Okay everybody, I admit I am one of the worst gearheads I know. I spend hours researching new equipement and software when I could be making music instead. After a recent gear blitz I have realized that I am better at research gear than sitting down to compose, as usually happens in certain cycles. Anyways, I'm interested in what music people are working on.

A. Do you do mostly recording, sequencing/composition, or sound design

B. Where are you on the hobbyist-professional line?

C. Do you make money from your music? How and how much?(optional) enough to pay for all the crap you buy?

D. What do you hope to do in the future?

I know this one has probably been done before but this is really what I'm wondering right now.

Eager to hear your responses,

Chris

I guess I oughta awswer my own question....

A. I'm doing a lot of weird stuff now: I have recorded a few solo artist type friends 3 song demos and such. Also working on a solo electronic IDMish album by me. I'm a student at western washington university and a do a lot of music for their dance department, including 15 minutes of orchestral music (GPO, baby) for a short film of theirs(finally get to apply orchestration class
). Lots of other stuff is pending or possible (things are crazy right now)

B. I guess I'm more of a hobbyist now but I fully want to become a professional. any ideas on how to do so?

C. Not yet, really. I did get a free trip to mexico city to record a friends band, once. No I can't pay for this crap with my music yet. Instead I work in retail. lame. I just moved to a laptop setup so I hopefully can get some gigs and sell some CD's. wish me luck.

D. Not sure yet wich direction yet, but I really want to work in the music field. People say I'm a pretty good composer (I have my doubts) but I've heard the film scoring biz is pretty tough now, considering exerybody and their mother has an actual degree in film scoring. I may land a position doing sound design for a video game. Or perpahs people will really start liking my Csound music and I can be an electroacoustic composer my whole life. Not likely, but whatever. I think I work hard enough that I'll get something, just not sure what yet.

what about you?

Chris

I generally don't give a damn about new gear or software.

There are people who still use OS 9 with the old Cubase version and they make much better music than a log of today's artists who use OS X with Logic Audio

it's not the tools that matter.

The only time you sould go out and bother with gear is if it's your JOB and someone's paying you to do it..

or.. if you've tried and tried for a month to do something and can't find any other solution than to waste money AND YOUR TIME.

Every new piece of gear requires going out of the creative zone for a long period of time, to learn the new gear, to integrate, and most important of all, to master it. It's like someone retuning your piano to different cents every few days... you gotta get used to the new feel again every time.

Stick to writing music if you love it so much. You're either a music head or a gear head... being in between will hurt you.

A; sequencing/composition mixed with sound design


B: Professional. Any ideas on how to get there?...find a video (film) production company to allay with. I originally was recommennded to a music consultant by an engineer who played drums in a band I was in. I studied orchestration and arranging, but also programmed synths and played jazz and grungey rock on guitar and bass. When the consultant knew I was versatile I started working on a few cues here and there. He liked my work ethic as much as anything else and I began working a lot. He recommended me to a video production company, and although I do work for other clients as well, by far the bulk of my work is for the video lads. They have a variety of different projects (TV and corporate) and I usually score them. (at one point I was doing all of them but almost killed myself trying to be all things to all people).
If you want film work these days I advise writing modern sounding songs with descriptive lyrics. Most of the film scoring work is handled by music supervisors who try to match the lyrics of contemporary pop stuff with the dramatic action. The old-fashioned orchestral score is becoming more and more rare (with some notable exceptions)


C: Yes I make money from my music. How much depends on a number of factors but I've ranged from $6000.00 one year to 1 little under 100,000.00 in others. All my gear is paid for and by composing, performing.

D: I peaked money-wise in 2000 but have decided to concentrate more on badly-paying classical stuff. (far more fulfilling) I have always written string quartets and symphonic stuff and recently have been having some moderate success at getting them staged. As well I write rockier stuff and have just started getting them placed on TV.

go to http://www.fictionmusic.tv to see what I mean.

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hi, this is the first time I write in this forum. I thought it would be nice to answer this questions, so I can reflect myself and see where I'm standing right now.

A: mostly sequencing/composition and sound design

B: Professional. I got lucky...what can I say...I believe the line between professionalism and amateurism (?) is really thin. I was in the right place at the right time and someone liked my music. However I'm still a child in some aspects. I want to release my disc but I don't look for a label or any other way to accomplish that. It sucks actually...

C: I make some...I work as a Sound designer/editor for Fox Channel LA/National Geographic Channel/USA Network. And I compose music for some promos. But you must know I live in Argentina and no, it's not enough to pay for all the crap I'd like to buy.

D: A friend of mine is moving to Barcelona and he's gonna work for an Electronic Music Label as a Manager, so I hope he can sell the master and I can start earning some sweet money from my music.

A. Do you do mostly recording, sequencing/composition, or sound design?
Recording and Sequencing...with some sound design and composition.
As far as new gear and software goes. New stuff, I find, really can inspire
a whole new sound, style, and it helps keep you relatively current. Sure
those with OS 9 still can make great music. But the longer they wait the
more it will cost to upgrade (in terms of learning the latest stuff.) And
they will want to upgrade eventually ohhhhhhhhhhhhh yesssssssssss!!!!

B. Where are you on the hobbyist-professional line?
Total hobbyist...This is my addiction! I can't stop writing, singing, and recording songs.

C. Do you make money from your music? How and how much?(optional) enough to pay for all the crap you buy?
Money? Hahahahaahhahahahahahhahahahahaahhahahah!
I am a computer dude, with a wife and a daughter.
That said, I try not to purchase what I don't need although
I am borderline on getting a G5 which would definitely be a luxury.

D. What do you hope to do in the future?
My end goals...right now...in the near future are as follows:

1. audio mastering my previously recorded songs
2. keep recording and writing new stuff
3. put it all up on my website for anyone to download

I am getting closer everyday, just got to keep working at it.

Industry Rant:
I have several friends and relatives who were or still are aspiring
wannabe rock stars. The most I can gather is to truely make it
in the music business it involves a little bit of luck. Also, the music industry is
probably one of the biggest scams ever made. You have supply
totally saturating demand. On top of that, every wanna be
musician probably buys thousands of dollars worth of equipment
in their lifetime. Thinking that the next purchase will give them
that edge that they need. But if I were a big time musician I would
probably have M-Audio throwing new gear at me all the time, then
I wouldn't have to buy their stuff. The irony lies in that the aspiring
musician has no money and yet has to buy the goods. While the rocker
who made it big has the cash to buy the tools he needs, yet gets
a lot of stuff for free. Doesn't that seems slightly backwards.
Not to mention that pop crap dominates the radio waves and
charts due in large part to marketing dollars, while those with
originality and talent aren't quite as successful (although there
are some exceptions) At least the hair bands are gone, we
can only hope the brittany, justin, jessica, and their ilk with
be washed away in the next decade as well. ;-)

A. Do you do mostly recording, sequencing/composition, or sound design?

Mostly? None of the above. Mostly I do freeform improv in an IDMish style. What more or less happens is I'll compose drum tracks and maybe some bass loops, and then I'll use a real-time audio looper to layer over that. It's an amazingly fun way to make music. I've got examples up at http://www.zerocrossing.net/music.html

B. Where are you on the hobbyist-professional line?

Hobbyist I guess, but in this world I think of myself as an artist. I went the professional route many moons ago, and I hated it. I'd rather not have to worry about making money with my music, but I don't turn down cash at the end of a gig. I don't book one with that in mind either.

C. Do you make money from your music? How and how much?(optional) enough to pay for all the crap you buy?

I make a tiny bit of money from gigs from time to time. Compared to what I spend on this stuff? Not even close! I work as a multimedia designer and that envolves some music from time to time and often sound design, so I guess that counts.

D. What do you hope to do in the future?

I hope to end up doing more and more video editing and motion graphic design in my professional world. Hopefully this will give me a chance to score some video as well.

Industry Rant:

Take a look at your death Music Industry. It's here on the internet. As you pump out more and more crap, small hardworking artists will be supplying the world with music you can't control or make money with. Die Clearchannel! RIP Time/Warner!

A. Do you do mostly recording, sequencing/composition, or sound design?
I'm afraid I'm still at the stage of trying to get to grips with all the modern jargon and terminology involved in making electronic music these days. My computer skills leave much to be desired. I used to be fairly up to speed with pre midi synths and so on. I bought my first synth, an EMS Synthi A back in '74.......yup thats 30 years ago! Needless to say, a lot has changed since then; I'm more obese for a start!

B. Where are you on the hobbyist-professional line?
Oh definately hobbyist nowadays.

C. Do you make money from your music? How and how much?(optional) enough to pay for all the crap you buy?

I guess I have the most peculiar biog of anyone in this forum. In the late seventies early eighties I was a third of an all keyboard/analogue synth, insane trio based in the north of England. We had all been in more conventional bands so when we pooled our gear had an obscene amount of (what was back then) state of the art equipment which we lugged around to gigs including 2 fender rhodes, JP8, 2 ARP odyssey's, an enormous cross between a butchered 4 voice oberheim and a complete roland system 100, together running off a CV+ gate MC4 sequencer, we christened that beast the 'iron lung', a few string machines.. Elka, a mellotron, a roland vocoder cum string/choir machine, a korg MS10, EMS Synthi A etc Our stuff was very Zappa influenced, with a bit of Crimson and Tangerine dream thrown in.......sort of psychedelic vaudeville!!
Paid?? What's that? I dont think we ever got more than expenses in five years. Lots of good times though.

I spent '80 to '84 attending the Royal Northern College of Music, and from 84 to '99 as resident principal bass soloist (vocal not strings)with the English National Opera, making regular guest appearances with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and others as far afield as the Bolshoi in Moscow!
In contrast to my band days I got paid rather well in my 'legit' musical direction. Sadly I suffered a stroke at 42 which prematurely ended my career as an opera singer.

D. What do you hope to do in the future?
I just fancy trying to play a bit of music again. Hopefully I'll find a way around my left side paralysis, either through using midi cc's or if all else fails by some absurd Heath Robinson arrangement of string and sealing wax:-)

A, All of the above.

B, Hobbyist, that way there is no pressure.

C, No

D, Get better at what I do. Have more fun, and less of the pulling out hair.

Thannks to all who replied... Its really helpful info for somebody who is young and really wanting to get into the biz to hear what people are doing. I went to all the sites of people that gave links and heard some cool music. Good luck in the future for all. I'll let ya know when I release a CD hopefully later this month.

-Chris