Prior knowledge/raw skill/intelligence/what?

[jaydot]

What makes a good dubstep producer good? Do they need prior music production knowledge? Raw talent, where people just take like a duck to water and away they go? Intelligence??

In my opinion you can teach someone to a point, but then they'll want to/need to evolve themselves and bring in, if they do have it, that raw talent/ability into their music.... prior production knowledge must help somewhere along the lines too for stuff like technical/navigation of DAW-if you can make other types of music you'll have an advantage over another dubstep noob who maybe hasn't.

There's no getting away from it that some people just have natural ability, that goes for anything, however if people practice, are dedicated and passionate and are willing to learn then there's no reason why anyone can't get to a certain level,

Thoughts?

[Dystinkt]

Its all random chance man. Its coming up with that huge riff that just makes you grin and think tune, and although having musical theory knowledge makes it more likely you will, people with little to no musical knowledge (myself included) can still make tunes of a reasonable(ish) level. having said that, if you work hard enough and put the hours in, success will come to you eventually. took skream and benga 10 years to get where they are.

[benjam]

Im doing some work at uni atm on approaches to learning. Basically its got me thinking as theres three approaches people take called deep, surface and strategic. The deep approach means people learn a subject based on principles which they can then apply in other situations. Surface means people only learn the essential info they need to complete the task. The strategic approach sees people use both deep and surface approaches depending on the situation.
It got me thinking about how this relates to production. Which approach do you take to production?
If you want to make say a bass patch in massive ( cliche ) would you search youtube til you found a suitable tutorial ( surface ) or would you read up about synthesis in general to develop your skills ( deep ).

[gen_]

It is talent, mainly a talent for identifying what makes a beat bump and adapting to it. But it's also 90% hard work and another 90% actually listening to a broad range of music, dubstep included.

I had a flat mate who was the most talented pianist and an amateur producer, and was constantly listening to Mars Volta and other acoustic bands. I introduced him to Joker and he nearly wet himself for two weeks, then tried to produce them, but his capacity to adapt wasn't great so his music sounded like crap.

Problem was he was too absorbed in his talent at playing piano that he was reluctant to know anything other than the 'quick and dirty' way to make sounds in a synth, and his drum programming sounded like he ripped it off a One Direction record. It's all good being talented, but you have to be a student even when you're a teacher and learn to constantly adapt to any style you like so you can allow it to influence your music without you sounding crap.

[sp303]

i feel like im a good producer but i just cant bring the tracks in my head come to life. ive been doing this almost for a year now and i think expericence is key but then i see all these guys who are my age (23) or even younger than me making hot sht n im like wtf?
it sucks when people ask me me what im doing nowadays and honestly i spend 90% of my time making shit music...atleast i know logic fairly well now...

[Jacob15728]

Combination of "musical sense" (some people can make better melodies, chord progressions and arrangements than others, this can be improved with practice but also comes down to innate musical ability) along with synthesis skill (get better by messing around with lots of synths and reading tutorials), mixing and technical stuff (read tutorials and practice), and listening/tweaking.

I'll make a song, listen to it a bunch of times, and every time I listen to it, make a note on paper of something that would sound better if it was changed. Then I'll go in and change those things. Then repeat this again and again until you can no longer come up with things you'd like to change. One of the biggest things that will make a song good is how much time you spend listening to it critically and making adjustments. Take your time and don't rush it.

[Depone]

I literally cant play an instrument. My music id dependent on my music thoery and manual editing + production

[Sharmaji]

hard work and focus. you can start from anywhere...

[[asterisk]]

All of the above generally. But there's always exceptions to that rule. All about being well rounded imho.

[kaiori breathe]

Practice.

That's all. You don't need anything else. You can have a hideously low aptitude for understanding and utilizing musical concepts and an equally low ability to grasp new ideas with regards to producing and ultimately it won't matter if you put the hours in. You could be tone deaf with the IQ of a bag of horse shit and still be a good musician if you put the hours in.