OT-What's your pet peave?

[shaver]

Since we've started a new year, I thought it might be fun to see what some of our biggest pet peaves might be when it comes to music. Composition, notation, libraries, DAWS, technicial issues etc. I know myself personally, there are a few things that really peave me off...

1. When I'm using my DAW (Fruity Loops), There isn't a easy way to multiple edit tracks! Anyone who uses Fruity loops knows that each track is displayed seperately in channel bars and clicking on a bar, opens that specific track for editing in the piano roll. Such a pain when multiple edits are needed across the score.

2. Annoying things that "creep" up on you during the final stage of mixing and recording like "pops" or pitch bends, or volume drops.

3. A wireless optical mouse that has a mind of it's own, only when your trying to work on your music!

4. A black keyboard with white letters that you have used so much, some of the letters are worn off!


Just a FEW of my peaves. So what's your's?



Jaker "Shaver"

[Pingu]

1. Classic FM and the endless 'smooth' drivel they play!

2. The seemingly endless stream of in-house composers at Classic FM who all write whole albums sounding exactly like the famous track from 'The Piano' but are promoted as the cutting edge of new music.

3. The presenters at Classic FM, who know absolutely nothing about the music they play, yet act the part of classical snobs. This peave is mitigated by the occasions when their writers give them complete nonsense to read, and they read it in blissful ignorance, or the occasions when they announce a track, play something totally different, and have no idea. At least then I get a laugh.

[Raymond62]

Pingu not only Classic FM. Most presenters don't even know how to pronounce names of composers, pieces of music. Lately I hear the name of Ravel pronounced in english. But it is not limited to presenters. People at the forum made severe spelling mistakes also, like Greig, Beithoven, Neilsen.

And according Wikipedia the word is peeves, not peaves!!!

Raymond

[shaver]

Ah, well, peeves it is then...lol.

[rbowser-]

Lol--Fun topic, Jaker.

And I have a question or two about your particular list:


Since we've started a new year, I thought it might be fun to see what some of our biggest pet peeves might be when it comes to music. Composition, notation, libraries, DAWS, technical issues etc. I know myself personally, there are a few things that really peeve me off...

1. When I'm using my DAW (Fruity Loops), There isn't a easy way to multiple edit tracks! Anyone who uses Fruity loops knows that each track is displayed separately in channel bars and clicking on a bar, opens that specific track for editing in the piano roll. Such a pain when multiple edits are needed across the score.
--I don't actually know what you mean--How can an edit you want to do on one track be exactly the same edit you want to do on another one?

Do you mean tracks which are identical to each other but are played by different instruments? In that case, in Sonar, which I use, when one Clones a track instead of just copying it, the edits in one of the tracks is reflected in all the Clones - because it's actually just one file that the program is multiplying for you "on the fly." - Is that what you mean?


2. Annoying things that "creep" up on you during the final stage of mixing and recording like "pops" or pitch bends, or volume drops.
I'm really starting to love Sonar even more - None of those things have ever happened to me! Really!


3. A wireless optical mouse that has a mind of it's own, only when your trying to work on your music!
Ah - well wireless. I've found no need for wireless. What's wrong with a wired-in mouse? - Mine never gives me a problem. And of course I mean an optical mouse, not the old mechanical rolling ball style.


4. A black keyboard with white letters that you have used so much, some of the letters are worn off!
Well that one we can all relate to - But replacement keyboards are very inexpensive - Perfectly good ones for under $20.

My own musical equipment related pet peeves--hmm.

DAW - I've tried both Cubase and Sonar - use the latter. But I do wish Sonar had Cubase's Piano Roll View feature where you can create separate panes for seeing each MIDI controller you want to work on, rather than having them all piled on top of each other, and with the need to keep selecting what you want to work on. It's slick in Cubase that you can have maybe 4 windows open down below the note window, and there's no extra clicking involved to edit all 4 different controllers.

Notation programs - Even though I don't use them, I am dismayed the way many beginning home recordists get sucked into the notation industry hype that they need to be most concerned with manufacturing beautiful looking scores instead of beautiful sounding music.

I feel that many people would discover and develop their latent musical talents more readily by using the intuitive audio/MIDI recording software environment--programs such as Sonar and Cubase, rather than notation programs.

That means it's a pet peeve of mine to see people struggling to get better recordings out of a notation program, when they're not in a position to need pro looking print outs, and I know they'd have a much easier and more rewarding experience with a MIDI keyboard hooked up to their keyboard, working in a DAW. There. I said it!

Another slight peeve:
How about very trained and educated music students who can only compose music which other trained and educated music students can appreciate?

Hand in hand with that last peeve - it's more of a sadness, to see people spending their time producing music which doesn't have passion, which doesn't grab their listeners and take them on voyages which only music is capable of taking people on. What's the point of writing music which only engages the analytical mind? I'll sooner listen to a random note generator than some boundary-less modern atonal things. Or I'll let my cat walk across the keyboard.

---I'm realizing I have extremely few complaints about the tools I use. Any limitation I run across gets shrugged off as a challenge to find a work around. So I use a computer with "only" 1 gig RAM - which was considered HUGE just a couple years ago - and it's not capable of playing everything I compose in real time - Big Deal - I know how to freeze or bounce tracks, free up resources, so I can keep working on a piece. That's not a peeve - It's a slight limitation which I just work around.

AH - this was good. I feel better than when I started. I can't think of very many actual Peeves.

Randy B.

[Hannes_F]

I guess I can be my own pet peeve sometimes LOL.

A pet peeve regarding music/production is when I have to delete parts of a project to be able to save it. Argggh ...

[bmdaustin]

Randy,

I believe the new version of Sonar, Version 7, does have multiple controller lanes. I'm not a Piano Roll View person myself so I don't use them. I stick with the Staff View, Track View, and Console. That's always been enough for me.

Also, I think many new "recordists" or "composers" start in Finale or Sibelius either because they learned music via notation, aka they can actually read and understand notation, unlike so many of the younger users today - OR - they saw someone else, or someone else told them about Finale-SIbelius because they themselves don't know any better. In the end, I agree, there's a lot of really bad "performances" being rendered in notation programs that would be much better served being created in DAWs.

As for atonal composition, I think it's like all the rest of the various styles. Either a particular piece works for you or it doesn't, and along with everything else, there's a bell curve to the level of quality, a little on the top, a fair amount of generally ok stuff in the middle, and a bunch of junk at the bottom - same with classical, jazz, pop, whatever.

[bmdaustin]

Oh yeah, my pet peeves - fingers that can't or won't read my mind when I'm playing an instrument and computer software and hardware glitches that gets in the way of making music when it's supposed to be helping.

[rbowser-]

Hiya, Paul - Thanks for the input on my "Peeve" response.

My understanding of Sonar 7 is that it still offers superimposed controller views instead of actually separate windows--but I haven't used it, so I could be wrong.

"...I stick with the Staff View, Track View, and Console. That's always been enough for me..."

How do you work your MIDI controller data? The other views each have a valuable purpose, and the Event List view is something I've sifted through Often also - But only in the Piano Roll can you draw in more controller data, microscopically shift notes (grid off) - and edit already existing data. There's no other way to do all that - The Piano Roll to me is the Heart of a DAW.--!

OK - a peeve - people who disagree with me. LOL--KIDDING!

Randy B.

[Pingu]

I sympathise with the Fruity problem. It's probably its biggest flaw that it can't superimpose piano roll editors from multiple tracks. On the other hand it is such an incredibly powerful program that I can overlook that. I find myself turning to it more and more recently, because it does a lot of jobs about a gazillion times quicker than Cubase.

[rbowser-]

"...I sympathise with the Fruity problem. It's probably its biggest flaw that it can't superimpose piano roll editors from multiple tracks..."

OH I see - You mean you can't see notes and/or data from separate MIDI channels in one view--? That Is a drag - kind of. I still only edit one track at a time - so don't quite understand what the big handicap is.

But Fruity Loops is an "incredibly powerful" program?? -OK, wow - That's not the impression I've had. Why do you find it so Powerful--? Compared to Sonar--??

Randy B.

[Leaf]

I only have one pet peiv.:D

when i use Finale's hyperscribe, it makes this crazy booming sound.


I guess i could just ask though, anyone know how to make it stop??:)

[Paul Stutt]

I often edit multiple MIDI tracks in Cubase especially when I'm working on some obscure harmonies.

My pet peeves are bad spelling and grammer. People who type like they text. People who TALK like they text. People with a blinkered vision of music.

[rbowser-]

"...People with a blinkered vision of music..."

That was appropriately obscure and vague, Paul - but I have a good idea of what you're talking about. ;)

Randy B.

[Styxx]

I had to give my pet, "Peave" to the SPCA last week. Last I heard Peave was adopted by a wonderful family that had no pet peaves.

[Pingu]

But Fruity Loops is an "incredibly powerful" program?? -OK, wow - That's not the impression I've had. Why do you find it so Powerful--? Compared to Sonar--??


Hi Randy,
I have to say I've never tried Sonar, so it's not a comparison I can make. And I'm fairly sure Fruity Loops would have little to offer you, given your current musical interests (I may be pre-judging you terribly. I'm assuming that Dorian is taking all your time. For all I know you may be djing clubs in Chicago on the side.) Fruity Loops is definitely NOT the program I would pick for Classical tracks, or anything terribly expressive, because it definitely encourages the user to think in loops, rather than in a linear fashion.

But if you are writing repetitive music, such as trance, then it really is great.

The big selling point, for me, initially was that the default channel was a sampler. (Only loads one sample, so you might call it a wav player). You load a wav file onto a sampler, and start inputting notes into the piano roll. Then there is a drop down set of lanes which allow you to draw values for pan, velocity, filter cut-off, resonance, fine pitch, etc, etc, for every note. When Fruity came out Cubase was at VST3.0, and the idea of working this way with audio was inconceivable. To make a melody out of a single sample I would have had to export the sample into an audio editor, pitch-stretched it, saved different versions of it for every note I wanted to play, then imported all of them into Cubase. Then I would have had to carefully place them on the timeline, and try playing it. And if I didn't like the fine tuning of a note it would have been back to Sound Forge, etc. All of this could take hours, whereas, in Fruity Loops I could leave a loop playing whilst inputting the notes and experimenting with all the other editables.

Obviously the likes of Kontakt have made it possible to do all of this in the big DAWs, but I still think that, for working with a single sample, the Fruity Sampler makes everything more accessible, and runs at a tiny fraction of the CPU useage of an idle instance of Kontakt.

For the last few versions Fruity has had a built-in slicer (I hear that Kontakt 3 may have this). Simply load a slicer, drag a drumloop onto it, and start work in the piano roll. Again you have access to every parameter you could want for each and every slice. If you want to reverse one instance of the kick drum, it's one click. If you want to play a melody with one cymbal sound you simply draw new pitch values below each time you play that sound.

Some of the native Fruity effects are extremely useful. There's one called the wave-traveller, in which you load a sample, and can then simply draw a line through the sample, which simulates pushing it backwards and forwards like a vinyl record. Very quick, very precise scratching.

I have to dash out to work now, so I can't really gather my thoughts, but you really should try Fruity, if only for fun. If you want to discuss it any more I'll check this thread when I get home tonight.

[nikolas]

1. Classic FM and the endless 'smooth' drivel they play!

2. The seemingly endless stream of in-house composers at Classic FM who all write whole albums sounding exactly like the famous track from 'The Piano' but are promoted as the cutting edge of new music.

3. The presenters at Classic FM, who know absolutely nothing about the music they play, yet act the part of classical snobs. This peave is mitigated by the occasions when their writers give them complete nonsense to read, and they read it in blissful ignorance, or the occasions when they announce a track, play something totally different, and have no idea. At least then I get a laugh.
+1 here!

I just LOATHE Classic FM and their ability to cut and paste tracks: They have no trouble playing the 17th variation from 24 variations from Rachmaninov (on a theme of Paganini), or maybe play HALF the rapsody in blue. (the second half, who cares for intros anyways). G4, G5 and G6, or whatever these awful boy bands are called came from THIS station, as well as all Kathrin-wise singer of whatever (although not a bad timbre of voice really).

Other pet peeves? I'm starting to get really really annoyed by the whole of academia. Last year PhD, I have every right to be.




Now the most impotant and a big, complicated one too:

GREECE!

I'm Greek. I went to Greece for Xmas after a full year in the UK. I was stunned by very many things, which I found completely unachpetable (but yet it happens).

1. The state of the road, with the exception of "attiki odos" are in a big mess! Bumps everywhere, holes everywhere, lines are almost nowhere to be found, and all pedestrians are walking ON THE ROADS, actually!
2. Nobody cares about the traffic lights really. It is accustomed to have "a few" cars (!!) passing when the light turns red (prolly because they didn't have a chance to stop, although there is the orange light to warn of the coming of the red)
3. All pedestrian walks, are taken either by cars, or by trees. It is, in all honesty, impossible to walk on the pavement so you are FORCED to walk on the road. Nobody seems to mind though.

There is an extra thing, which goes beyond normal peeves and into the whole of my life, but can't go public about it. If anybody wants to know more, PM me and be silent about it!

[Hannes_F]

Side note to rbowser and all Sonar users: I am looking into the trial version of Sonar 7 right now and learned here that there is a superimposed piano view for multiple tracks - that was what I were looking for, thank you!

For using seperate controller track views simply press "C" (in the german version at least) or press the 8th button left from the looking glass in the tools row (looks like a little window with a ^ in it).

[bmdaustin]

Hiya, Paul - Thanks for the input on my "Peeve" response.

My understanding of Sonar 7 is that it still offers superimposed controller views instead of actually separate windows--but I haven't used it, so I could be wrong.

"...I stick with the Staff View, Track View, and Console. That's always been enough for me..."

How do you work your MIDI controller data? The other views each have a valuable purpose, and the Event List view is something I've sifted through Often also - But only in the Piano Roll can you draw in more controller data, microscopically shift notes (grid off) - and edit already existing data. There's no other way to do all that - The Piano Roll to me is the Heart of a DAW.--!

OK - a peeve - people who disagree with me. LOL--KIDDING!
Randy B.
What can I say, I'm a notation type of guy. I do go to the Event List every now and then, usually to insert a specific controller event or to find errant velocities or to get a feel for the general velocity of a given section, but I do the bulk of my work in Track and Staff Views. In Staff View, you can right click on any note and a dialgoue pops up that lets you change the pitch, length, velocity, and starting time of each note. I can also cut,copy, and paste as well as quantize, interpolate and scale from within Staff View. I'm sure I'm missing some easier work methods, but I've been using CW/Sonar for roughly 15 years now and have some pretty ingrained habits.

The main reason I don't use PRV is that it's too much trouble for me to figure out which blob is which note. In Staff View, I can go right to the problem note and fix it. In PRV I have to hunt around and guess. Don't get me wrong, I know where PRV is and how to edit continuous controllers there, but I pretty much stay away from it most of the time. It's probably also worth noting (forgive me) that I don't own GPO, although I might in the future if GPOA is what I hope it will be, and only use JABB sparingly so I probably don't use as many controllers as others do.

[Matthew S Phillips]

My pet peeves:

1.People who have never used ANY notation program, and think they can give me multiple pages of handwritten music to "put into sibelius". Then they wonder why I'm not done in 30 minutes, and why I want more than their sincere thanks for my time.

2. The same people when they catch wind of Photoscore 5: "Oh you can just scan it in!" Yeah.....right.


3. People who think I am supposed to be floored with admiration when they call themselves a composer. Don't get me wrong, I love meeting new music writers, but some people act offended that I don't react with awe when they say "I write music." I know lots of composers...sorry.:(


4. Amateur guitarists who are angry that I don't declare them the best guitarist I've ever heard after they demonstrate to me the four chords they know.*()


5. Students who want an A in my class even though they never showed up, slept when they were there, failed all the tests and didn't turn in any homework.:confused:


6. People who think I want to come hear their cover band. No offense if you are in a cover band, but to me its like a plumber watching another plumber unclog a drain. :o

7. Direct TV. Its a long story.:mad:

[Pingu]

4. Amateur guitarists who are angry that I don't declare them the best guitarist I've ever heard after they demonstrate to me the four chords they know.*()


Am I in with a chance if I know five?

[Jeff Turner]

My pet peeves:

1.People who have never used ANY notation program, and think they can give me multiple pages of handwritten music to "put into sibelius". Then they wonder why I'm not done in 30 minutes, and why I want more than their sincere thanks for my time.

Agreed! Also, I'm simply stunned each time I'm sent a sequencer file to turn into notation for live musicians. They think all I do is push a button and everything gets converted magically. When in all actuality, I have to go through their midi file, note by note, comparing it to the mp3, then editing it, so it'll sound like it should. Then they wonder why I charge so much.

My non-musical internet pet peeve, is the misuse of the word "loose". Many, many people use "loose" when they mean "lose".

Jeff

[suspenlute]

--People saying "download" when they mean "offload," i.e. "I'm going to download these images from my camera to my computer."

--Self-appointed specialists in Catholic liturgy who would rather I play horrifically out-of-touch music for tradition's sake than keep the 88% of my congregation who would leave within a month if I did.

--The fact that everything I try to do in GPO sounds terrible. :p

blah blah blah...

-Chris Plorán

[danpowers]

Students who hand in scoring assignments in manuscript, who show no understanding of even basic rules of notation.

I reserve a particular place in hell for those who don't space ledger lines evenly! Any students reading this, you have been warned!!!!

[Pingu]

I reserve a particular place in hell for those who don't space ledger lines evenly! Any students reading this, you have been warned!!!!

I think my life would be perfect if that were my biggest bugbear with my students. I get very little control over who is admitted onto my courses, and my current A-Level group (17-18 year olds) takes the biscuit. I sat with one of them this afternoon, who is writing a project comparing two piano sonatas, one of which is the Moonlight. He asked me to help him learn to 'do harmonic analysis.' So I set out to help him identify the chords in the first few bars, and then discuss the function of each in the progression. My goals gradually dropped as it became clear that he didn't read bass clef, and treble clef only vaguely, had absolutely no idea about keys, accidentals, triads. I'd ask him to simply identify the notes in a chord, and he sat there just taking random stabs in the dark. After about a 5 minute struggle we'd just about identify the three notes in a chord, and I'd ask him to rearrange them in a stack of thirds, so that we could name the triad. I might as well have asked him to split the atom.

My pet peeve, even more than Classic FM, is that management keep telling these students it's fine for them to do music, against my very strong protestations, and then turn round to me and expect me to get them the grades of top-flight musicians.

[sanyarem]

oooh, i love this topic already! My two main pet peaves:

1. People who criticize someone for doing something, but then turn around and do it themselves [i.e hipocracy (I can never spell that word correctly)]

2. The majority of Georgian Drivers as well as most of its neighboring states' drivers. (this last part I can't say with a lot of conviction because I really only have experience with Alabama and Tennessee drivers) I hate the fact that they can't maintain a constant speed (with in a couple mph) while going up and down hills, they never stay close enough at stoplights to keep the light green (they let the car in front of them get 15-20 feet before they start moving which creates a gap at stoplight sensors, this gap causes the light to change, thusly only 5-6 cars get through a light, and that really sucks in the city I live in when lights can back up for 50 + cars...I often sit through the same stoplight multiple times), and the list goes on and on and on...In order to put it in perspective, when I found a driver I actually didn't mind (he stayed in the right lane when the road was double-laned, he didn't speed up when I tried to pass him, didn't pull out in front of me, etc...) I almost beeped and waved at him because I was so happy to find someone who knew how to drive! (I've been waiting a long time to get this off my chest, and yes, I like parentheses.)