What is Feedback on your Music? ...

[GV1]

Just got home, and after posting another WIP on the train I was thinking ... what is feedback on your tracks? Aside from asking "How do I improve this track" (but even thats going to be different for every person that leaves feedback). Feedback on mixing and mastering is another story. I'm referring to the overall composure of a track.

For every track you create you will have people that dislike it, and people that like it. You might have 1/100 that like your track, or 1/100 that dislike it. But what does their opinion really matter? Isn't producing about being unique, and creating your own style? Something you are happy with.

The biggest and well respected producers in any scene are the innovators that created a style that others now follow, without necessarily copying another producers style (although some do). I can recount a number of the big producers that wouldn't have had any feedback on their music if they'd have asked the masses that live inside the box, because its outside their comfort zone and sounds to different. We all do this right?

Some producers, especially beginners, will try to produce to an invisible rule. If their track don't sound like {INSERT NAME HERE} then even the producer isn't happy with their style.

Take for example Matthew Herbert (and many others). They produce their own unique style that requires no feedback. You either like it, or you don't, and I doubt they care.

Why does feedback actually matter. As long as your finished product is polished, release it into the wild, do whatever marketing needs to be done, and be happy that your original style of music is yours and it's being enjoyed by a percentage of the population.

I'm rambling and tiered. I'm probably talking shite.

[-[2]DAY_-]

other producers can tell you what they think you ought to do, technically. Fans can tell you what they want more of, stylistically. DJ's can tell you how they feel about mixing the tune. Most listeners can do fuck all for you besides encourage or dishearten you.
For something so irrelevant... there sure are a lot of folks working real hard to get some. People love putting something out and getting a response. Same way when i log in here i immediately click "View your Posts" to see if i've drawn any reaction. No wonder they call it "ego search" lol.
Its about bouncing something off your peers and having something bounce back to you. humans thrive on it

[Collyer]

It's also about getting opinions from a different view point. About 6 months ago i was making tracks that i was proud of and now I look back and think what the hell was I doing. Sometimes when you pump a lot of time and effort into something you feel as though it's better than it actually is, it's human nature. I like feedback because it helps to ground me and make me realize I'm a long way off where I want to be. which gives me motivation to put more effort into the next track.

[GV1]

It's also about getting opinions from a different view point. About 6 months ago i was making tracks that i was proud of and now I look back and think what the hell was I doing. Sometimes when you pump a lot of time and effort into something you feel as though it's better than it actually is, it's human nature. I like feedback because it helps to ground me and make me realize I'm a long way off where I want to be. which gives me motivation to put more effort into the next track.

I do see your point. But why do you feel you've improved is it because you've put more effort in your tracks, something which you've done naturally? Improving mixes and getting feedback on leveling out the elements I agree with. But, music is a personal journey right? (at least for me). It's a travelling process.

Name a Dubstep producer that produces tracks with few elements, I won't list names, but we all know the big ones. Then name a producer that does complex sounding tracks. Both get the same hits, and the same amount of fans. If the minimal producers advanced to producing complex sounding tracks, they would feel they have improved masses right? But in reality their style was appreciated and enjoyed before they improved. If that makes any sense.

It's their style of music that's unique to them.

I mean, how can you judge your work to an endpoint? Where is the line to say "I'm successful now". There isn't one really.

[Collyer]

i don't know about you but i judge music on the sound of it rather than how many layers i can hear. i wouldn't feel as though i'd improved just because i added in more sounds and made it more complex. i agree that music is a personal journey, so is life, doesn't mean you have to blank out what other people think of you. embrace the feedback and you will definately improve the next time

[FSTZ]

Take for example Matthew Herbert (and many others). They produce their own unique style that requires no feedback. You either like it, or you don't, and I doubt they care.

this all day

[fragments]

Why does feedback actually matter. As long as your finished product is polished, release it into the wild, do whatever marketing needs to be done, and be happy that your original style of music is yours and it's being enjoyed by a percentage of the population.

You are kind of answering your own question. At the end of the day it doesn't, but as others said humans thrive on feedback and interaction. The internet has changed being a hobby musician (for lack of a better term). We now have, theoretically, a VERY wide audience and they have, theoretically, easy access to our music. Back in the day, you only had to be a mediocre guitar player to be the best in town. Now it's a little different as we live in a "world town" so to speak. I dunno, there is a coherent thought hiding in there.

Simply put, artists/humans always want feedback and interaction from other artists/fans...now that we have access, potentially, to so much it *seems* to matter more, but it really doesn't.

[nowaysj]

End of day everything is ultimately aesthetics, so feedback really is only some type of consensus building activity. But taking a shorter view, electronic music production is comprised of two elements really, the theoretical "song" and its embodiment in recorded sound. The later is the most fruitful for critique as many of the issues involved in embodying sound in a recorded medium are technical in nature, talking about headroom, dynamic range, frequency content, power, stereo field, those types of issues. Often times those issues are sort of a black art, especially to young producers who haven't really seen behind the veil yet, so information from more experienced producers can really be helpful here.

Now the former is susceptible to critique as well, but in my opinion, to a lesser degree. Song writing is also a technical task to a certain extent. Building a compelling arc in a song can be difficult to do. It is common for producers to get bogged down in the minutea of their songs and miss the big picture. Critique can help with that. I have to say, sometimes I just don't know if a section is too long, I'll listen to it sometimes and I'll think it's too short, other times, it is too long, so an external perspective on the matter can be helpful, again, not as a final arbiter, but as another point of view.

All things considered, part of being an electronic music producer in this day and age is being about to critique your own work, both on the technical embodiment in a recorded medium as well as in the artistic content of the song. While you're producing there are millions of little decisions to be made and they all add up into the song as a whole, no one is going to be there to make those decisions for you, you have to develop your own ear, your own taste, and conviction in what you are doing.

Cheers.

[hutyluty]

i pretend i want feedback but then ignore it so that i get my listener stats up

[kaiori breathe]

Why does feedback actually matter.

Well, since music is art you could argue that nobody is right or wrong on this issue and that feedback doesn't matter simply because you've decided it doesn't and that ultimately you can write tracks using a blender, three elastic bands, the recordings of cats being skinned and chimps as a production team deciding what course of action to take via the method of rolling a die to decide what they do and it would be good both as a musical piece and as a testament to the MacGuyver methodology of musical composition. It's all very subjective when you look at it from an objective view point.

But none of us can really look at this from an objective view point, since we are all producers of music and are biased to our very cores - as we are all producers with our own little aims and goals. Ultimately if we're driven to become famous then the gauge of whether our music is good or not will be whether the majority of people like it, if we're driven by an aim to create art then our success in the field of music will be gauged according to whether we're able to achieve our own visions and if we're driven to make music as a hobby then our success will be gauged by whether or not the music we create is making us happy.

So, as musicians (and not objectively thinking psuedo's who chin stroke and say 'it's all very subjective' with a glass of port in hand) feedback will always matter because very few of us are able to single handedly bring our productions to a level that helps us achieve our individual aims and goals.

I agree with nowaysj on the issue of being able to criticize your own work. While I think feedback is incredibly important to any musician/producer the ability to self-criticize as unbiasedly as possible should go hand in hand with it.

As for 'big name' producers: I'm sure there isn't one single big name producer who could come in here and say, "I never took on board any feedback and I made it 'big' all on my own." They're human too, like you and me, and at one point in their lives they sucked at production and they sucked at writing music, just like the rest of us did. They aren't magical demi-gods; they're human and at some point somebody said to them "that sucks, change it" or "that sucked, don't do that next time" and they said "ok".

[FSTZ]

my feedback comes from the people on the dance floor

if they keep moving and dancing, I feel that I have done my job

[ketamine]

i pretend i want feedback but then ignore it so that i get my listener stats up

Actual Lol

[mitchAUS]

Same way when i log in here i immediately click "View your Posts" to see if i've drawn any reaction.

same haha

[wub]

The feedback I have gotten so far on Soundcloud (grand total of 11 comments ) has generally been favourable. Though if it wasn't, or I didn't get any, I wouldn't give up doing what I'm doing.

[Electric_Head]

I produce fairly complex tracks that not everyone will like.
That is the nature of production.
I know I like it.
Inevitably someone else will.
I do often wish the complexity would be appreciated rather than folks looking for tear-out sounds.
But I will continue to play me tunes knowing that I`m doing what I want, regardless.

[Electric_Head]

I think one of the best moments I`ve had in production was when people enjoyed my music that I would consider experimental.
The stuff that I carve out.

[Atac]

The feedback I have gotten so far on Soundcloud (grand total of 11 comments )

I feel so exclusive to be one of those 11

[Heartless]

Feedback is only as important as who you're getting it from. Friends, family, and random people on the internet are hardly helpful. Good feedback from someone who knows their shit is priceless.

[wub]

Feedback is only as important as who you're getting it from. Friends, family, and random people on the internet are hardly helpful. Good feedback from someone who knows their shit is priceless.

+1

I have a couple of other producers on my AIM who give me properly good feedback re; mixdown, elements etc.

[MadSci]

friends and people who know their shit is a must. i love the feedback of friends especially because, since my friends have been listeners since my first track, they have a frame of reference and can tell me whether i'm getting better or its not up to par or whatever else.