Discussion: April Editorial

Post by **LMan** » 01/04/2006 - 12:03

Discuss the current editorial:
<a href="/editorial.html">April Editorial</a>

Max Levin · Post by **Max Levin** » 01/04/2006 - 12:20

Spot on, Chris!

ifadeo · Post by **ifadeo** » 01/04/2006 - 17:55

thx, chris....

well spoken...

cheers ifadeo

Infamous · Post by **Infamous** » 01/04/2006 - 18:02

sometimes i do ask if anyones got an opinion.. because anything someone has to say i can take onboard and then decipher in my own time.. work out what was good what was bad.. what i could change etc aslong of course as its a contructive critisismn/praise and not simply - yeah thats good.. or no thats was bad i am going to kill myself in the ears now!...

so when i see someone say "x has listened but only y has commented" i tend to stick my oar in simply because without feedback your never going to learn.

imagine for a second your back at school and learning to write again, if your friends and teachers.. your parents etc didnt give you feedback as to how well you was doing what you could do better or shit.. hold your hand and do it for you would you be able to write now? put the same ethos towards everything you do.. without opinion where would you be?

and let us never forget.. you never get anything unless you ask.. .and in this world it tends to be unless you ask.. twice... loudly.

Chris Abbott · Post by **Chris Abbott** » 01/04/2006 - 19:03

Infamous wrote:sometimes i do ask if anyones got an opinion.. because anything someone has to say i can take onboard and then decipher in my own time.. work out what was good what was bad.. what i could change etc aslong of course as its a contructive critisismn/praise and not simply - yeah thats good.. or no thats was bad i am going to kill myself in the ears now!...

so when i see someone say "x has listened but only y has commented" i tend to stick my oar in simply because without feedback your never going to learn.

imagine for a second your back at school and learning to write again, if your friends and teachers.. your parents etc didnt give you feedback as to how well you was doing what you could do better or shit.. hold your hand and do it for you would you be able to write now? put the same ethos towards everything you do.. without opinion where would you be?

and let us never forget.. you never get anything unless you ask.. .and in this world it tends to be unless you ask.. twice... loudly.

Mmm, but it's a simple fact that feedback offered without pressure is much more valuable than feedback asked for loudly. Just ask Scott Adams (Dilbert)... he'll tell you

Mind you, it IS good if we can offer the feedback we can. I just don't like when people complain about it... at least, not in that way. Drawing attention to the view count and/or download numbers is just whingeing. Bumping the topic in case people have forgotten is acceptable. A simple bump is all you need, but lecturing people or criticising the community just raises the negative vibe level.

Jan Lund Thomsen · Post by **Jan Lund Thomsen** » 01/04/2006 - 20:46

( Warning: I'm feeling particularly opinionated today. Read on at your own risk.

)

Good editorial, that man.

The "posting URLs and asking for feedback" part of it got me thinking about how no one has mentioned using the various networking sites to lead people to discover (and comment on) their music. Okay, so there has been talk of MySpace in a different thread, but that's merely been "I've set up a myspace profile. Who else has one?".

Maybe remixers in general are more interested in having their stuff judged by a jury of their peers - people who are (as Chris put it) "as dysfunctional as themselves", rather than the average Joe Public? While all of us would no doubt like the C64 remixing scene to blend in with the rest of the music world, we have no idea how the tunes will fare with the average consumer - which in turn keeps remixers from having the vision to spread out their creations to a wider audience.

Whaddayaknow. I managed to do a mini-editorial in reply to an editorial.

Anyway, discuss.

weblaus · Post by **weblaus** » 01/04/2006 - 23:03

Jan Lund Thomsen wrote: Maybe remixers in general are more interested in having their stuff judged by a jury of their peers - people who are (as Chris put it) "as dysfunctional as themselves", rather than the average Joe Public? While all of us would no doubt like the C64 remixing scene to blend in with the rest of the music world, we have no idea how the tunes will fare with the average consumer - which in turn keeps remixers from having the vision to spread out their creations to a wider audience.

I seem to recall some people being especially touchy if anyone who's not a remixer him/herself dares to have a less-than-enthusiastic opinion about their remixes... which by the way is one reason I don't even bother with rating stuff.

Chris Abbott · Post by **Chris Abbott** » 02/04/2006 - 7:42

Well, I've been touchy about that before... especially when the tone of the review is condescending or tries to make authorititative statements. I think a dose of humility from both arranger and reviewer is the best thing, but very difficult, of course, since people aren't really built for humility: especially creative types, where it takes a certain lack of humility to think "Oh, I've got something special to offer to the world".

It's another aspect of this that if you get a lot of your self-esteem from remixing you're going to be very protective of your work: a good case for having outside interests.

As LMan has said, there are some people your work is never going to touch: but it's in human nature to believe that other people are just slightly different versions of you... and it's always a shock to find out just how differerent they are. The odd thing is that it seems to be a shock every time, not just once. Weird.

Chris

Infamous · Post by **Infamous** » 02/04/2006 - 10:17

yeah, i can see everyones point of view here and it does make for interesting reading and food for thought.

on a personal level - when i release something thats not c64/amiga related it ends up here and around 15 other forums (yes i am a forum spammer!) ranging from technical sites through to music and off in to world of warcraft and back again.. so i get a diverse and very mixed reaction from a large amount of people.. so when one community "ignores" it i dont really get bothered by it and just accept that no one has an opinion.. maybe i'll bump it once just to see if it got lost in a forum flood then after that.. nil.

I love to get praise, there isnt a human being on the planet that doesnt ..but i enjoy the critisismn far better, being told flatly that something is crap has helped me to become a better musician than geting arse licked by my peers, you can actually all blame neil for me continuing to release music on rko.. after he totally slated my creatures 2 remix i was determined to please that one person to get a decent reaction out of him.. then i met him in person at bit and we spoke at lengths in a pub .. with glyn aswell and things were explained to me in a frank and honest way and i left bit live with a positive outlook and all the feedback and suggestions from the people i had met and id like to think ive improved thanks to them.

trolling for an opinion is just asking for trouble of course.. in most communities constantly bugging people over one thing will always lead to the inevitable flame (check some of the posts in the c64 remix section to see exactly what i mean).. and in the end it gets you 0 tolerance and in the future people just wont bother with you and it can take a long time to get your oar back into a close nit community such as this one... but thats why i love it here so much, were like a little family all giving each other advice and loving the same thing.

anyway.. theres my random 2 pennies worth.

Makke · Post by **Makke** » 02/04/2006 - 12:25

Good editoral, Chris.

Infamous has a point in saying that it's hard to get any feedback without asking for it. The problem is not so much about the asking as the moaning. It's not so often what is asked for, but how people ask it that gets to me personally sometimes. Moaning is almost never a good way of getting people to do as you please.

A small forum like this is an easy place to get attention if you do it right. There's not 1000s of people drowning you out. At the same time, the smallness also makes it harder for you if you "ask the wrong way". It's fast to piss everyone off, and you'll quickly get a bad reputation.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that you're actually asking for peoples time and effort, to listen and come with comments on your work. It takes a bit of effort, and shouting at people for not giving you their time and efforts for free just isn't right.

dan gillgrass · Post by **dan gillgrass** » 02/04/2006 - 18:15

You know.... sometimes its just about taste

Chris Abbott · Post by **Chris Abbott** » 02/04/2006 - 18:44

Makke wrote:Good editoral, Chris.

Infamous has a point in saying that it's hard to get any feedback without asking for it. The problem is not so much about the asking as the moaning. It's not so often what is asked for, but how people ask it that gets to me personally sometimes. Moaning is almost never a good way of getting people to do as you please.

A small forum like this is an easy place to get attention if you do it right. There's not 1000s of people drowning you out. At the same time, the smallness also makes it harder for you if you "ask the wrong way". It's fast to piss everyone off, and you'll quickly get a bad reputation.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that you're actually asking for peoples time and effort, to listen and come with comments on your work. It takes a bit of effort, and shouting at people for not giving you their time and efforts for free just isn't right.

Well, exactly. That's what I have the most problem with, I think.

"I gave you the best years of my life, and you couldn't even be bothered to listen, you ungrateful bastards!!"

Chris

gibs · Post by **gibs** » 03/04/2006 - 8:33

I did not understood all very well but it's fun

Analog-X64 · Post by **Analog-X64** » 16/04/2006 - 23:11

Here is my 2 Cents. In point form.

- There is some level of enjoyment that we all get making music and part of that process is getting feedback from people listening to our music, negative or positive. Being tottaly ignored especialy in such a small community can be hard or someone if they look up and admire the regulars who post quality material.

- Even the best musicians come out with crappy tunes.

- In order of the C64 Community to maintain longivity and not to scare off new comers, we need to be more understanding.

- To the average civilian C64 tunes sound like farting noises, so posting C64 remixes on other sites is not really an option unless the Remix is far from C64 sounding and more like POP or Dance.

- Cant we all just get along?

Romeo Knight · Post by **Romeo Knight** » 17/04/2006 - 14:44

And would someone please think of the children?!
We need more cowbell, btw.