Better Forum groups and sections.

Morning_Star

Morning_Star

ProTools + Reason user
I find myself jumping between a couple good sections and skipping over a lot other that people may need help in but I find kinda bloated in content.

I'd like to see something like this.

Production
Getting Started
Tutorials
Recording, Mixing and Mastering
Sampling and Digging with Flip This as a Subforum
DJ Forum
Songwritting Lyrics
Songwritting Music Theory and Melodies
Showcase Music with Battle as a Subforum
Music Video Production

Software (I don't think Software should be a main forum with subforums
D.A.W Problem Solving and Questions (no subforums)
VSTi and VSTi patches
VST FX (discuss Eq, Compressors, and Modulation)
Reason Refills and Patches (I'd hate for this to be a separate section but it doesn't really fall into any other section)

Hardware
Computers and Audio Interfaces
Mics and Mic preamps
Keyboards, Synths, Sequencers, and midi controllers.

I think Music Business and Genres are fine

The reason for me wanting groups like this is so that there is a clear place for stuff. I think the worst things is when subforum topics find their way into main forum topics. It's hard to find answers or ask questions because your looking in several places for one specific area. Please consider making these changes. Thanks.
 
What about the theory and studio design forums? I don't mean to be trivial, I agree with most of what you wrote. Just wondering if that was left off on purpose or by accident. I would think showcase would be best inside Networking section.
 
Studio Design could be a section in hardware and theory would be covered by songwriting. And I agree with you about showcase. That is better in Network section.

---------- Post added at 02:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------

You could also add a craigslist section for user posts or interesting finds to replace the Buy and Sell Section. Just have the rules so that the title is something like this.
"State - Equipment Name - Price"

At a glance you can see if your willing to check it out.

Also I forgot a section in Hardware for Reverbs, FX Units, Instrument Amps and Stompboxes. Kind of a general "others" hardware section.

I wonder if it's possible to have dedicated flags for each thread. Like in Software D.A.W. Questions if when you wrote the thread there was an option to flag which software your asking about as a thread logo. It would be useful for sections with many specific areas, instead of having subforums for them all. I really hate subforum because they usually don't organize threads very well.

So lets see Reason, ProTools, Ableton, Presonus, Logic, Digital Performer, Sonar, Cubase/Nuendo, FL Studio, and a generic D.A.W logo in the thread logo section with the lightbulb and caution sign and such.

I would also like to see a filter in the search section based on these logos. Genius!
 
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Song-writing does not even begin to have enough scope for the theory section which is far more wide ranging than writing songs: orchestration, arranging and such are elements not only of song-writing but also of orchestral composition; many folks who come here are interested in this area alone.

So taking your ideas and Sleepy's comments a counter-proposal (for me the Breakroom doesn't belong anywhere at the moment and leads to spurious results when searching genres)

Production
  • Getting Started
  • Tutorials
  • Composition and Arranging: Applied Music Theory
  • Sound Design: Synthesis Theory, Secrets and Such
  • Words and Rhymes: Lyrics
  • Recording, Mixing and Mastering
  • Studio Design / Acoustics
  • Sampling and Digging
    • Flip This
  • DJ Forum
  • Music Video Production

Music Business & Networking
  • Music Industry / Legal / Marketing
  • Collaborations & Opportunities
  • Showcase Music
    • Battle

Software
  • DAW Problem Solving and Questions
  • VSTi and VSTi patches
  • VST FX (discuss Eq, Compressors, and Modulation)
  • Reason Refills and Patches

Hardware
  • Computers
  • Audio Interfaces
  • Mics and Mic preamps
  • MIDI controllers: Keyboards, Synths, Sequencers
  • FX Units: Reverbs, Instrument Amps and Stompboxes

Music Genres
  • Rap & Hip-Hop / R&B
  • Electronica
  • Dancehall / Reggae
  • Metal / Rock
  • Other Genres

Market place
  • To Sell
  • To Buy
  • To Trade

Make a better place
  • About FutureProducers.com
  • Music Breakroom
 
You are focusing on the wrong thing. Just because songwriting doesn't accurately describe the whole scope isn't the point. The point is that everything has a home. I very much doubt that most people don't come to this forum only interested in Orchestration and would be confused by the sections.

The most important part about my section breakdown is that there is no confusion where something goes. And searching would be easier. Especially with thread subject tags.
 
Actually, I'm not.

You, however, are, by insisting that lyrics and everything else goes into one all encompassing songwriting section where they would still need to be broken down into individual sub-forums imho.

A lot of the people that come here are looking at writing instrumentals not songs as such and so would be absolutely confused when there was no obvious place to post their questions about composition and arranging.

I resisted sharing this last time - in the late 1980's, my alma mater was in the throes of deciding whether to rename individual courses in their music program from composition to songwriting in response to them becoming a music school that was teaching Pop/Rock Music (with jazz instructors?!?!!!); I was on the teaching staff at the time, so was present at the discussions: the debate hinged on the fact that there was more to composition than simply setting lyrics and similarly there was more to songwriting than simply setting lyrics. Lyric creation and the teaching of it is an aspect of language not music. Lyric setting is an application of both poetic rhythm and meter and melodic/harmonic concepts. understanding poetic structures, rhythmic feet and meter allows the songwriter to better set their lyrics. It is also a skill for composers to acquire and master. Not every composer is capable of creating meaningful, let alone good lyrics. In the end the discussion concluded that it was best to keep the aspects of lyric writing and melodic/harmonic writing separate but to create an additional course that would cover lyric setting; i.e. they realised that instead of folding things together they needed to delineate further and offer more choices, not less. So they had lyric writing, composition and lyric setting as separate courses in their new program.

Folding things together because you think it is overkill usually results in a poorer representation of what you are trying to do rather than enhancing it.
 
How would a section that says "Songwriting - Music theory and composition" not relate to composition and arrangement? Did you just not read it well? I do see how you call me confused when your arguing that there is no place for composition and there is a section with that in the title.
 
Morning_Star said:
How would a section that says "Songwriting - Music theory and composition" not relate to composition and arrangement? Did you just not read it well? I do see how you call me confused when your arguing that there is no place for composition and there is a section with that in the title.
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1) it doesn't it says "Songwriting music theory and melodies" a very different proposition.

2 As far as I am concerned songwriting (the creation of lyrics AND melody) is not the same as composition, and I don't think that cute things like saying an instrumental is just a song without words or what about Schubert's songs without words or whatever. The fact is that writing melodic material for a song is a different activity to creating instrumental music - the melodic material has to stand on it's own in instrumental music, whereas the melody is always somewhat subservient to the needs of the words and the individual syllables.

3) Last time I looked this was Future Producers, not Future Songwriters, so I would argue that we need to focus a little less on meta groupings (being all encompassing) and a be a bit more aware of the disparate nature of production as it is now and will be in the future - breaking it down into subsection doesn't cut it, nor does wrapping it up into something that says - "I am focused on words and music" which is what songwriting means for the most part.
 
Your entitled to your opinion but that's all this is. Your opinion. It's just a label and you seem obsessed with being right.

Don't say that I didn't include composition when it is in the title, then come back and say that in your opinion I meant something other than what i wrote. I wrote it. Your wrong, I included a section for what you are obsessing about, and the section name is fine. Your opinion that it isn't specific enough doesn't matter. That's not the whole point of it. The idea here is to have a specific home for threads but still retain a general and vague idea of subject matter. This avoids having 40 sections that never get used.

Maybe we should kick all the people out of this forum that sing, write songs, engineer, and perform. Since this isn't Future Performers, or Future Engineers, or Future Song Writers. Good point. What do you do again? Cause 90% of the people on this forum don't produce. Half or more are just beat makers and don't even know what a producer really does. Your starting to make sense.

I'm glad you diluted my suggestions with your short sided perspective. Take your perfect world somewhere else. This is the real world.
 
Morning_Star said:
Your entitled to your opinion but that's all this is. Your opinion. It's just a label and you seem obsessed with being right.

Don't say that I didn't include composition when it is in the title, then come back and say that in your opinion I meant something other than what i wrote. I wrote it. Your wrong, I included a section for what you are obsessing about, and the section name is fine. Your opinion that it isn't specific enough doesn't matter. That's not the whole point of it. The idea here is to have a specific home for threads but still retain a general and vague idea of subject matter. This avoids having 40 sections that never get used.
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Morning_Star said:
Songwritting Music Theory and Melodies
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I fail to see how this says composition

Maybe we should kick all the people out of this forum that sing, write songs, engineer, and perform. Since this isn't Future Performers, or Future Engineers, or Future Song Writers. Good point. What do you do again? Cause 90% of the people on this forum don't produce. Half or more are just beat makers and don't even know what a producer really does. Your starting to make sense.

I'm glad you diluted my suggestions with your short sided perspective. Take your perfect world somewhere else. This is the real world.
Click to expand...

I am not suggesting, nor would I ever suggest, that simply because the word producer is misused in this sites name, that we should exclude anyone who is not an actual producer in the sense that industry uses it.

As for obsessing about being right, it seems to me that you believe you have the sole prerogative in that quarter. And as for being myopic (short-sighted) again you seem to have the market cornered, as you don't appear to be able to see your own errors let alone positive suggestions made by others....

Please come back to the real world and let's move on........
 
Once a year we get a request to redo the forum structure. In the past we tried to be precise, but 80% of the people don't get it and end up posting in the wrong forum. Try to 'teach' them has been an epic failure. I think songwriting & lyricism encompasses 90% of what people here expect from songwriting and lyricism. Of course there is music theory behind songwriting, but for what most people are trying to do, it does the job.
 
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