HPF use on virtual instruments? And other totally random musings.

Paul P
 
I can relate .  You wouldn't happen to have a background in computers / software perchance ?
 
Is it possible that your tinkering is a way of avoiding getting emotionally involved with your music ?  Or something to do because you can't ?  In my mind, a real musician is someone for whom being deeply involved is everything and instruments, programs and the voice are just means of expressing that involvement.  I don't think a real musician would care that much about a setting on an EQ.
 
As for lyrics, I think you have to sing about what really matters to you.  But then I've always wondered how songwriters can write about their experiences without it bothering those around them.  If I were to sing about the people around me, I doubt they'd appreciate it...
 
Maybe try to write a complete song using only your voice and an acoustic guitar (a awful lot of songs have only three chords and a current hit has mostly only one).  You can eliminate a ton of distractions and the format is very accessible both for you and anyone listening.  Once you have something, then try and expand it into something bigger with Sonar.
 

AT
As far as virtual instruments and prefabbed loops and HPF, it depends.  Most audio loops are already processed.  EQ can help them "fit" into a song w/o other instruments.  Virtual instruments often have patches that are designed to be full spectrum so they sound good.  Often it helps to thin them out, too, even if they don't include rumbles and other mic noise.  The thinning out includes LPF, too, as well as other forms of EQ.
 
Making music involves collaboration.  Whether it is artist and audience or artist and other artists, multiple lines of feedback make the music better and ... more enjoyable.  You can, of course, choose to be a solo artist and make music only you are interested in and practically no one else other than your mother or long suffering significant other.  But as you have experienced, that is usually a dead end and produces experiments interesting only to you.  Even the most controlling classic composer still depends upon the musicians to add their own expression to the dead notes on a staff.  Modern musicians can play and record everything themselves, and their technical excellence produce the most boring music since it is pushing against air.  If you know a little of music structure, you are likely, w/o feedback, to produce songs that copy the forms and sound generic.  Which is fine, but is no reason for someone else to listen to copies of music they like.
 
I've always used a vocalist or VO artist since I have a voice similar to Leo Kottke, who described his voice as sounding like turkey flatulence.  I moved from soundscapes made with mono synths (w/ VO) to actual songs made w/ polysynths and chords and drum machines.  Audio loops then came along, which added another variable to my music.  Finally, I found a guitarist I like, and he actually likes working w/ my stuff.  A good guitarist.  And it has twisted my electronic stuff into a totally different direction.  It is not just more accessible (using the term loosely), but more fun for me. 
 
So by all means find someone that can help you w/ the things you don't do well.  When you do find someone else, it will be well worth it.
 
@

rlared
 
The other thing that I think I need to focus on is to just record live takes and not fiddle with everything so damn much.
 

rlared
One additional note to consider is I'm guilty of "octave bass" where I play my right hand in the mid to high range of the piano and then play octaves in the bass notes. . . it probably wreaks havoc on my mixes because it fills them with low-mid and bass notes!!!