you have any random and silly encounters you'd like to share?

Just curious. I heard that it's a shark breeding ground over there, but don't know what species of shark it is and whether it's dangerous. I'm from here and only recently heard something, and the person who told me couldn't answer these questions. I think if it were dangerous there'd be signs not to swim there or something? I noticed that people swim close to the rocks there, even though the patch of sea between the rocks and Filfla is inviting to just float in with a lilo or something. Anyone could provide insight on the sharks? Thanks.

I'm playing DS1 right now and I just met Heartman. Please, no spoilers involving anything that comes after. I'm being careful.

My question is basically, am I playing the game wrong for not placing ladders and ropes and building structures?

So far I've seen very little reason to build structures. Like, I can see how the zip-line could be useful, but I don't know if it's worth doing because I don't know which routes I will pass from more than once. You would have to carry the PCCs and strategically position two or more zip-line structures and you don't know if you're going to even use them really.

There are also plenty of structures like bridges built by other players, or things like ladders and ropes placed in spots where you'd need them.

The game does feel like a chore sometimes, especially in the areas where I bump into something every half a second with the bike, but it feels like strategising and building structures will slow me down instead of making things more convenient.

Does it make more sense to build structures mainly if you're planning on doing a lot of side missions and 100%ing the game? Because I'm focusing on the campaign right now and it doesn't feel like I stick around long enough in areas that my structures would be a good investment of my time. I also don't know if I'll play anymore once the campaign's finished. I'm loving the game, but there are also a lot of other games I'm eager to play, so I doubt I'll stick around after the campaign. Thank you.