Hi guys, I have a question to the  most experienced ...
Do you not think that too many techniques, too many plugins ... kills the passion for the sound? Music become just a business and not something that makes us happy? ...
Sorry if my question may seem "idiot" for some ... But that's a question I ask myself ...  especially when I see more experienced people in music ... In France :)
Thank you 
 
✌🤙👊👍

Depends on you and your experience.
If you're just starting out everything feels like its getting in the way of you wanting to make music.
It's part of learning you craft.  Just as you need to master your instrument, you need to understand technology enough to make it work for you. 
But beyond that - at some point you have to decide whether to obsess about your craft or obsess about the tools of/for assisting with your craft.  Few can do both, many more think they can.  
 
re;>Do you not think that too many techniques, too many plugins ... kills the passion for the sound? Music become just a business and not something that makes us happy? ...
 
The key to happiness is balance.
I've seen too many people obsess about music and only music - and end up hating the craft they've perfected.  Hobbies are fun because you don't have to do them but to make a successful career of something takes a fire in the belly that most don't have.   
As a teenager I loved scuba diving. At 19 I became a professional diver - 5 days a week in the water at 6 am, rain or shine, hot or cold, regardless of what I felt like. Before I was 20 I was no longer a diver and I've only put a wet suit on twice since then.  I didn't have the fire in the belly to make it as diver but I did for other things...

TheSteven
Depends on you and your experience.
If you're just starting out everything feels like its getting in the way of you wanting to make music.
It's part of learning you craft.  Just as you need to master your instrument, you need to understand technology enough to make it work for you. 
But beyond that - at some point you have to decide whether to obsess about your craft or obsess about the tools of/for assisting with your craft.  Few can do both, many more think they can.  
 
re;>Do you not think that too many techniques, too many plugins ... kills the passion for the sound? Music become just a business and not something that makes us happy? ...
 
The key to happiness is balance.
I've seen too many people obsess about music and only music - and end up hating the craft they've perfected.  Hobbies are fun because you don't have to do them but to make a successful career of something takes a fire in the belly that most don't have.   
As a teenager I loved scuba diving. At 19 I became a professional diver - 5 days a week in the water at 6 am, rain or shine, hot or cold, regardless of what I felt like. Before I was 20 I was no longer a diver and I've only put a wet suit on twice since then.  I didn't have the fire in the belly to make it as diver but I did for other things...

I'm happy with your response, thank you
I had a bad experience at SAE in Paris, where I had some courses with "teachers" who were not worried about keeping this "pleasure" that exists in making music and teaching students the tools of work, had a teacher who only spoke with the Students to sell the things he could get for free (plugins - hardware ...) This shocked me a lot, I had a great disappointment to see it all, because I was just getting started in music and I did not have so much experience ... Today I see that Most of the people with the most experiences in music here in France are like that, they like to have everything, to show that they know everything, they are all the time in competition, and they are not happy at what they do ... I think it's sad ..

TheSteven
 
As a teenager I loved scuba diving. At 19 I became a professional diver - 5 days a week in the water at 6 am, rain or shine, hot or cold, regardless of what I felt like. Before I was 20 I was no longer a diver and I've only put a wet suit on twice since then.  I didn't have the fire in the belly to make it as diver but I did for other things...

This is an excellent anecdote. One thing to always bear in mind is one's own personal goals and the reason for doing something. If it is fun, then it is perfect. When it becomes oppressive, get clear of it for a while to re-evaluate. For me, I have refused on several occasions to cross the threshold to "job" for fear of the above.
 
Another fine line is the concept of music versus tools (production versus post-production). For me, music is creative, but post-production is significantly less so. It is far easier to get into the quagmire of "learning tools" which will kill creativity quickly. Even a cool tool may have limited application, so a nice effect is not so great unless it can be applied musically. Some will fall into the focus of tools over music, which may not be the best place to be.
 
I have a friend I played a lot with 20 years ago and we had similar setups, but where I moved on to a DAW, he stuck with a Zoom RT-234 and Tascam 484 (although he has recorded on others DAWs, I am pretty sure this is still his home setup). The difference in this is that he composes before he records, and does tracks end-to-end so he essentially has post-production locked into a very tight box (all effects are baked in). Although not prefect, it has maintained the focus on music over any tools, so his productivity (and proficiency) is very high - he tracks single takes each time, and has gotten incredibly good at it.
 
That said, the beauty of music is that it is personal expression, so do not feel compelled to be like anyone else. Know yourself and what you enjoy, and do what keeps you there. Take things for what they are, respect others position, but do not feel compelled to hop on the same boat they are in. No musician requires a DAW, but all musicians require an instrument.

mettelus
 
That said, the beauty of music is that it is personal expression, so do not feel compelled to be like anyone else. Know yourself and what you enjoy, and do what keeps you there. Take things for what they are, respect others position, but do not feel compelled to hop on the same boat they are in. No musician requires a DAW, but all musicians require an instrument.

I love it Mr, the Lord is absolutely right, I will not tell my whole story, but one of the problems I had with one of my "teachers" at SAE, he wanted everyone to do what he said, use the plugins or the Hardware that he was talking about ... Another example with this same teacher, most of the students in these schools are young, listen to modern music like EDM or "TRAP music", and this teacher always criticized the students who listened to these styles of music , I even had insults in their social networks, it traumatized me because I love music and i just wanted to learn a little more, and I did not understand that reaction of a teacher ..., I became sick with some of his actions ... Times later I stayed Knowing that he was working with some of those students that he was so critical of, I understood then that the whole speech he said was all a lie, that he only had an interest in doing business, selling the plugins he had for free to the students ... I started then to understand the mentality of some people more experienced in the music here in France ... I was traumatized and lost with everything, and I even wanted to stop the music ... Until I came to this conclusion as You said "Do not feel obligated to be like another person" ... This helped me a lot in my musical evolution.
Thank you

Hello Nino:
 
I think I see your point, which is that we can get so concerned with doing everything "right" and using "the best equipment" that we lose the joy of what we're doing.  I agree with you.  To me, if you look at much music from the 1950-60's you find it may not be well recorded in a technical sense, but the passion and the performance more than make up for the lack of recording technique.  All the best recording equipment in the world won't create a great song if the passion for the music is missing.  In my opinion great music comes out of the soul and not out of plugins and computers.
 
I wish you the best with your music!

I am sorry you were put off by that teacher.  He was not a good teacher.  Students don't like the bad teachers.  A good teacher teaches the concepts and promotes the idea you can use any plug-in in that situation. They also respect students and never put them down.  For any reason and it is important to learn what the students are listening to.  That is how you fill your cup as a teacher.  Learn new stuff from the students.  I come from an electronic music background so hearing and getting into what they are into today is important, and fun.  It is just an evolution of electronic music on the past.  They will like you for it too.  There are many music production techniques that are purely associated with this type of music.
 
I started out in 1980 with multi tracks tape machines and a room full of synth hardware which had no patch memories in many cases.  Just a lot of controls instead.  I was creative then and got into the music first and foremost.  The difference today is the technology surrounding the same musical compositional approaches.  The technology has changed and for the better as far as I am concerned too.  You can still allow yourself the same creative approaches to the music.  It is faster in more ways now too.  It was hard work before building up polyphonic layers but now it is a breeze.  It can be that the creative flow is better now.  I can sit behind the drums in a recording room and control Studio One in my control room on my iPad.  I can start the composing process in more places than before. 
 
There is way more stuff to use and work with now and we are being bombarded with it every day too e.g. plug-in manufacturers now emailing you every day with super specials etc.. 
 
I think you have to separate the technology learning and practice into other sessions away from the music making.  That is what I tend to do.  Have setup, test, play, learn, practice etc.. sessions. There is a lot to keep up with. Keeping your instruments updated. Your software. The program you use to do this very thing. 
 
Bring your creative sessions into focus at times and the technology disappears to the background on those days.  As it should.  I made a piece of music the other day which sounded very much like something I did in 1982. The creative ideas were the same and I was pleased that the musical concepts came through.  The end result was very similar too.  Showing the ability to recreate a ton of analog synth sounds and well.  Without owning them.  Think about the music only.  How the first idea starts and how they build from there.  None of that has gone away.  It is up to you to tap into it mentally.  
 
If you are being creative and the technology suddenly slows you to a stop then you have not learned and practiced it properly.  You should know what you want to say musically.  You can devise your own training sessions with that info in mind.  If you are lucky some great musical ideas might come out of the training stuff you are doing.  If that happens then store it away somewhere and come back to them for development.  Musical work then, not technical.  When you are doing a lot of creative music making the amount of technology training gets reduced because you are using the tools every day.  There is nothing like doing it a lot (10 hours a day or more!) in order to get good at it.  
 
There are more interesting tools to play with now, and as a result the music for me is sounding like it has never done before.  You don't need a million of them though.  Often just a handful of great tools is all you need.

The other day I got synth called kHs ONE by Kilohearts. This is one amazing sounding instrument.  The GUI and everything is so well designed and laid out it just gets you totally into creating your own patches and I mean in a big way.   I have not come across something as easy to use as this in a while.  Things have been getting very technical as far as synths go that is.  But this just gets sounds out real fast like a Juno 106 for example.  Easy to store now and recall and build up nice pieces just using one synth doing say 5 or 6 parts. 
 
I only mention this because it is like some very creative vibe as per a modular synth etc from the past being able to get lost into patch making but this even today had the exact same effect on me so I thought what a clever little thing this is.  
 
You have also got to use systems that are designed not to fail either.  I expect total perfect operation for 16 hours non stop if I want it.  In my studio that is with everything functioning and on line at once.  4 computers, 8 hardware synths and digital mixing and all the software controlling it.  In fact now the technology is cooler, more reliable, more efficient, for me now compared to tape machines and what all that entails.  Now it is all about getting a sweet marriage of computer hardware, software and audio and midi interfaces all talking sweetly to each other all day long. And it can be done.  Now more than ever before.  The way scoring to picture has changed now compared to how it was done is a breeze these days too.  Import a movie, starting writing some good music....
 
There is just way more hardware and software to choose from so finding and setting up bullet proof systems now is a little different.  There are bad combinations of things and much better combinations.  But there are tons of places to get the info now at the same time.  When the systems work as they are supposed to then the creative process can move forward front and centre. 

In general, having a massive collection of plug-ins certainly can be a distraction.  However ...
 
There's an old saying that goes something like: you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.  Same with plug-ins.  There are a few out there that will become your mainstays, like three or four compressors that will be the ones you go to pretty much all of the time.  But which ones are they?  Until you try a large number, you won't know.  So from that standpoint, using a lot of different plug-ins along the way is really the only way you're going to know which are the ones that make it happen for you.

jude77
Hello Nino:
 
I think I see your point, which is that we can get so concerned with doing everything "right" and using "the best equipment" that we lose the joy of what we're doing.  I agree with you.  To me, if you look at much music from the 1950-60's you find it may not be well recorded in a technical sense, but the passion and the performance more than make up for the lack of recording technique.  All the best recording equipment in the world won't create a great song if the passion for the music is missing.  In my opinion great music comes out of the soul and not out of plugins and computers.
 
I wish you the best with your music!

This exactly Mr, thank you very much 👍👊🤙✌