Great video Christian! I shared with my students and I bet they all became your fans (like if they weren’t already lol) right now because of this :) Can’t wait for the next episode and thanks for using your time to share with us this great source of knowledge.
It just sucks that an environment like VI recently has been tearing us apart where music actually should be bringing us all together. I'm just trying to imagine what would happen if we turned all that negative energy into positive energy, focused more on positive critical feedback, and stopped all that hostile back and forth. I feel as though we would get a lot more done. Anyways, as usual, great video!
Hi christian. As always, thank U so much for this video. I re-made my template 3 days ago, following andy and You. I had a great improvement in my setup. My template looks a lot like yours, but i particularly notice one thing today : the really nice rainbow color labelling. My next modification for this evening on my template ;) have a marvellous day and week-end.
hey christian, how are you? could you explain how did you setup your kontakt instances? are they multitimbral going through aux channels? or do you have one instance per instrument? thanks!
So what happened to the cap? I was expecting some hilarious gaff; or at least a gust of wind. It was like one of the story arks in Lost, never to be resolved. Haha. Loving these template vids Christian. Really helpful! The last one saved me 3 days or so on a track. So thank you! The knowledge in these videos is 1000x better than what was on offer at music college, back in the day. I would love to hear more about how quickly you and your Spitfire colleagues can finish a solid single cue. At my best I can manage one in around a week, but that’s a best case scenario; usually takes me a bit longer and I don’t have much to compare too; have little idea if thats on the slow side or not.
Christian, I have setup a visibility shortcut that I think you and all the logic users will love! Please share it wide if you can! Under key Commands Editor - Main Window Tracks i've set " Hide all empty tracks " to " H " and " Unhide all tracks " to " Shift + H ". Now when I'm in my session by clicking " H " all tracks that I have not used (no audio or midi data) will disappear in the arrange and mixer window, simple "shift + H" will bring all the unused tracks back :) Let me know what you think! Thanks for these blogs mate!!
It's ironic that you speak about this intersection of happiness and in relation to your previous grumpy video about entering the music industry later in life (especially trying to penetrate the role of media composer), that these videos have actually done much to talk me out of the industry. I'm 33 now and after more than 16 years of "trying" to get into the music industry and never quite finding my "in", I'm selling off gear (not everything, but most) and considering other lines of work. I don't know if I want to just give up entirely, but the point you made about being neither happy nor successful is exactly where I've been for far too long and it's caused me to burn out. I'm not trying to hijack the thread, but I've been struggling with some very deep personal issues that I feel I need to step away from things and just tackle, whatever that means. It's hard to see the forest through the trees, so-to-speak. So your advice is helping in more ways than you might have imagined it would. And for anyone else going through something profound, I hope you can find it in you to make a critical choice. It doesn't have to be quitting altogether, but take a break. Gather yourself, and get help if need be(, I'm not ashamed to admit I am).
Neologic Studios your post is a sobering one. If I were to offer up unsolicited advice it would be to buy yourself something nice with what you sell... an old moog a nice Wurlitzer that you can enjoy for years to come a totem of your immense efforts leading to longer lasting happiness. And who knows many people say success rears it’s head the minute you stop looking for it!
Indeed! I appreciate that bit of insight. It was a pleasure meeting you and Oliver at last years ago last winter NAMM. I was sad I didn't get to see you this year, but this year's trip was still good. I get the sense that you were sick or recovering from a cold in this video, hope your well now! Cheers.
Would it ever be possible to ship .cst files with your releases? I recently made Logic channel strip settings of just about every Spitfire library as it really speeds up my workflow, but obviously it's very time consuming to sit down and do. Maybe these files can't be shared from one user to the next due to the file paths differing? Anyway, if there was a workaround I really think it would be a beneficial inclusion!
Good to see andy again. Been following a bit of his career for nearly 20 years in fact and we have lost trace of him since the bunkka days. :-) This template looks great for your needs. Two suggestions though. Wouldn't that be great to add some VCA fader for all your Kontakt tracks at once so you never hit the red on any track? Then eventually add another one for the stacks all together for that same purpose? Should take like 2 mins to add. Also, wouldn't you benefit from using screen sets? I'm always pestering about the fact I need to resize that mixer height all the time, personally so I locked screen sets 1 and 2 to different purposes.
I’ve found myself moving away from large templates and moving toward the use of user patches in logic. Anyone else work like this rather than loading massive templates?
Love the idea of a hub - the community that you are building and leading would be of great interest. Also, you seem to have managed to create the only corner of TH-cam comments that is actually supportive and engaged, but agree that it's transient and not a good format for communication. Also agree entirely about the toxicity of VI-C. HOWEVER... the annoying thing about free speech is that people speak freely: sometimes that will be well considered, polite, respectful and supportive, and sometimes quite the opposite. Well, what to do about those people? Well, you could ban them from your hub (hey, it's your hub), but then (a) it becomes a lot of moderating work, and (b) it becomes an echo chamber - if people feel they will be banned for saying things that might be unwelcome (but sometimes might be useful too). So, while I love the idea of a hub, and would be an immediate subscriber, I think you have to think about what aspect of the toxicity you can/want to avoid from VI-C, and what are the consequences of doing so - the positives ones are easy to identify and endorse, but the negatives, not so much.
Are you worried that TH-cam won't provide you with immortality? You could write Grumpy Book that gets forgotten by the 5 people that bought it . I say be happy with the thousands of people you're reaching. BTW - loved the Grumpy vid.
Very informative video, however hopefully part 3 will shed some light on how the imac pro handles the template resource wise. That is really what inquiring minds want to know. The first "stress test" while nice, was highly unscientific.
Hi Christian do you know Rick Beato or Junkie XL ( Tom Holkenborg ) that would be a good ( My Dream ) video .. this video is a bit like Junkie XL's template video
I agree about TH-cam and specifically vi-control. I think if you want to have a less transient hub, place where people who are passionate about this and in the industry or hope to be want to discuss, learn etc... and you don't want the inevitable toxic, cringe, bizarre overly aggressive forum-manner-of-speech interaction that almost always exists because people have some sort of strange cruel confidence when they don't have to say their most impulsive least thoughtful ideas to anyones face in person but can do so instead behind the comfort of a screen, the answer has to be something with a paywall. I know this somewhat undermines the idea of being able to reach as many people as possible who may be interested and it takes away some of the possibility of people stumbling upon these discussions, but this is already such a niche field to begin with, in a practical sense I wonder if anyone serious would really miss out. I don't know. I don't think the paywall would need to be much, essentially only 10/15$ a year would work, just something that would trim anyone who didn't want to spend even just a little to be there. I guess the underlying question is a musing that if while the ease of access and democratization of access to information/ discussion due to the internet has an almost unending list positives for the human condition in a truly elevating way, there may also be some negatives in certain corners. Maybe if we can have access to invaluable information without putting essentially any effort forward, that degrades something? Maybe effort is a gatekeeper which deters those who don't truly care? A few years ago if you wanted to go to a masterclass or a discussion on an artistic/ musical topic you would have to go to where the class was, even if it was free you would have to get a train ticket, pay for gas driving etc... Just for this 1 class the price would be near what could be the paywall for a whole year. If there is no effort required to acquire such information, or no effort required to share one's ideas, maybe it degrades everything at worst, and at best allows the conversation to be diverted to a shallow shell of what was intended to be something of depth. This is not intended to sound erudite at all, because it truly isn't. Im not arguing for an overly high bar of access to conversation or information, but possibly, perhaps in the egalitarian society many of us thankfully live in today, effort (even minimal) is this gatekeeper or ought to be. One wonders if maybe a part of what makes endeavors, acquisition of information, learning, development meaningful is the effort we had to put out in order to do what we did, learn what we do, and grow how we grow. Possibly that was overly philosophical, but I suspect that this wondering underlies deep down the question Christian highlighted.
A really interesting suggestion. On first reading, I was against it, but you make a convincing argument, and something really needs to be done. After Christian posted this video, I posted a thread on VI-C asking whether if we made the posts on there video-based, rather than text-based, would the loss of anonymity help raise the quality of the debate. To which someone responded that I must have major psychological problems if I just can't take it in the snake pit! Urrghh... point proven!
Paywalls don't discourage toxic behaviour because sometimes people who have money are also toxic. In fact, toxic people who've paid to be somewhere will loudly assert their right to be toxic *because* they've paid to be there.
You are absolutely right, there will always be people everywhere in all aspects of our life professional, personal, familial who fit the archetype you are describing. You are absolutely right and a paywall wont change this inevitability. However I am trying to make a slight distinction and this may have been lost. I am not talking about ways to change behavior of an individual but rather create a scenario in which the cost/benefit is not advantageous for the individual who only wants to contribute derailment or a self-satisfying sense of superiority (bad faith intention) so they eliminate themselves and this behavior from the conversation. Put simply, it's somewhat similar to fences around a yard. Often times they aren't very high, anyone who really wanted to jump it, could jump it or knock it down or destroy it etc... it isnt some impenetrable force, but it is a small demarcation both psychologically (this carries more weight in face to face interactions I suspect) and physically. The barrier needn't be overly high, but if one only wants to get people worked up and derail and destroy conversations with meaningless bantz then I think they may not opt to pay even the slightest amount because they could get this experience for no cost, many other places. I don't think it would be perfect, I dont think it would eliminate everything undesired, but utopian pursuits like that are always futile and almost always dangerous, however it may resemble more closely the sort of effort gatekeeping that has existed in the past and still does exist in almost every aspect of life offline. i.e. taking a train to go to a discussion somewhere (personal, professional or familial). Maybe because our behavior patterns have evolved for a long time and are calibrated to interaction in person / non digital, and we have within a generation moved to an entirely foreign form of communication we are not able to really fully comprehend just how different on a meta level digital interaction is and we are all in a sense collectively confused by this. Maybe a way to remedy this is have this new form of communication mimic more the patterns we have evolved to understand most clearly.
I don't think it does resemble that sort of effort gatekeeping, though, because the vast majority of the time the only effort required would be to log in, and once a year there'd be a tiny bit more effort than that. There's a huge difference between that and the physical efforts you're comparing it to. "Meaningless bantz" isn't the biggest toxicity problem a community has to deal with. And, again, a lot of people, having paid money to be somewhere, will loudly assert that this gives them the right to say whatever they want in that space. If you want to keep toxicity out, it needs to be an ongoing effort, and that requires active moderation right from the start.
The practical application is of slightly lesser concern as those parameters of application are easily changed and subjective to the needs and whatever is chosen can be what is pursued to be most effective. I suggested a low paywall as an example of the lowest possible bar one could set for entry as a starting point to set the philosophical concept with a real world application which is not unduly high or constrictive. In my comments I am generally trying to point more to the philosophical premise which underlies it.
Any studio one users? I’m a pop producer wanting to move over to composing... wanted to build a temp also. Just don’t know how to approach it. Thanks in advance!
Alright so a question. What i see a lot on different forums ( and youtube ). Is people discussing hardware. In this case computers. What do you feel is ''enough'' in regard of specs? Even though i myself have a desktop rig, i love being able to take my laptop out and use travel time, on working on different cues etc. I scored a documentary, with about 60-65 active virtual instruments, on my OLD macbook pro with only 8gb of ram. That took a lot of files management, and switching settings around. Sadly Apple only makes the macbook pros up to 16gb ram, i would love to keep a very mobile setup, and i still have my desktop for the very big projects. What i'm trying to get at is: How do you feel about hardware? What is enough?. Is it time do ditch mac for the mobile setup, and put together a slaughtering windows laptop. Or can those 16gb actually get you by, in most cases? Have a nice day!
thanks, Christian. Another very useful video. Where is the first Andy Gray video referred to in his section? I can't find it on your feed or Spitfire's. Thanks.
Great content. Thanks, Christian. You've probably been asked this before, but I think this is kind of linked to the topic in terms of computer efficiency (Jesus, I sound like a tool): Can you advise on proper management of files on music computers? I run a late 2015 iMac, 4GHz i7, 16GB RAM with 500GB SSD with two external SSDs (a 500GB and a 1TB) - not the best but nothing crap either. The internal SSD has 160GB free. Recently, I've noticed Logic getting clunky without too much going on (specifically with a movie imported) and I'm wondering if you can advise on generic methods of how to clean up my system to make it run more smoothly as it used to run like a charm? I'm sure Google is my friend here, but the information can be conflicting. 1. Is it OK to fill up an external SSD or should you always leave headroom? If so, how much? 2. Same for the internal SSD - how much headroom? 3. Will increasing my RAM from 16 to 32GB make a tangible difference? 4. Will saving Logic projects on an external SSD keep the internal SSD running more quickly? 5. Does deleting detritus, wiping everything and starting from scratch make things run more smoothly? Google told me that once an SSD starts getting things saved on it, if you start deleting things and moving them around it begins to run more slowly. Noticeably? 5. What's your advice on backups and how do you do it? Are those Apple AirPort jammers worth it? Do you leave your system on 24hrs and let Time Capsule work it's magic overnight? 6. Can you tell I don't have a fucking clue and still sound like a tool? Hope the snow thaws in Auld Reekie soon. Cheers.
Love this channel Christian, the whole vi control bluster about HZ strings is pretty disgusting. Pillaring Daniel James over a first look vid, wether you agree with him or not, is not good for Spitfire or our very tiny band of composers, all trying to get by.
Yeah I’ve not really responded to Dan, I got fucked off with a troll who put the SF team down but other than that I don’t interface with reviewers. They do their job and I do mine.
1. User Hub - Yes, this would be fantastic. I personally offer my services to be an Admin if that helps. It can be done, I’m a member of a few audio/mixing/producing Facebook groups that work very well. We have strict rules and zero tolerance for anti-social behaviour. 2. Mixing - Something that I’ve not been able to find an answer to. How much or to what level as composers are we supposed to mix? I understand that it varies from project to project, budget to budget, but it seems to me like we need to not only need to write but also be pro level producers these days. To elaborate, perhaps you could share with us some of your wisdom on what you’re expected to deliver production wise for say an indie film vs a TV drama. 3. Templates - Thanks for all the good info. I will be reviewing/stealing a few ideas. I like to use the approach that Andy showed us, starting with an empty session and use Pro Tools track presets to populate it as needed. Thanks! Keep up the good work!
Christian, check out OTR for Reaper, it does all of this right out of the box, plus its Reapers...so more power/less crashes etc. Watch the OTR Primer video on the main site. You can thank me later.
Great info as always but I cannot for the life of me get an aux track to join the summing stack. Someone please tell me what I am missing. Watched both these videos over and over but drawing a blank. Wierdly I'm sure I've done it in the past but Logic won't have it now I am trying to build a new template along the lines Christian and Andy are suggesting. Help would be much appreciated.
The only way I can do it is at creation, so create a couple of soaftware instruments, an audio track maybe, and then do an AUX, then in mixer window highlight all of those and create summing stack from within that window....
Aah, Ive just followed your advice because that's what I thought I was doing and found this "feature" in Logic. Your suggested method does work but only if you do it from a particular drop down menu rather than the "ctrl-click" or main menu. If you do it via the mixer window menu it does work though which is where you do it from I assume (unless it is just me that is having this wierdness). Thank you Christian for the reply, the vlogs, everything about Spitfire and, of course, the terrific music.
Christian, I have an idea for the hub (maybe this, or something like it already exists; if so, I'm sure someone will inform us). Imagine if in a forum, you could only add comments as video, limited to say, 2 minutes maximum per posting, 1 posting per day. The loss of anonymity I think would cause people to lose the bravado that the internet otherwise affords them. Other forums have tried to do this by insisting on real names, but no one knows if people have provided a real name, and even if they have, it's still largely anonymous. Video is very identifiable. It would be ideal, because it would be inspired by your vlog, which is itself a man-to-camera conversation. The limited posting would prevent trolling, with endless, circular and repetitive discussions. You could then block IP addresses from users who made any attempt to conceal their identify (masks, hoods etc), or who abused the forum (requires moderation, but I imagine much less than the typical forum). It would be a true conversation between Spitfire and its customers. What do you and the people reading these comments think?
You mentioned that you are using the same template on your iMac Pro as well on your Macbook Pro when you are on the go. Don't you experience any performance issues? I have a macbook Pro 3.1 GhZ and it can't barely keep up with 10 kontakt instruments.
Christian, I've watched this a few times in the past month or so together with the other vlogs you have made on templates. It is an excellent source of information - as your whole channel is - so thank you. Can I ask whether you find you use your "template template" more often than your epic template? I am at the start of building what I hope will be my 'go to' for most work - although I like the approach Oliver suggested in the first of these vlogs (th-cam.com/video/YaPi9GxSqPw/w-d-xo.html) on having a couple of templates for general work, creative work, etc. I work in Cubase (PC user!) and have a one computer setup (16GB ram), so I'm trying to balance the convenience of having an all singing/dancing template with all instruments I have at my fingertips, with the practical limitations of what my current system can handle. I would be interested in what approach others on this comments thread tend to take? A template template (infrastructure and general routing there but empty of instruments) or the epic template (all ready to go plus the kitchen sink)? Thanks!
Alistair Brown kitchen sink is great to have if you’re coming to the rescue on a job and don’t have days at your disposal to build a project template. You will likely rely on your standard chops and work very much in HOD mode not composer mode so very much with your eye on delivering the minutes. You will work safe in the knowledge you’re not gonna win an Oscar. HOWEVER relying on a mister template for every job is a dangerous path to creative stagnation.
Regarding a less transitory hub for placing videos and comments, I think any place that's open to postings from anyone can quickly get toxic. You'd be best off establishing and managing one that you could control. But wow, that's another huge time investment.
How can I reach you Christian? I have a number of great tips for the Mixer and general organisation when dealing with this kind of template! Thanks for the amazing vids, I've watched 96 out of 96 J x Edit - I'll try reach you through VI-C, although I'm as allergic to that place as you it seems..
Hey Lanners. There is a Discord channel called The Composers Network that I helped setup. It is a very supportive network of like minded composers / Musicians, that i'm sure you would enjoy! Here is the link if that helps. discord.gg/JDBAebv
It would be great to have that template to better understand and complement this video. Thanks for your amazing channel, invaluable source of knowledge and inspiration.
Without active moderation and clear rules for those moderators to follow, toxicity can creep in, and once it does, it grows. The Broken Windows Theory (briefly, that leaving windows broken tends to encourage more people to break windows) applies as much to online communities as it does to buildings. Curate your community well and it will be a lovely place. Assume it'll take care of itself, and it won't. Already the toxicity is creeping in in the comments here.
Yes, its not something I can undertake personally, but I'm enjoying looking at The Composer's Network on Discord. You're the second person to comment on toxicity on this channel and I'm not seeing it?
Christian, you officially have a notification squad! I got the notification and started watching immediately! Your videos make my day every time!
The comments section of this vlog is a genuine breath of fresh air. Intelligent, constructive and positive!
Great video Christian!
I shared with my students and I bet they all became your fans (like if they weren’t already lol) right now because of this :)
Can’t wait for the next episode and thanks for using your time to share with us this great source of knowledge.
This is my favourite TH-cam channel. Thank You for a lot of great content :D
*Christian Hensen* I like how you're the brilliant music software scientist! Amazing videos. Many thanks.
It just sucks that an environment like VI recently has been tearing us apart where music actually should be bringing us all together. I'm just trying to imagine what would happen if we turned all that negative energy into positive energy, focused more on positive critical feedback, and stopped all that hostile back and forth. I feel as though we would get a lot more done. Anyways, as usual, great video!
Hi christian. As always, thank U so much for this video. I re-made my template 3 days ago, following andy and You. I had a great improvement in my setup. My template looks a lot like yours, but i particularly notice one thing today : the really nice rainbow color labelling. My next modification for this evening on my template ;) have a marvellous day and week-end.
hey christian, how are you? could you explain how did you setup your kontakt instances? are they multitimbral going through aux channels? or do you have one instance per instrument? thanks!
This is great, thanks Andy for his boss tips on stems!
So what happened to the cap? I was expecting some hilarious gaff; or at least a gust of wind. It was like one of the story arks in Lost, never to be resolved. Haha.
Loving these template vids Christian. Really helpful! The last one saved me 3 days or so on a track. So thank you! The knowledge in these videos is 1000x better than what was on offer at music college, back in the day.
I would love to hear more about how quickly you and your Spitfire colleagues can finish a solid single cue. At my best I can manage one in around a week, but that’s a best case scenario; usually takes me a bit longer and I don’t have much to compare too; have little idea if thats on the slow side or not.
The logic 10.4.5 update will be very helpful for the large template though...
Christian, I have setup a visibility shortcut that I think you and all the logic users will love! Please share it wide if you can!
Under key Commands Editor - Main Window Tracks i've set " Hide all empty tracks " to " H " and " Unhide all tracks " to " Shift + H ".
Now when I'm in my session by clicking " H " all tracks that I have not used (no audio or midi data) will disappear in the arrange and mixer window, simple "shift + H" will bring all the unused tracks back :)
Let me know what you think! Thanks for these blogs mate!!
Oooh pizzzzzowwwww! So gonna share that one!
It's ironic that you speak about this intersection of happiness and in relation to your previous grumpy video about entering the music industry later in life (especially trying to penetrate the role of media composer), that these videos have actually done much to talk me out of the industry. I'm 33 now and after more than 16 years of "trying" to get into the music industry and never quite finding my "in", I'm selling off gear (not everything, but most) and considering other lines of work. I don't know if I want to just give up entirely, but the point you made about being neither happy nor successful is exactly where I've been for far too long and it's caused me to burn out.
I'm not trying to hijack the thread, but I've been struggling with some very deep personal issues that I feel I need to step away from things and just tackle, whatever that means. It's hard to see the forest through the trees, so-to-speak. So your advice is helping in more ways than you might have imagined it would. And for anyone else going through something profound, I hope you can find it in you to make a critical choice. It doesn't have to be quitting altogether, but take a break. Gather yourself, and get help if need be(, I'm not ashamed to admit I am).
Neologic Studios your post is a sobering one. If I were to offer up unsolicited advice it would be to buy yourself something nice with what you sell... an old moog a nice Wurlitzer that you can enjoy for years to come a totem of your immense efforts leading to longer lasting happiness. And who knows many people say success rears it’s head the minute you stop looking for it!
Indeed! I appreciate that bit of insight. It was a pleasure meeting you and Oliver at last years ago last winter NAMM. I was sad I didn't get to see you this year, but this year's trip was still good. I get the sense that you were sick or recovering from a cold in this video, hope your well now! Cheers.
Am I the only one where during Andy's video the audio is running a solid 10 secs ahead of the video? just me?
Not just you
Yeah me too, didn't realise at first, thought I wasn't keeping up.
Ah good to know. it's a shame because it actually makes it tricky to follow what is a pretty complicated (and useful) workflow
Would it ever be possible to ship .cst files with your releases? I recently made Logic channel strip settings of just about every Spitfire library as it really speeds up my workflow, but obviously it's very time consuming to sit down and do. Maybe these files can't be shared from one user to the next due to the file paths differing? Anyway, if there was a workaround I really think it would be a beneficial inclusion!
Thanks Christian, very informative! Any chance you'll be sharing this template like you did with the previous one?
Good to see andy again. Been following a bit of his career for nearly 20 years in fact and we have lost trace of him since the bunkka days. :-) This template looks great for your needs. Two suggestions though. Wouldn't that be great to add some VCA fader for all your Kontakt tracks at once so you never hit the red on any track? Then eventually add another one for the stacks all together for that same purpose? Should take like 2 mins to add. Also, wouldn't you benefit from using screen sets? I'm always pestering about the fact I need to resize that mixer height all the time, personally so I locked screen sets 1 and 2 to different purposes.
I’ve found myself moving away from large templates and moving toward the use of user patches in logic. Anyone else work like this rather than loading massive templates?
Love the idea of a hub - the community that you are building and leading would be of great interest. Also, you seem to have managed to create the only corner of TH-cam comments that is actually supportive and engaged, but agree that it's transient and not a good format for communication. Also agree entirely about the toxicity of VI-C. HOWEVER... the annoying thing about free speech is that people speak freely: sometimes that will be well considered, polite, respectful and supportive, and sometimes quite the opposite. Well, what to do about those people? Well, you could ban them from your hub (hey, it's your hub), but then (a) it becomes a lot of moderating work, and (b) it becomes an echo chamber - if people feel they will be banned for saying things that might be unwelcome (but sometimes might be useful too). So, while I love the idea of a hub, and would be an immediate subscriber, I think you have to think about what aspect of the toxicity you can/want to avoid from VI-C, and what are the consequences of doing so - the positives ones are easy to identify and endorse, but the negatives, not so much.
Are you worried that TH-cam won't provide you with immortality? You could write Grumpy Book that gets forgotten by the 5 people that bought it . I say be happy with the thousands of people you're reaching. BTW - loved the Grumpy vid.
Very informative video, however hopefully part 3 will shed some light on how the imac pro handles the template resource wise. That is really what inquiring minds want to know. The first "stress test" while nice, was highly unscientific.
VI Control... You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Hi Christian do you know Rick Beato or Junkie XL ( Tom Holkenborg )
that would be a good ( My Dream )
video .. this video is a bit like Junkie XL's template video
I would like a massive template like this for studio one
Excellent work as always Christian. Have you considered sharing or selling the template at all??
I love being a Digital Performer user my friends! 🥰
I agree about TH-cam and specifically vi-control. I think if you want to have a less transient hub, place where people who are passionate about this and in the industry or hope to be want to discuss, learn etc... and you don't want the inevitable toxic, cringe, bizarre overly aggressive forum-manner-of-speech interaction that almost always exists because people have some sort of strange cruel confidence when they don't have to say their most impulsive least thoughtful ideas to anyones face in person but can do so instead behind the comfort of a screen, the answer has to be something with a paywall. I know this somewhat undermines the idea of being able to reach as many people as possible who may be interested and it takes away some of the possibility of people stumbling upon these discussions, but this is already such a niche field to begin with, in a practical sense I wonder if anyone serious would really miss out. I don't know. I don't think the paywall would need to be much, essentially only 10/15$ a year would work, just something that would trim anyone who didn't want to spend even just a little to be there. I guess the underlying question is a musing that if while the ease of access and democratization of access to information/ discussion due to the internet has an almost unending list positives for the human condition in a truly elevating way, there may also be some negatives in certain corners. Maybe if we can have access to invaluable information without putting essentially any effort forward, that degrades something? Maybe effort is a gatekeeper which deters those who don't truly care? A few years ago if you wanted to go to a masterclass or a discussion on an artistic/ musical topic you would have to go to where the class was, even if it was free you would have to get a train ticket, pay for gas driving etc... Just for this 1 class the price would be near what could be the paywall for a whole year. If there is no effort required to acquire such information, or no effort required to share one's ideas, maybe it degrades everything at worst, and at best allows the conversation to be diverted to a shallow shell of what was intended to be something of depth. This is not intended to sound erudite at all, because it truly isn't. Im not arguing for an overly high bar of access to conversation or information, but possibly, perhaps in the egalitarian society many of us thankfully live in today, effort (even minimal) is this gatekeeper or ought to be. One wonders if maybe a part of what makes endeavors, acquisition of information, learning, development meaningful is the effort we had to put out in order to do what we did, learn what we do, and grow how we grow. Possibly that was overly philosophical, but I suspect that this wondering underlies deep down the question Christian highlighted.
A really interesting suggestion. On first reading, I was against it, but you make a convincing argument, and something really needs to be done. After Christian posted this video, I posted a thread on VI-C asking whether if we made the posts on there video-based, rather than text-based, would the loss of anonymity help raise the quality of the debate. To which someone responded that I must have major psychological problems if I just can't take it in the snake pit! Urrghh... point proven!
Paywalls don't discourage toxic behaviour because sometimes people who have money are also toxic. In fact, toxic people who've paid to be somewhere will loudly assert their right to be toxic *because* they've paid to be there.
You are absolutely right, there will always be people everywhere in all aspects of our life professional, personal, familial who fit the archetype you are describing. You are absolutely right and a paywall wont change this inevitability. However I am trying to make a slight distinction and this may have been lost. I am not talking about ways to change behavior of an individual but rather create a scenario in which the cost/benefit is not advantageous for the individual who only wants to contribute derailment or a self-satisfying sense of superiority (bad faith intention) so they eliminate themselves and this behavior from the conversation. Put simply, it's somewhat similar to fences around a yard. Often times they aren't very high, anyone who really wanted to jump it, could jump it or knock it down or destroy it etc... it isnt some impenetrable force, but it is a small demarcation both psychologically (this carries more weight in face to face interactions I suspect) and physically. The barrier needn't be overly high, but if one only wants to get people worked up and derail and destroy conversations with meaningless bantz then I think they may not opt to pay even the slightest amount because they could get this experience for no cost, many other places. I don't think it would be perfect, I dont think it would eliminate everything undesired, but utopian pursuits like that are always futile and almost always dangerous, however it may resemble more closely the sort of effort gatekeeping that has existed in the past and still does exist in almost every aspect of life offline. i.e. taking a train to go to a discussion somewhere (personal, professional or familial). Maybe because our behavior patterns have evolved for a long time and are calibrated to interaction in person / non digital, and we have within a generation moved to an entirely foreign form of communication we are not able to really fully comprehend just how different on a meta level digital interaction is and we are all in a sense collectively confused by this. Maybe a way to remedy this is have this new form of communication mimic more the patterns we have evolved to understand most clearly.
I don't think it does resemble that sort of effort gatekeeping, though, because the vast majority of the time the only effort required would be to log in, and once a year there'd be a tiny bit more effort than that. There's a huge difference between that and the physical efforts you're comparing it to. "Meaningless bantz" isn't the biggest toxicity problem a community has to deal with.
And, again, a lot of people, having paid money to be somewhere, will loudly assert that this gives them the right to say whatever they want in that space. If you want to keep toxicity out, it needs to be an ongoing effort, and that requires active moderation right from the start.
The practical application is of slightly lesser concern as those parameters of application are easily changed and subjective to the needs and whatever is chosen can be what is pursued to be most effective. I suggested a low paywall as an example of the lowest possible bar one could set for entry as a starting point to set the philosophical concept with a real world application which is not unduly high or constrictive.
In my comments I am generally trying to point more to the philosophical premise which underlies it.
Any studio one users? I’m a pop producer wanting to move over to composing... wanted to build a temp also. Just don’t know how to approach it. Thanks in advance!
Alright so a question.
What i see a lot on different forums ( and youtube ). Is people discussing hardware. In this case computers.
What do you feel is ''enough'' in regard of specs? Even though i myself have a desktop rig, i love being able to take my laptop out and use travel time, on working on different cues etc.
I scored a documentary, with about 60-65 active virtual instruments, on my OLD macbook pro with only 8gb of ram. That took a lot of files management, and switching settings around.
Sadly Apple only makes the macbook pros up to 16gb ram, i would love to keep a very mobile setup, and i still have my desktop for the very big projects.
What i'm trying to get at is: How do you feel about hardware? What is enough?. Is it time do ditch mac for the mobile setup, and put together a slaughtering windows laptop. Or can those 16gb actually get you by, in most cases?
Have a nice day!
thanks, Christian. Another very useful video. Where is the first Andy Gray video referred to in his section? I can't find it on your feed or Spitfire's. Thanks.
Ok, I'll answer my own question. It is in the last template video linked above about 9:40 in. That's why i couldn't find it.
How about a simple invite only facebook group....
Simple clean and easy
Great content. Thanks, Christian. You've probably been asked this before, but I think this is kind of linked to the topic in terms of computer efficiency (Jesus, I sound like a tool): Can you advise on proper management of files on music computers? I run a late 2015 iMac, 4GHz i7, 16GB RAM with 500GB SSD with two external SSDs (a 500GB and a 1TB) - not the best but nothing crap either. The internal SSD has 160GB free. Recently, I've noticed Logic getting clunky without too much going on (specifically with a movie imported) and I'm wondering if you can advise on generic methods of how to clean up my system to make it run more smoothly as it used to run like a charm? I'm sure Google is my friend here, but the information can be conflicting.
1. Is it OK to fill up an external SSD or should you always leave headroom? If so, how much?
2. Same for the internal SSD - how much headroom?
3. Will increasing my RAM from 16 to 32GB make a tangible difference?
4. Will saving Logic projects on an external SSD keep the internal SSD running more quickly?
5. Does deleting detritus, wiping everything and starting from scratch make things run more smoothly? Google told me that once an SSD starts getting things saved on it, if you start deleting things and moving them around it begins to run more slowly. Noticeably?
5. What's your advice on backups and how do you do it? Are those Apple AirPort jammers worth it? Do you leave your system on 24hrs and let Time Capsule work it's magic overnight?
6. Can you tell I don't have a fucking clue and still sound like a tool?
Hope the snow thaws in Auld Reekie soon. Cheers.
...and a hub would be cool that allows you to give the boot to the fungal douches that appear to be growing on the VI Control forum.
Love this channel Christian, the whole vi control bluster about HZ strings is pretty disgusting. Pillaring Daniel James over a first look vid, wether you agree with him or not, is not good for Spitfire or our very tiny band of composers, all trying to get by.
Yeah I’ve not really responded to Dan, I got fucked off with a troll who put the SF team down but other than that I don’t interface with reviewers. They do their job and I do mine.
1. User Hub - Yes, this would be fantastic. I personally offer my services to be an Admin if that helps. It can be done, I’m a member of a few audio/mixing/producing Facebook groups that work very well. We have strict rules and zero tolerance for anti-social behaviour.
2. Mixing - Something that I’ve not been able to find an answer to. How much or to what level as composers are we supposed to mix? I understand that it varies from project to project, budget to budget, but it seems to me like we need to not only need to write but also be pro level producers these days.
To elaborate, perhaps you could share with us some of your wisdom on what you’re expected to deliver production wise for say an indie film vs a TV drama.
3. Templates - Thanks for all the good info. I will be reviewing/stealing a few ideas. I like to use the approach that Andy showed us, starting with an empty session and use Pro Tools track presets to populate it as needed.
Thanks! Keep up the good work!
Christian, check out OTR for Reaper, it does all of this right out of the box, plus its Reapers...so more power/less crashes etc. Watch the OTR Primer video on the main site. You can thank me later.
Hello! How do you get the track names to show up in the timeline?
HUGE fan of the channel!
Great info as always but I cannot for the life of me get an aux track to join the summing stack. Someone please tell me what I am missing. Watched both these videos over and over but drawing a blank. Wierdly I'm sure I've done it in the past but Logic won't have it now I am trying to build a new template along the lines Christian and Andy are suggesting. Help would be much appreciated.
The only way I can do it is at creation, so create a couple of soaftware instruments, an audio track maybe, and then do an AUX, then in mixer window highlight all of those and create summing stack from within that window....
Aah, Ive just followed your advice because that's what I thought I was doing and found this "feature" in Logic. Your suggested method does work but only if you do it from a particular drop down menu rather than the "ctrl-click" or main menu. If you do it via the mixer window menu it does work though which is where you do it from I assume (unless it is just me that is having this wierdness). Thank you Christian for the reply, the vlogs, everything about Spitfire and, of course, the terrific music.
Is that the lighting or did you color grade? Either way looks dope.
Have you lost weight Christian? Looking good!
Christian, I have an idea for the hub (maybe this, or something like it already exists; if so, I'm sure someone will inform us). Imagine if in a forum, you could only add comments as video, limited to say, 2 minutes maximum per posting, 1 posting per day. The loss of anonymity I think would cause people to lose the bravado that the internet otherwise affords them. Other forums have tried to do this by insisting on real names, but no one knows if people have provided a real name, and even if they have, it's still largely anonymous. Video is very identifiable. It would be ideal, because it would be inspired by your vlog, which is itself a man-to-camera conversation. The limited posting would prevent trolling, with endless, circular and repetitive discussions. You could then block IP addresses from users who made any attempt to conceal their identify (masks, hoods etc), or who abused the forum (requires moderation, but I imagine much less than the typical forum). It would be a true conversation between Spitfire and its customers. What do you and the people reading these comments think?
Lots of people are switching off (or just ignoring) the comments on TH-cam and instead setting up a dedicated subreddit for the TH-cam channel.
Really? But it looks so horrid..... how can people spend time in the internet equivalent of an airport lounge in Turkmenistan?
Maybe a Discord?
Thanks for doing these in 4K, it makes a huge difference. Christian, is Large Hall your go to Bricasti patch?
You mentioned that you are using the same template on your iMac Pro as well on your Macbook Pro when you are on the go. Don't you experience any performance issues?
I have a macbook Pro 3.1 GhZ and it can't barely keep up with 10 kontakt instruments.
Purge samples is the key... but you should have a look at your buffer settings, I have no probs running scores of Kontakts on a macbook pro.
Christian, I've watched this a few times in the past month or so together with the other vlogs you have made on templates. It is an excellent source of information - as your whole channel is - so thank you.
Can I ask whether you find you use your "template template" more often than your epic template? I am at the start of building what I hope will be my 'go to' for most work - although I like the approach Oliver suggested in the first of these vlogs (th-cam.com/video/YaPi9GxSqPw/w-d-xo.html) on having a couple of templates for general work, creative work, etc. I work in Cubase (PC user!) and have a one computer setup (16GB ram), so I'm trying to balance the convenience of having an all singing/dancing template with all instruments I have at my fingertips, with the practical limitations of what my current system can handle.
I would be interested in what approach others on this comments thread tend to take? A template template (infrastructure and general routing there but empty of instruments) or the epic template (all ready to go plus the kitchen sink)?
Thanks!
Alistair Brown kitchen sink is great to have if you’re coming to the rescue on a job and don’t have days at your disposal to build a project template. You will likely rely on your standard chops and work very much in HOD mode not composer mode so very much with your eye on delivering the minutes. You will work safe in the knowledge you’re not gonna win an Oscar. HOWEVER relying on a mister template for every job is a dangerous path to creative stagnation.
Should have watched the whole video haha... as they mention the patches...
Regarding a less transitory hub for placing videos and comments, I think any place that's open to postings from anyone can quickly get toxic. You'd be best off establishing and managing one that you could control. But wow, that's another huge time investment.
How can I reach you Christian? I have a number of great tips for the Mixer and general organisation when dealing with this kind of template! Thanks for the amazing vids, I've watched 96 out of 96
J x
Edit - I'll try reach you through VI-C, although I'm as allergic to that place as you it seems..
Sent you a message on VI-C mate
A discord group or a Subreddit would be good.
Discord doesn't work on OSX so seems like a non starter for us grumpy old Macintosh freaks...
Hey Lanners. There is a Discord channel called The Composers Network that I helped setup. It is a very supportive network of like minded composers / Musicians, that i'm sure you would enjoy! Here is the link if that helps. discord.gg/JDBAebv
Christian Henson Music actually discord works on OSX without problems :)
Can definitely confirm Discord works on OSX.
Can you speak about lattency? It would be interesting when a media composer uses multiple libraries. Good Day Mr Henson! Its a pleasure!
‘Urbane background’ lol that’s not what you mean
Are you going to let us Logic users have your Template?!?!
Sure!
It would be great to have that template to better understand and complement this video. Thanks for your amazing channel, invaluable source of knowledge and inspiration.
What mouse are you using?
Space grey one that comes with iMac
Without active moderation and clear rules for those moderators to follow, toxicity can creep in, and once it does, it grows. The Broken Windows Theory (briefly, that leaving windows broken tends to encourage more people to break windows) applies as much to online communities as it does to buildings. Curate your community well and it will be a lovely place. Assume it'll take care of itself, and it won't. Already the toxicity is creeping in in the comments here.
Yes, its not something I can undertake personally, but I'm enjoying looking at The Composer's Network on Discord. You're the second person to comment on toxicity on this channel and I'm not seeing it?
+1 for Discord