How has your music and/or mentality as a producer changed since you first joined audiotool? What genres did you frequently work with, and how have they changed since then?
How has your music and/or mentality as a producer changed since you first joined audiotool? What genres did you frequently work with, and how have they changed since then?
Comments (32)
This will take me a while to answer...
I still create ambient, but now I am doing a more techno approach. Sometimes I do drum and bass, and that hasn't really changed. Though, for half the time I have been here, I haven't actually made any good tracks.
I used to be inspired by all the big Future Bass/EDM producers of the 'golden age' of this site. I hadn't really found my sound yet so I was more piggybacking off other producers, trying to gain more traction with remixes or trying out techniques that my favorite producers used. That wasn't inherently a bad thing, but didn't bring me any closer to finding my own unique sound and aesthetic. When dealing with some mental difficulties later on, I started to treat Audiotool almost like an aural diary, or a venting mechanism. With that, I was able to take inspiration from many more sources that were personal to me, like my favorite metal/experimental musicians. I could get in much grittier, more raw territory and express myself easier.
When i found audiotool at first i was in highschool. I was like "ah sick, a free website where you can make beats." I ended up really liking AT and around the same time I was getting more curious and motivated in trying to make music. I obviously sucked at first but got more used to it through time . Unfortunately i only used my schools chromebooks so everytime I went on break (summer, spring, etc.) I wasn't able to work on anything. This is, and was, the worst feeling i had ever really experienced because the passion that i have for music and art in general is strong so when I would get back from breaks i would be on AT constantly (pretty much every class lol). Through highschool (just recently graduated) i dealt with a lot of depression and started to work even more on music to help me cope w/emotions. I both produced and recorded vocally. It helped me a lot with venting and for the last two years of highschool i only worked on music, put everything else like school aside. Eventually it helped me embrace my reality and the way i felt and thoughts i have. So as time passed I started being able to cope with my emotions. The meaning of the music i create became less because i no longer needed as much of a vent as i did before because i had embraced my reality. But i believe and am aware that it is still here with me and will always be so i created a concept. 767/676 (basically balance) which describes myself. 767 is where i am in a positive state of mind though i still have the negativity buried inside and 676 is the other way around. i am in a negative state of mind though i still have positivity buried inside. i still create concepts daily to help me more with embracing my reality. Because of this, music for me as well as art has become more of a way to create and push myself further, mentally and emotionally rather than just making music. ( theres so much more to the story of my growth yet so hard to explain it perfectly. anyways i dont if i missed anything but thanks for letting me share.) <3
sorry if it's a little too long lol
The 767/676 was created because of a belief of mine had formed. (even though if and when you change you still have your past in you, regardless. Whether your past was negative or positive ) So i learned that in my situation, my past was negative but now im slightly more positive, i will still have that part of me in my past that is negative and so thats why i decided to learn to embrace it instead of fear it. Things are much better when i embrace balance.
My first genre, trap. Did this for a while, but after the community made it clear that trap wasn't wanted or appreciated, I wanted to make it even more. I basically taught myself everything I could. My goal was to actually get those people to acknowledge what trap/hihop can be, fast forward a year and a half. Im satisfied, I started opening up to new genres like synth wave and edm. But even after making them, and getting good feedback. I just loved making my stuff more. And here we are.
I'm still pretty shit.
It's not that trap isn't appreciated as a whole, it's just that a lot of the new artists that arrive here lay dormant in generic trap forever. There's never any flair added or experimentation. It's the most bare bones trap that is as easy as possible to make, and it's because a lot of people come here with the objective to make money and get famous. I've seen what good trap can be here, from you included, and it's because the passion to push boundaries and experiment and have fun with the work is there. Who gives a shit about money, you know? This isn't a row of cubicles, it's a passionate community!
For sure got a point, maybe I was too narrow minded to the situation (about the money thing, youre completely right). But the reason why I started with trap was really because I didnt know how to operate anything. And when im finished with the project all excited thinking, "oh sweet!!! look what i made!!!" Than getting bombarded with "trap kid this and trap kid that". Not considering the fact that they may not know how to operate things. That alone can push people away from even finding themselves on this genuinely amazing site. After i got a grasp of the basics, i started looking for people who were just like me, trying to actually make something, and invite them and basically give them lessons. Ive been doing this for almost a year now. Made good friends from it, and even saw them evolve past me. Take the client for example, i remember when he was making basic beats. From looplabs to the beginning of audiotool he would always ask how i did this, and that. Now hes more talented than me. Which is why i get genuinely frustrated at people who bash trap kids. Maybe you should just teach them. It would be a better community in my opinion.
https://www.audiotool.com/track/etw3221jvbjp/ this song made me realise that trap could be so much more interesting than your typical boring samples and loops.
@bubblicious THIS. THIS. THIS. THIS. I have no problem with people starting with trap, I just promote people getting creative with it for the sake of it rather than for money or to get someone to use their beats to spit bars on. The whole 'fuck you trapkids' thing is funny and all, but I actually kind of think it's a big mentality problem. It's kind of hypocritical actually, because during the 'golden ages' everyone was making future bass and EDM. You couldn't escape it. As great as those times may be for people looking through rose-tinted glasses, it's basically the same ordeal, except this 'trap epidemic' is even lesser. The only genuine problems that I've seen, other than the sheer number of artists in the genre, are people mis-genre-ing their tracks to chart (usually trap in hardcore, or memes in reggae or whatever.) I feel like this duality between the trap community here and, well, everyone else, only promotes the 'lazy trapkids' to get lazier. Why even try to push boundaries when every track you post gets inundated with criticism for it not being the genre they like? I'd rather have 100 generic trap artists make way for a few amazing ones than close off the community entirely and plug my ears going "lalalalalala" like a five year old
also @wambatsupreme wightfall is jesus
Hmmm you do got a point, maybe criticism is needed. But i think it should be a good balance of both criticism and also education. Ive seen people list off a bunch of problems on other tracks which is good and dandy, but sometimes they dont know HOW to do most of the things listed. But i for sure see your point, that part of trap should be frowned apon. When i search for people, i seek out the people who genuinely catch my eye (as in trying to make something). But yeah, this doesnt apply to every artist so i see how this all happening. Maybe im just speaking for the rare bread of artists who want to improve. which isnt the majority. So yeah i see your point for sure.
Ill Just hopefully kickstart as much people as i can
Yes https://www.audiotool.com/user/evilpanda107/. Gray is my audiotool hero
that is a very good question. this is gonna take a while to go through. so i started a long ass time ago in the concert band in middle school. ive always wanted to do music stuff, ive always had a higher love for music, even tho i spent more time drawing or building stuff out of cardboard. but i learned how chords and rhythms and beats and sheet music works. a year or two or maybe three later, i decide that i wanna see if i could make music on my chromebook. i could. was happy. started on this shitty little place called soundtrap. very basic. but i learned a couple of things on ST. like what gain was, and what square, triangle, saw, and sine waves were. also noise. stuff about snares and kicks. hihats. only problem was i was very limited, and my music clipped and sounded very basic and jumbled up. i wanted to do more. do some greater stuff. eventually after a year or two of using soundtrap. i got so tired of it, that i eventually decided to look for a new free browser based DAW. then i was a little smarter about music. i knew more. i knew more chords and i knew beats and certain sounds that i enjoyed. i found audiotool. and i immediately was overwhelmed by all of the new instruments and options. absolutely blown away. i joined a while before next was completed and updated to the main version. so i used both next and the normal flash studio thingy. i learned so much more here. i had made some decent music. i was happy, doing stuff that i thought was really awesome.
but then... whenever so many people's accounts were being banned for seemingly no reason. in the midst of the chaos and confusion... my account was deleted. i was practically IP banned, because i couldnt create an account on my chromebook. account would be created. the next day its fuckin gone. i was so devastated. i bleakly went back to sound trap and made some decent stuff there, due to me having known more than when i first stopped using soundtrap. about half a boring year later, during my freshman year (im almost a senior now) i decided to try it again. i checked the next day without touching my account. and to my surprise, it was still there. i was ecstatic. after a couple more days, i started making more music. this is the same account ive had since i made that new account. my music was kinda average after a while. a couple of years pass by, the only things i learn after that is how to automate things more, and develop more of a unique sound, which didnt stick around long. i continue making mediocre songs. then... i collaborated with vulkron. and i say his magic. it was fantastic. though he was too fast for me to barely figure out what he was doing. some things happened, i eventually ended up finishing all three ideas he had come up with because i liked all three equally. made three songs out of it with a bit of history with vulk. and then i released a song to be a part of a ep with the other three included. i did this fourth song during the fall of last year. i remember specifically because i moved around and combined and changed some of the chords from the field show that we had in the marching band. i played piano. was great. learned kinda how to read treble clef. but i thought that song was absolutely awesome. and somewhere after releasing a couple more songs afterwards, i somehow suddenly got better somewhere towards the beginning of winter. and i thought that the new songs i was rolling out were absolutely fantastic.
here i am today, with half decent songs that still need some work on sound design and developing a specific sound, unless there is something unique about what i do, here i am today. known by a couple of people, still with very few followers and at this current situation, at least 5 projects that im just kind of - sitting on? idk. i seriously need to do more work on music, but im too busy riding out this pandemic and working on personal self improvement rather than music. and watching a buncha youtube cause why not.
genre wise, i did basic edm at first, not knowing much about genres. i eventually started trying to do specific ones, like dubstep and such. thats when i got back onto audiotool after my account was mysteriously banned. now i do mainly future bass, house, and glitch hop, with a little dubstep mixed in. i wanna eventually try to do future trap. maybe some experimental. idk.
im glad to see that you're getting better and enjoying yourself here, and raising other up above you. you are a very good person.
yin and yang. a perfect balance between negative and positive that keeps not only the world metaphorically spinning, but the human race as a whole as well. im happy to hear that you have been able come to such a deep and changing epiphany. it makes me feel better to see other people around me growing to heights never before imagined. i wish you luck in your future endeavors.
it took me a good bit of typing to explain.
exactly, thank you. I appreciate you.
you are very welcome.
I dont deserve your kindness, thank you so much
i feel like you do more than at least half the people that i am kind to.
but i shouldnt be mean to them just because the dont deserve kindness
When I first joined audiotool, my main two genres were trap and video game music (whether it be chiptune or not). Eventually, I began to venture out of the genres that I usually did for some part and began to make any genre I liked at the time, which I still do. I would occasionally go right back to video game music and trap since they've always had a special place in my heart. Fast forward to when I was creating an OST called GammaFreak; I was rushing the project because I didn't want to make everyone wait too long, which ended up putting me in art block, especially for chiptune. I'm still a little hesitant to make chiptune thinking i'm not as good as I used to be, but that's changing now that i've found inspiration. This is unrelated, but if audiotool had a soundfont player, i'd be making WAY more chiptune, but I don't think they'll add one any time soon :(
a fellow soundtrap baby :D
i remember messaging your wall and talking to you about it lmfao.
i usedto be inspired by the living tombstonne and was a obnoxious little kid (you remember my beef with hvd) then i got more mature, my music taste changed, i started discovering more techniques and got more better at music and that leads me to where i am today.
well 3 years ago i had a kick of wanting to make music so i searched the interwebs for it. I don't know what set me off but something did. I began and literally knew nothing about music and for months i just kept making shit until i finally started learned the site but since then my music is basically the same of making random genres and just improving sound design and "composer". My goal is still the same to when i started and that is to make better music and to self learn music.