Hello everybody,
as some of you might know, I’m currently working on a dissertation about music making on audiotool, therefore I have a question hoping you can shed some light on this.
While browsing and listening I noticed that tracks get republished from time with minor or major changes (at least referring to what is written in the republish text). Even tracks that are a few years old get modified and republished more or less frequently. As I’m honestly unaware of any other platform (e.g. Soundcloud, Bandcamp,…) or even “official” digital/physical releases (Spotify, iTunes or even Vinyl) where that’s common practice or possible at all I’d like to know more about this.
How does It happen that tracks once released get (frequently and constantly) modified on audiotool?
Really looking forward to the discussion!
Comments (12)
usually, the renderer makes the track sound different. especially when you don't use the booster.
also when you listen to your track for the final time once it's published you tend to see more mistakes (for some reason?)
because if you receive critique on a track, e.g. "I feel that the drums are too drowned out in the second part", you will probably want to fix it and make it sound better.
Apart from the method of using republishing to flush one's own tracks back to the surface and so into the public focus ...
I see my list of published tracks on Audiotool more as a kind of living draft folder. Many of the tracks were created from sessions and were not finished either in terms of sound technology or music/arrangement.
In contrast to Soundcloud, Audiotool has always been a tool for collaborations, even before there was the possibility of Live Collab. Opinions and tips of the others were desired by many users and only led to a track becoming what it was at the end. The publishing of unfinished or not quite finished tracks belongs, in my opinion, partly to the Audiotool spirit. All this would make no sense without the ability to republish.
Just for my understanding: with the "renderer" you refer to the rendering algorithm that creates the track in its releasable form or are you refering to the user that renders as the "renderer"?
Could you specify what role the booster plays in all of this?
Also, your last point is pretty interesting: what do you think, how is it that you tend to hear things you didn't hear before?
That's a good point which leads me to my next, I really don't mean to play stupid or something, I'm really trying to get a deeper understanding on this. How is it that this is kind of a paradigm that you want to optimize your tracks continuously and make it sound better (as there would also be a possibility to just leave it as it is)?
Thanks mate, how would a republish bring the track back to the public attention? What method are you referring to here?
As for the second part, can you specify what collaboration on audiotool means or includes? As I understand your response this might go way beyond simply collaborating in the app which is pretty exciting!
I refer to the algorithm that renders the final piece (when uploading your song) the booster acts like the algorithm so it sounds like the real deal. I think it's mostly because it changes the studio bitrate. (This is very noticable when you use a bitcrusher on something and compare the sounds on the booster and worklet.
For me, I hear things differently when I hear the final piece is because I have a different mindset maybe because I am not listening to it on the studio.
if you republish a track, followers who have it enabled will get a notification that you republished a track.
Got that, so republishing a track would also operate as a strategy to (re-)gain attention in pointing others back to the track? What kind of (minor/major?) changes are to expect when users use such a strategy?
That's an interesting point, lets stick to the different mindset. What makes the studio view different to looking at the wave form in the final track view when you're listening?
You're bringing up a big issue here that is at the core of the starting questions of this topic: I have a strong feeling that the listener actually doesn't appreciate something you did as complete as feedback (at least in many times) often implies a powerful call to action, to modify, to polish, to lenghten etc. which many users tend to follow (in actually changing things). That eventually brings the 'point' where you (as the creator) think it's 'complete' enough to publish back to the front. This seems to be different for some users as some tend to publish a track on, what others might call, a very early stage (hoping to get feedback to continue working on it republishing over and over again) whereby others actually work out ideas in detail and publish where they indeed might have a feeling of the track as 'complete' (and might not or only at times make changes and republish). I remember a comment on one of your tracks in the last days where you said that that you could follow the critique although you almost never republish. So there also seems to be a difference in thinking of a song as 'eternally unfinished' but constantly changable on the one and the same song as 'eternally unfinished' but 'as is' on the other hand if you get what I mean. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks, really lightens up things!
@sandburgen still curious about the second part of your initial response if you could give me a hint ;)