Audiotool board archive

That’s a way to sum it up

well.. ur not wrong

Really interesting, what's that knowledge you're getting here and how do you get it? Have you ever tried other platforms or other ways of online collaboration?

Thanks, where did you hear about AT in the first place? What does that mean that you were "brand new to this" - how does it differ to what you did before musically? What's special about the community?

What kind of things do you learn by opening up other projects and how do you learn from that? How's using AT different to your music making outside of AT?

Sure, if it wouldn't be you probably could not collaborate with others - do you use any other DAW for music making?

What do you learn and how? Did you collaborate online with other ppl before? How do you find other musician to collaborate with?

Really interesting as the learning thing seems to pretty important! What do you want to learn and how?

What other DAW did you try where you had complications and what kind of complications occured? How did you make friends with other users via AT and what did you do when you guys met?

That's pretty interesting, did you make music before using AT? Would you say that you're playing instrument using AT or if not, how do you make music if you're not using instruments?

What kind of techniques do you learn from others? How do you fit together tracks if they're coming from pretty distant directions - what's your collaboration strategy?

1: i learned how to make half decent music, i started music in the middleschool band at my school, and i learned how to read music then. and now i have a pretty good amount of knowledge about music theory
2: yes, i love collaborating with people and brainstorming with them and creating with them, it creates a bond to me.
3: simple, ask either on the board, search on the board for collaboration requests, or go one someones wall and ask for a collab.

"What kind of things do you learn..." How they achieved certain sounds or effects, how did they program or connect devices together to achieve a result. Sometimes their approach is very different to what mine would have been and this expands my understanding of techniques. "How's using AT different to your music making" That's kind of re-stating the same question, isn't it? It's the ease by which one can get immediate feedback and find a community with similar musical interests.

Yes, I've worked with Cubase, Reason, and Ableton years before. But not so much since Audiootool. I wouldn't generally say that I prefer working online either. It's this place and its community that I've fallen in love with. You also learn to deal with styles that don't usually interest you. So you learn to broaden your horizon through the presence of this diversity of people alone. You also learn to get the best out of what's there.

I'm learning a lot about how electronic music works, how to mix, how to master, which synths match what frequency range, chord layering, (im still learning space btw, ive never actually made decent pads before), literally everything about the basic mechanics of electronic music Im learning here. I get this knowledge over the course of my time spent here, just straight making music. Whether the production is an actual song or just a straight experiment is really based upon whichever i wanna do.
I have tried other DAWs but so far I haven't been able to fully make a switch to anything yet. Fl Studio is only downloadable on a windows pc, and I find Ableton too confusing. Logic is fun, but I'm really trying to go for Pro Tools, because thats the software everyone uses.
I don't think i've tried any other form of online collaborating yet, but I have in fact collaborated in person before. Just once, and it was a long time ago.

Kind of going in the same direction from what you're saying, do you also make music without being online collaborating with others? Also, how do you lern those things in detail, by opening the project and looking at the setup all by yourself, by talking to the collaboration partner about it or in any other way?

Thanks, sounds really impressive! What's special about the community that made you fall in love with? Can you specify what you mean by getting the best out of what's there?

Just to clarify, you learned the things mentioned using AT or at school? Do you also collaborate face to face with others?

That's lots of stuff to learn here! How do you achieve this, simply by making music and checking out features or are you also talking to other users purposefully about those things, reading stuff etc.? What made you stop collaborating face to face after just one try while on the other hand collaborating online on AT - what's different?

not in particular. not an actual collab anyways. i learned stuff from school and AT. i learned how to make EDM music with AT and this thing called "soundtrap" which is a low budget, not so good digital audio workshop. i learned the basics of music in general, which was my first step towards making music. which isnt what i had in mind when i joined the school band, but i got the idea three years (give or take a year or two) and ive been practicing in music production ever since. and at this point, i really wanna make something out of it.

Until now I haven't collaborated with anyone yet, although I've discussed techniques back and forth with users whose work I like and admire and given feedback for existing work and even possible future directions in a few cases. Usually it's enough for me to open the project and follow signal paths or solo audio cables and channels to figure out what's going on and what the particular technique is.

@nick123456 Just a comment: "I'm really trying to go for Pro Tools, because that's the software everyone uses." I don't recommend that criteria (what everyone uses) but instead what best fits the kind of music you want to make or how you want to work. Pro Tools is a general purpose DAW geared towards recording and mixing, therefore favoured in commercial music/film/TV studios, but maybe not the most adequate for purely electronic music production. There are DAWs that are more modular in nature (a feature not so much needed in something like Pro Tools) that give you much more freedom in musical composition, specialised sound design and song structure.

I am mainly talking about the beginnings of Audiotool, when the range of possibilities was much more limited than now. In contrast to many Daws where a lot of things are made very easy, you couldn't for example save or use presets and had to start from scratch every time, which sometimes led to results that weren't predictable. Also the choice of synths was very limited at that time with the Pulverisateur and the Bassline 3.

The community itself was, as is always the case in the early stages, a very strong momentum of its own, organized meetings and parties, and was active and creative far beyond pure music-making.

@jordynth I said because I'm in an area surrounded by people who use Pro Tools for their music production, even electronic artists. What I probably should've said was "I'm really trying to go for Pro Tools because that's the industry standard, and It's also what the majority of everyone in the music industry knows and uses." You're right, It's most definitely not the best DAW for electronic music, as it's based upon audio recordings rather than synthesizers and MIDI notes, but It's still what the people around me know. If I'm going to get anywhere with my music, I'd probably better start with the people around me.

https://www.audiotool.com/user/s_maurice/ Literally everything about this community helped me to be the producer I am right now. The supportive and helpful community (when it actually is helpful), the ability to hit the remix button on a track I like and learn how it was made, reading how a specific synth works. I will admit some of it came from my education at college, knowing how sound waves work and which frequencies sound louder than others and which frequencies are more defined than others. But Audiotool has been the majority of the music-learning process.
As for that one time where I collaborated face to face, I can't say I stopped. I've just never again gotten the chance to.

I used a sample-based DAW called "Club Create." It was fun, but creative freedom was limited. It was all drag, drop, arrange and publish. The upside is that it had a cool community like Audiotool did! I made friends here through collaborations and giving/receiving feedback. We work on projects together and give each-other inspiration when going through writers block.

Never heard about "Club Create" tbh, seems to be off right now. You mentioned "drag, drop, arrange and publish", how's AT different on that? To me, lots of DAW tend to be based on dragging and dropping things together if you're not using input recording. Do you think that creativity is also limited on AT in some way?

Just looked it up, you're here for a long time already! When I read a litte bit between the lines it seems that something was lost in the process of growing (complexity) as a platform and community. What could be a reason for that? Are there still meetings and stuff where ppl meet face to face?

How do you discuss techniques with other users? Is there some kind of private messaging system that I missed until now? Things are pretty tough to talk about on the wall right? Would you use other social network for talking in detail or how do you do that? Btw, can you specify what you mean by techniques?

Could not agree more thb

During collaborations on AT Next you can use a live chat to talk with your companions

@jordynth agree, ProTools is widely used but not for everyone...What do you mean by a DAW being "modular in nature"? How can a DAW give you freedom in musical composition, sound design and structure? Would you say that AT achieves this and if so, how?

@nick123456 So you basically can remix every track you like and see how it was done? What was your first (and only) collaboration like? Given the fact that you're talking about ppl around you using ProTools, why not collaborate with them? Would that be different than collaborating online?

Pretty impressive! How did you get in using AT in the first place? What did you get into music making? How does working with AT now differ from what you did in the beginning (playing around with samples and devices)? Ever tried to collab with someone in the same room?
What's the thing about live collaborations? I thought that AT could not do live collab or is that some new thing about Next?

I was a huge fan of both hip-hop and house music, and out of pure boredom I start looking for music apps and such, just to play for a while and see what was all about. My way of working here has changed a lot. All my first tracks are made by only using samples. Then, at my 4th month at this website, there was a shutdown on the sample system ( https://www.audiotool.com/board/news/sample_upload ) that kinda force me to start playing around with synths and such. Then I keep learning, very slowly, from there.

I've never collab with anybody in person yet, since all of my music making experience has happened exclusively between the limits of this website. You can do live collabs since the last update, but it has been available for a while on next.

It's just from my point of view. It was the beginning time and of course it was exciting for me and the others at that time, as it may be exciting for others today. Contrary to today there was a quite active core in Europe at that time who organized such parties and also took a way on themselves to visit them. That has diminished, that is true, but many contacts from back then still exist.
In general, I have to say quite clearly that the target group has become much younger and as a result a lot has changed, even to the negative. But I firmly believe that this will level off again. The potential of great old-established and young artists is still enormous and the app is getting better and better.

You can see from the tracks of many older users here how much they have improved over the years and found their style. Not least through the support and learning from other fellow users. My favorite example of this is: https://www.audiotool.com/user/naswalt also one of the few who do not hide their youthful sins here ;)

It's gone now. It got into a copyright lawsuit and they had to shut it down. Audiotool is different because it gives you the option to record your own sounds & create your own synths unlike Club Create. Everything was pre-made there. I seem to have worded my reply wrong. I used to think creativity was limited on Audiotool when I first began. Over time, I realized that AT can be just as powerful as any other DAW. It just takes more time to get the exact sound you want.

https://www.audiotool.com/user/sandburgen/ you're too sweet. You're a bad example for improvement. your stuff has always been tight. Your mixing has gotten pretty freaking professional, though.

I usually learn different mixing and mastering strategies. I learned how to fix clipping and how to sidechain through collaborating with others. Usually, I'll do my thing, show them how I work, let them silently judge me, then ask them to fix it up in their style so I can do the same. Usually, after making an intro and drop, everything gets a ton easier. Making the intro is the hardest thing to do in my opinion. Hope this helps.

I didn't really "hear" about Audiotool, I just found it. When I discovered the site, I was actually an electronics hobbyist (you know, making circuits, designing schematics, soldering, etc). I was looking into starting a video channel to make tutorial videos, but I figured that I would need some background music. I didn't want a copyright strike, and I already knew some basic music composition skills from two years of playing keyboard, three years of playing clarinet, and half a year of oboe. So, I went online and searched for "online music maker". I knew that those existed, but I had never taken them very seriously and I thought they were toys. Before I started doing this I was into classical and trance. I was already trying to compose classical, but it turns out that notation is hard, slow, and incredibly boring! I didn't know how trance was made, and I always assumed that you needed some kind of mega-studio to produce it, so I didn't even attempt it until I found AT.
In regards to the community, it's special because of how easy it is to find people who make your type of music and communicate with them. Also, most people here are agreeable, and nobody I know of is a total dick (I'm not saying they aren't out there, I just don't now them personally). That eliminates most of the drama that happens on ordinary social media, and even on more mainstream music distribution platforms.

@s_maurice There are DAWs that are conceived to model a traditional recording and mixing environment, centred around a mixing console and a multitude of outboard effects to treat audio contained in tracks or combined from them. Pro Tools or Ardour come to mind. Other DAWs are conceived to mimic a modular environment, where any signal can be routed anywhere and can be used to modulate any parameter in the system. The DAW is more like an instrument, like a modular synthesizer, than a studio with discrete pieces of equipment. Bitwig or Ableton come to mind. I think that these are the two main DAW paradigms today. The latter is in my opinion more suited to purely electronic music production, although a competent producer can certainly achieve his/her goals using either. Some DAWs like Reason are in between and combine aspects of both. A DAW can offer freedom in song composition or structure by offering synchronised, nonlinear playback of musical sections and freedom in sound design by offering modularity. In my opinion, Audiotool is more advanced in the second aspect, thanks to the flexible audio signal routing, than in the first, due to the strict sequential timeline. I hope that these answers are useful to you and I look forward to the results from the survey you seem to be conducting. :)

@s_maurice There's no private messaging system inside Audiotool, although I've occasionally found a few users on social media and communicated with them there. As low ego said, you can chat in real time with collaborators inside the app. By technique I mean any set of actions on the elements of your arrangement that have an audible effect on the resulting sound and serve a purpose to improve them. It can be anything from modifying a specific sound in some way so that it fits better the whole track, to altering the structure of the piece so that it flows better, to automate changes in sounds to add movement and interest or to highlight different elements at different points in the track, to modify the colour of the final mix to better convey a mood or emotion.

https://www.audiotool.com/user/s_maurice/ Yes, you can remix whichever track you like, if the original artist(s) allows it, and see how they made it. You can then take those techniques you learn from those tracks and apply them to your own mixes, using your own style of course. My one and only face-to-face collaboration wasn't the best. In fact I think you might want focus on my online collaborations, as they have by far a bigger impact on the process of acquiring electronic music skills. Those have been a huge success in the majority of cases. Every song you see that has my name and someone else's is an online collaboration between us two (or more).
As for Pro Tools, I have the basics down, but I don't have the actual DAW Downloaded. It'll be a little different for me because for that DAW, everything will be face-to-face. But I believe it'll be no sweat getting into that kind of lifestyle (yes, creating music with other people is a lifestyle).

@nick123456 Have you tried ProTools First? It's their entry level, free version. I'm curious about what you think of it.

Must be 30 years ago that somebody called me sweet ;)

Wow, looks like the sample shutdown has been a pretty big thing for the users! Will take a closer look at the issue, but nice to see it kind of forced you to try something different and you kept going. How do live collabs differ from non-live collabs as they have been before? Is it that ppl are actually online at the same time and collaborating live as I think everybody is quite displaced all over the world with different time zones and stuff?

@jordynth I guess the instrument point is quite interesting! I know about the differing concept of Ableton about song structure but don't really get your instrument point. How's a DAW more like an instrument than a studio it seems to emulate? Would you see AT as an instrument?

@jordynth I don't really conduct a survey, just trying to get an impression of what ppl are doing online and why. I'm basically a musician coming from live music and worked as a studio musician on electric bass, so I'm kind of coming from the whole recording site of production, but also have an interest in music research, stumbled upon the whole thing of online collab and am now preparing a research project (PhD) about online collab tools. Didn't really expect to get so many feedback on my initial question, which is really tremendously helpful in getting an overall impression about the whole thing and exploring ways to dig in deeper - really looking forward collaborating by myself when I come back in a few days!
The answers on this thread are so in depth and comprehensive that I just keep digging deeper hoping to find out more about the world you guys are opening up for me as I'm - as I mentioned before - pretty impressed by the possibilities of AT and what you guys are doing with it!

@nick123456 As your face to face session wasn't the best like you say, can you explain what you didn't like about it and what is different collaborating on AT? Maybe that's a pretty big question, but as you brought the "huge succes" factor, can you clarify what makes you evaluate a collaboration as a success?

What drama on social media are you talking about? What are more mainstream music distribution platforms? I'm thinking about iTunes, but you're probably not talking about that, right? If I get you right, you also know some people personally here? So, if there are no dicks hanging around (or showing themselves) things must be pretty cozy, what would a dick have to do to interfere?

Awesome and very comprehensible description of techniques, thanks a lot! Keep going if you don't mind: what's flow in a piece, what's movement and how can interest be added and what is colour in a mix?

@sandburgen Thanks for quick rundown on the history, where was the core in Europe located? Are there still meetings of users today (even informal or private)? How did that shift in target group occur and how did you notice that? What negative changes happened? How is this supposed to level off again, by growing even further or by shriveling up to the core? Is it kind of special to show old tracks aswell or in other words, do ppl usually delete tracks after a while for some reason?

Thanks, copyright seems to be an issue on AT aswell as far as I can see. How does it take more time to get the sound you want? Do you have to start building sounds from scratch all the time? Which DAWs do you compare AT to by adressing its equal power?

Thanks, really helpful! Those are pretty technical things to learn here as noted above. How do you let them silently judge you? As far as I know, everything is open here as there is no private messaging service and all feedback goes openly on the wall? Btw, did you change your username? If I recall correctly it wasn't that long a few days ago.

I mean, I just sit there and let them change what they feel needs to be changed. But if something is there that they don't like, they'll tell me in the track itself. There is a private messaging system in the audiotool app itself which you can talk to your collaborators with. And yeah, I did change my username.

@jordynth Yes I have gotten that version. However, I was told it didn't have near the amount of settings as the actual DAW itself, so I'm currently saving up to buy the full version. It felt a little weird compared to producing on Audiotool for so long, but thankfully I'm going to a college that actually teaches Pro Tools, and gives you the basics. So It should be no problem being able to produce with some of the guys I know from my college who produce using Pro Tools. But like I said, I want the full version, so I can do the same things that my fellow producers can do as well, and learn from them if I can.

https://www.audiotool.com/user/s_maurice/ Like I said, the face-to-face collaboration doesn't need the spotlight in this discussion as we are talking about Audiotool, and online program. But I will answer your question: The reason I didn't see it going so well is because I was still fairly new to music production. That's why I said it was so long ago, it was back when I was still learning the basics of music production in general. So, naturally, looking back I'd say it was a horrible failure. But also, like I said, This doesn't need to be the focus of our discussion.
As for what makes collaborations a huge success? Well this depends on a few things: Whether I like the final product, my collaborator(s) like the final product, and/or if the fans and listeners like the final product. If either of us don't like the final product, it already is a failed collaboration. If we both like the final product and it's not a huge hit with the listeners, then I would label it as a failed collaboration. However, keep in mind that not everyone thinks that specific way, some people would still think that its a success even if the listeners didn't like it. I'm also not saying my way is the right way, I'm just trying to explain to you in as much detail as I can.
Another failed draft is if one or both of the collaborators just stop working on a project. These projects will usually stay as a project for a very long time, sometimes they won't even be used again.
But, if all the collaborators like a final production, and it's a hit with the fans, I think everyone would agree that's it's a successful production.

Also https://www.audiotool.com/user/s_maurice/, to answer your question that you asked @jordynth, Audiotool is a DAW, not an instrument. The instruments, or synthesizers, are the Heisenberg, Pulverisateur, Tonematrix, Bassline, and the newly added Space synthesizer. DAW stands for Digital Audio Worksite. So the Audiotool App that people are using on here to create music is the DAW. The synthesizers and drum machines inside of it are instruments. That's the difference.

@s_maurice "How's a DAW more like an instrument than a studio it seems to emulate?" Like Vulkron said, Audiotool and all the other programs are technically DAWs, with instruments in them to generate sound and create music. But some DAWs (Bitwig is a good example of this. Another example could be MuLab) offer a very high degree of modularity. What this means is that all the components of the DAW (instruments, effects, tracks and clips, editors, mixers, etc.) are very tightly integrated and basically any signal from any component can be routed to any parameter of any other component. Audio signals and control signals are even interchangeable. This is not possible with Audiotool or ProTools because they have been designed with a different paradigm, which is the traditional recording studio (although it could be argued that very proficient producers and engineers are able to use a studio almost like a very complex instrument). In the first case, the DAW behaves almost like an extended modular system. If you're familiar with modular synthesis, you'll know what I mean. Those DAWs still consist of discrete elements like instruments an effects. But their degree of integration allows a workflow with them similar to working with modules in a modular system (a modular synthesizer system can be composed of modules that implement anything from simple oscillators and filters to whole synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, effects, etc. but it is still considered an "instrument" as a whole) This design is excellent for electronic music production and sound manipulation.

@s_maurice You're welcome. About your questions below: "what's flow in a piece, what's movement and how can interest be added and what is colour in a mix?"; if you're experienced as both a live and studio musician and familiar with professional studio recording and producing, you'll surely be familiar with those concepts and will also know that it's hard to explain them in a few words, when whole books have been written about them. I can only try to describe what they mean to me: I'd say that flow in a piece relates to how its sections are structured and arranged, how many they are and how many times they repeat. This arrangement creates a sense of narrative progress, a sequential exposition of ideas that suggest anticipation, tension and release, conflict, resolution and recapitulation, and it's common to any art form that exists in time. Movement for me means how the track and its elements progress at the micro level from note to note and chord to chord, or at the macro level with modulations, changes in instrumentation, mood or simply which instrument is highlighted at any point. I guess that colour could be defined technically as which frequencies or frequency ranges are emphasised or understated in a track as a whole to create a certain frequency distribution that suggests a specific sensation like cold, crisp, warm, round, sparse, full, harsh, soft, gentle, aggressive, busy, forlorn and so on, and it generally depends on the genre of the track.

If I'm talking about a core, it's only about the meetings. Here were the people you met several times from Germany, Belgium, England, Italy and France. On the whole, I would say that the community was more internationally mixed back then.
Meetings today are more limited to social media. But at least there you still keep in touch with some people who aren't as active on Audiotool anymore.
If you can talk about a disadvantage, with a younger audience on Audiotool. Then it is the carelessness with which manners and copyright infrigements are dealt with. And clearly a lack of connection with the actual philosophy and the creators of the site. Everything is taken for granted and no thought is given to the fact that there are only two people sitting here who make all this possible and don't give a shit what consequences their behaviour has for for these two.

It will solve itself through a strict rule management and of course a growing community with time I think.
You can hide your tracks without deleting them. I think that's what most people - and I too - have done with their too bad old tracks.

Does anyone know the average age of users on audiotool now?

Don't know. Most are under 16 I would gess.

I love the overwhelming responses, really didn't expect that much feedback to my points of interest! Really appreciate it!

Thanks a lot, what do you learn and how do you achieve this?

@nick123456 Of course, the main point is online collaboration, but it's also interesting to contrast it to your experience in face to face collab to notice some differences that might occur during online collaboration.
Thanks for your explanation of the whole success thing, how do you know if your collaborator(s) like it or not? And how do you know if fans or listeners like it or not?

@nick123456 @jordynth My question pointed in the exact same direction Jordi went as I heard people speak about the DAW as an instrument in itself so this is higly interesting! Especially the modularity of components and the following complexity makes it extremly difficult (at least for me) to find a conclusive concept of a musical instrument in digital music production as the whole interplay of parameters, sound sources and ways of manipulation in achieving certain results etc has a huge influence to the outcome. So, if the "instruments" (like Space or Heisenberg) are the "instruments", then what for example is the loop browser and how is it different than an "instrument"?

Sure, I do have concepts of flow etc but those are only based on my experience, what I did, where I come from and those can be very very different in other musical contexts, that's why I'm asking what it is for you. And yeah, it's pretty tough to describe, but I guess I'm coming closer. What's interesting here is that creative and technical decisions come together (or is the creative also technical and vice versa?) as composition and production seem to go hand in hand. It probably wouldn't if you used pen + pencil and finish the composition, then get back to the DAW and load the synths. How do composition and the technical realisation engage with each other with the concepts you declared above in mind?

Guys, how do you know most are under 16? I didn't see a field with the birth date on the profile page. Do they mostly write it somewhere or is this a conclusion based on...?
@sandburgen When you had these meetings, what did you do? Did you collaborate using AT aswell, only sitting next to each other or what else did you do?
Did you ever collaborate with someone you kept in touch with who isn't on AT anymore using other ways of online or offline collaboration?
"the actual philosophy and the creators of the site": Wow! Please tell me about it, what should I know?

I usually just play little skits, usually pads

If anybody would feel to change the (what you think is the) best part of the track, something you really love and then it's gone - what to do now? Does the private messaging system save all chats from the beginning of the collab to finished upload or does it kind of reboot once you load the app in the browser again?
Why did you change your username? Noticed that with other users aswell that usernames are frequently altered. What about the recognizablity?

@s_maurice As you said, I can also only speak from my experience and from what I've heard from people with more experience than me. "How do composition and the technical realisation engage with each other..."? There are definitely different ways to work, for example, calling up a patch in a synth and letting the sound dictate what you would compose with it. Certain sounds definitely lend themselves better to certain melodies, ranges or playing styles. But personally, I chose now to go the opposite route; I work on the composition with default, "boring" sounds and make sure that the composition already sounds interesting and meaningful like that. This would be your equivalent to "using pen + pencil and finish the composition." This follows the advice of some producers to focus on songwriting (melody, harmony, rhythm, structure) first and not bother with production until the composition is finished and the belief that if a musical idea is good and exciting, it will retain its excitement no matter what it's played on. I'm not saying that good results can't be achieved the other way, by starting sound production first and letting the track emerge from that. But I find, right now, that I get more meaningful tracks if I adopt the traditional approach and focus exclusively on composition/songwriting first. I might change this in the future, as another advice I find often to evolve as a producer is to get out of the comfort zone and try different things.

@s_maurice When it comes to Audiotool specifically, I agree with Vulkron and I'd say that it's not modular enough to talk about it as an "instrument". There are specialised modules in the modular synthesizer world that act as samplers; they use samples as their source material. But the degree of control and interaction with the rest of the system allows signals extracted from sample playback to be used as more than just audio output. Conversely, the module offers multitude of control points to the rest of the system (even from itself, recursively) to affect every aspect of its playback. Audiotool is a different thing and in this case I'd say that the sample browser is just a way to find suitable sounds to feed the Audiotrack and the Machiniste, which are merely sample players, or instruments, with different capabilities. I hope this was useful.

No problem man, Always :D

What? haha

The fact that you don't make tracks anymore makes me pretty sad on the other side

https://www.audiotool.com/user/s_maurice/ How do I know if my collaborator(s) like a track that we're working on? You can usually tell by how hard they work on it, or they'll just straight up tell you what their thoughts are about it. As for the fans, you'll usually be able to tell by how many favorites or likes it gets. You can also check out the comments to see what your fans think about it in words. You can also use the amount of plays your current track has as a measurement.

We don't know maurice, @sandburgen was just making a guess

@beatbob That's pretty interesting, can you specify what you mean by "Audiotool as instrument"? How's Audiotool an instrument?

@jordynth Very useful, thanks! Let's keep up the topic about instruments, Audiotrack or the Machiniste are good examples - would you see them both as instruments? If not, how do they differ to, lets say, Heisenberg or Space (if you consider them beeing an instrument)?

@nick123456 So basically, if someone doesn't work hard on a track, he or she probably doesn't like it a lot? What about stuff to do that keep you away from AT? How to prevent the impression of not caring a lot about the track?

@s_maurice To answer your question, I see the Machiniste as a software simulation of a sample based drum machine. Therefore it definitely qualifies as an instrument for me, specifically a percussion one, but since it can play samples chromatically by changing their pitch, one could say that it covers more than just percussion. The Audiotrack is just a simple sample player. It can play several samples simultaneously and it can also alter their playback speed (with or without pitch change) in sophisticated ways, so you could liken it somehow to a high-end tape recorder. It is debatable if a tape recorder is a musical instrument, but tape recorders were essential in the creation of one of the first forms of electronic music, musique concrète. So I'd say that, used to the top of its capabilities, the Audiotrack also qualifies as a musical instrument. According to Wikipedia: "In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument." I hope this helped.

I said 'don't know' and 'I guess' but I truly believe it because I read really often that users visit audiotool from their school computers.
Most of the meetings were parties with Audiotoolers djing and lots of beer and all that. The Audiotool.con was a conference as well with interviews and presentations. It was always fun and really intersesting not just sitting around.

No, I never collaborated with someone who is using other ways of online collaboration now. But I collaborated with someone who uses other ways of music production now
I will come back to the philosophy later.

@sandburgen I just don't have an ideal setup and especially the time at the moment for ATing but definitely will do some music sometime ;)

@s_maurice For me any tool that you can create music with is an instrument.

To amswer your question about the chat, there seems to be a bug or somethimg thag deletes chat histry...it never used to. And if someone changed or completely deleted what I thought was the best part, I would do one of two things: accept the fact that they probably know what they're doing more than I do, or explain to them my intentions and why I thought the part in question was good in the first place. And, well I normally stick with the same general omni-username, but I change it occaisionally. For instance, I changed my username to Luminticecream.exe because of the halloween season. I will change ut back eventually. And you have a fair point, it does kind of hurt your ability to be easily recognized if you change your username frequently... the Audiotool devs shouod probably implement a cooldown feature like most websites use, where you can only change your username every once in a while...

@beatbob Sorry, was off for a few days - what about the setup? What would be an ideal setup?
That's a pretty interesting definition of a musical instrument, do you differ between "the software" Audiotool and the "instruments" like Heisenberg and Space in relation to being a musical instrument?

@jordynth Back from holiday, very interesting! So, if a device to play a sample like Audiotrack can be considered a musical instrument, what about the samples you load in? How do they fit in this concept?

@jordynth That's a great point, how do sounds dictate the composition? How do "boring or default" sounds (= patches?) differ from patches that would likely tend to dictate the composition? Aren't they all technically patches that in some way would dictate the outcome?

@sandburgen I got that it was a guess, but also that guess must come from somewhere, but the school computer thing is a hint. When was the Audiotool.con, where and is there a schedule that I could find somewhere? What about the philosophy?

@gearbotgd Thanks Lumin, noticed you already changed back, so this was really just a short change for halloween? Btw, does ".exe" refer to Windows applications? If so, what does it mean in your username? What are other occasions you change your username?

Well, personally, I love computers and technology, so the .exe in my name sort of references to the fact that I may just be a computer program. I won't really switch my name unless I neednto let people know I'm leaving for a short while. And yeah, it was a short halloween change

Simply put, the philosophy is to make it possible for everyone to make music in an atmosphere that respects the tastes and peculiarities of others. In which you learn from each other and share your skills with others. A community in which it is not exclusively a question of pushing oneself into the foreground, but of growing in the company of other creative people.

you can find footage of the audiotool.con on Youtube . The Schnittstelle party has it's own Facebook page with photos and stuff

Then I would also have a question: why do you seem to be more interested in all this than making music yourself on Audiotool? As far as I can see, you haven't been actively involved in life here other than here.
Only because I'm curious myself.

@s_maurice Hope you had a nice holiday. To answer the question, and following the parallel between an Audiotrack and a sophisticated tape recorder, the sample (or samples) you load in it would be the equivalent to whatever you happened to record on that tape recorder. Changing the sample in the device would be the same as changing the reel on the recorder. At least that'show I see it.

@s_maurice "how do sounds dictate the composition?" If you load a strong bass patch on a synth, your way of playing it and the melodies or harmonies that you'll find adequate for it will be different than the ones you'd find if you load an ethereal pad patch. Each sound is better suited for a different thing. "How do "boring or default" sounds (= patches?) differ from patches that would likely tend to dictate the composition? " Perhaps "boring" isn't a very fortunate word, but a pure sine wave is definitely an unpleasant sound to listen to when hearing a melody or a chord progression and you'd rarely use that sound in a finished track, save for very specific effects. But if a melody or chord progression sounds already interesting on a Pulverisateur with its default almost-sine wave patch, you can be sure that you have something good that can only get better with a more suitable sound. If AT had a simple piano device, I'd use that instead. It would be the equivalent of composing (songwriting) on a piano. Piano and guitar are probably the most common instruments to compose on. Their sound has a much more pleasing timbre than a sine wave, but is generic enough, supports enough playing styles and has a wide enough range that one can play anything on them and test many different melodies or harmonies for interest. Yes, in the end they are (or can be) all patches but, like with real instruments with different timbres, polyphony, sound production method and sound range, some lend themselves better to some things than others.

Thanks, gonna take a look on the footage on YT!
Sure, don't wanna make the impression to do some kind of undercover investigation for a new competitor or something ;-) Basically, I'm working as a music researcher with a background as an active musician with lots of studio work, recently started doing research for a PhD project about online music collaboration as I stumbled upon the possibilities of Audiotool and stuff. Just trying to get an impression about the whole music making process and the whole community, how collaboration works, what other things are discussed and all that stuff going on here. As I just started, I didn't get to collaborate yet, but luckily TheFourthDimensionalGamer and Lumin offered me a collab to show me stuff which is really great to get my hands on! Feel really welcome here! Looking forward collaborating and learning more, getting a deeper understanding about the whole thing and whatever is yet to come!
Too bad that Audiotool.con and Schnittstelle seem to be over for good, Cologne wouldn't be too long as I'm based in Berlin, really hoping something similar is going to pop up anytime in the near future - if you hear something please let me know!
If you have further questions about my interest, please let me know, don't want you to feel like Big Brother is watching!

Ah that sounds interesting. There was a Audiotool party in the Tresor as well at the very beginning when Hobnox still excisted. I'm sure there will be some meetings and parties in the future too. Just a small break
If you like and think our styles could work together we could make a collab. That would have to wait till next week, though.

In proper German of course ;)

Thanks for the invitation, coming back to that as I've two projects pending and wanna close them first before starting something new, fine for you?
What was Hobnox btw? Just looked it up on google, old website is refering to AT.

Thanks for that! What do you mean by different places, do you live in the same city, or is there much distance between you? Did you every try collaborating with DAW and had compatibility issues?
Why is the possibility to remix songs important for you?

He lives 50km away... Yes, we try collaboration in another DAW, but Audiotool is the easiest way...
Remixes are nice, because I can learn from them and just have fun! :-)

That's interesting! Can you specify the problems that occured by collaborating in another DAW? What do you learn by remixing and how do you learn doing that exactly?

@jordynth It was, thanks! Got your point about the parallel between an Audiotrack and a tape recorder. Just thinking how one could conceptualize that in comparison to things that people agree to call a "musical instrument". It's hard for me to clarify what I mean by this, but if you use Audiotrack or a tape recorder in the process of making music, but don't see it as a musical instrument, then what is it?

Hey I'm sorry I've been busy this week so I didn't get a chance to reply to your questions, so Ill answer them here.
"So basically, if someone doesn't work hard on a track, he or she probably doesn't like it a lot? What about stuff to do that keep you away from AT? How to prevent the impression of not caring a lot about the track?"
If someone doesn't work hard on a track, it can be because they're currently busy with other things or because they don't like where the track is going.
Things that I do that keep me away from Audiotool? Work, school, gaming, and a few other events that keep me busy all the time. I'm busy a lot, but I can find time for Audiotool every now and then :)
How to prevent an impression for not caring about a track? I would say that if you don't care about a track, don't work on it. It's better than half-heartedly working on something and coming out with mediocre to below-decent results, if that's what you mean. So essentially, you wouldn't want to create an impression that you care about a track when you really don't.

@s_maurice Maybe I wasn't clear. I do see a tape recorder, and therefore Audiotrack, as musical instruments. They are able to produce sounds that can be rhythmic, melodic or otherwise musically meaningful. As I mentioned, tape recorders were instrumental in creating the first forms of electronic music. Following Wikipedia's definition in which purpose defines an object (or code) as musical, I see them as musical instruments.

Ok. I can only tell you about Hobnox what you already found on Wikipedia.

I learned a lot, I'm really trying hard to understand

indeed

hope maurice gets an A+ on that project of him

ye

it is, but doesn't have to stop here! Keep it going :)