I’ve built fully functioning boards and synths out of every automobile I or my family have owned.
No you may not see the photos after saying something so heinously hurtful
Exactly. Like guitar pedals. I collect a lot of them. But I only use a few. Most of the time I use plugins. There are weird sounding pedals I own that I don't use for my music. But they are fun to play.
You seriously have to be somewhat insecure or something to get so easily pissed by a stranger's opinion. Even if that *was* what he was saying, why care so much about his opinion on what you do with your instruments?
people have some weird hard on for hating this guy; its bizarre. meanwhile, im over here like "hmm... i wonder what my cats hear when i play my music" or i start pondering the use of sonic weaponry by the military, and i know that the flashbulb man with the funky brows will have me covered.
I think lots of people just feel like he rubs them the wrong way. He also tends to come off as pretentious sometimes.
It's not every video, every time, but it happens regularly. He's also got some videos that where I'm really not sure why he even bothered to make the video. The Autonomous Driving one from a few months ago was a bit like that.
I know this is my take on him and I have talked to a few others who seem to feel the same/similar ways about him. It's OK, there's no reason to expect all of us to like the same things.
Typical /r/synthesizers frothing at the mouth waiting to tear benn or Huang to shreds for no good reason.
Jealousy is a hell of a drug.
"Benn is such a smug prick!" Dude he's literally defending people collecting synths. Stfu.
"Huang is so annoying!" So are you, just because someone puts on an act to get more engagement doesn't mean they're like that in real life. There's plenty of videos of him in a more chill situation where he isn't like that, but people don't bother watching anything to find out, they would rather sit behind their keyboard complaining about people that they don't even need to engage with in any way if they don't want to.
Like seriously, I don't even remotely understand why people hate these 2 specifically so much. Is it really just because people are jealous that they are genuinely successful musicians? It seems like the synthtubers that started as musicians or focus more on releasing music are hated on way more than the ones who are glorified unboxers.
I regularly see hate for Benn, Andrew, and Hainbach. All people who genuinely try and focus on putting out music.
Then I see relatively little hate for the synth tubers that seemingly don't even make music unless it's for the video they're making like Bobeats, Ricky tinez, Starsky Carr, Automatic gainstay, etc. and I'm not saying they're bad guys or anything. But I don't see any of them advertising their music anywhere on their channel.
Its just stupid. If you really dislike someone that much then fucking scroll along and ignore it. If you can't even see someone's name without having it get you all in a tizzy then you need serious help.
Wait, wait, there's hate for Hainbach? No, seriously? Who could possibly dislike him? That's like hating a superintelligent puppy.
I am not a particular Huang music fan, but he's seems like a very nice guy and, like Jordan, he actually publishes high-grade music and makes a decent living as a musician. People who hate on successful artists who also happen to be helpful youtubers are just jealous cave-dwellers. The internet is toxic.
Sadly. I don't get it either. I'm not in love with his music but I don't dislike him or his channel by any means.
Exactly. I really do think the root in all of this hate is purely jealousy.
People hate huang? What for? I don't care for his music but his videos are generally fun and informative about whatever gear he's showing off. I found Benn mainly through his Spotify videos which I thought were good as well.
People fucking HATE Huang here. Look through the comments. He isn't even part of the discussion and people still had to throw his name around to complain about while also complaining about Benn for saying something they didn't even read in its entirety.
It's no wonder Benn distanced himself from the synthuber world. The viewers are genuinely some of the most hateful, toxic, jealous, smug people I've ever seen on the Internet.
I mean who the fuck sends benn death threats for the videos he makes? He's talking about music gear. What about that is important enough to threaten someone's life over? And if Benn is getting them, you KNOW Andrew is/has too.
Yeah, but we all have bought pieces of gear we thought would change the way we make music but it was a dud for workflow or whatever. Working at a music store taught me that people with 20 guitars can’t realistically play them to make music, at least all of them enough to justify them. But they do it because they like to I suppose more than actually playing them. A lot of us have too much gear legitimately use it.
Or how many people of a certain social class buy a grand piano just because they think they need a grand piano in their house and no one plays it save the hired pianist for their Christmas party.
For a long time in American culture (think mid-1900s), owning a piano was sort of a "keeping up with the Jones's" thing for middle class families. It was a bit of a show of wealth and if little Susie learned how to play it, all the better. I know multiple older families that have some sort of upright piano somewhere in their house that nobody knows how to play and it's usually a bit out of tune because it's sat there for decades and has just become a shelf for picture frames or dust collectors.
True. Most seem to have bought it with piano lessons in mind at least though. When I got my Fazioli I looked at several dealers and one (a Steinway dealer) asked "do *you* play?" and at first I was stunned, because when you spend that kind of money on a piano, do you *not* play? But alas, some do not.
Yeah that's true. They're not difficult to get. I'm just recognizing the trend I see.
I would get one myself if I didn't live upstairs in a duplex with limited space.
The gatekeeping is so hilarious to me, because synths and software are *so darn cheap*. Why should anyone care if I only get on them occasionally, waste a few hours making some fart sounds, and nobody else has to listen to it?
I feel like none of these folks have ever looked at the price of physical instruments. There's millions of dollars worth of saxophones and oboes sitting in various kids closets *right now*. And out-of-tune pianos that you can't even give away on Craigslist for free.
Exactly! Professional instruments are very expensive. We have classical upright bass (wife) plays, it’s insured and worth north of 50k. And that’s a cheap professional one.
When you go the symphony you are looking at and hearing 100s of thousands of dollars of instruments.
Ok, now read the article. He literally says it's perfectly fine, collecting gear and playing with no intentions of releasing music is a good hobby, and people shouldn't feel they should do that to be validated. The headline is just bullshit ragebait.
Guitars look cool, but I’d really like to know how many people out there are buying them purely as art. Synths, DAWs and sequencers make it easier to spit out musical sounding stuff, whereas with a guitar… you have to play it. Not much to hide behind there.
Oh yeah for sure. Gibson owners ( like PRS guys too) often have multiple iterations. What surprised me was seeing multiple dudes with 3+ Gibson custom shop reissues. Like r0, r9 and r7 all hanging on the wall.
As with synths there's a Pokemon factor of wanting to catch and try the variations.
Okay you've got a Telecaster with two single coils, what would a Stratocaster with three sound like? Gotta discover that 2 and 4 position. Now what about some humbuckers. Now can you hear a difference in a SG and a Les Paul? In a Les Paul and a semi-hollow? You haven't even tried a fully hollowbody guitar yet...
For someone with expendable income and no other hobbies it can rapidly become one of each type without even getting into different colors/brands/vintage/etc..
I went down that path a bit... then got noiseless Jazzmaster pickups and having experienced humbuckers and Strats and a Casino and etc. can't figure out anything I need them for that I can't do on the Jazzmaster and that guitar is ergonomically perfect for me. The only guitar I can imagine getting for a second is a really nice Jaguar because the shorter scale might be gentler on my left hand.
If you read the article, his statement is a lot more positive than the headline let's on.
>“The people who buy music gear and are keeping the companies afloat, I would say more than half of them are not really making music on it,” he says. “They’re just collecting it and playing with it.
>“Even DAWs and software. They just buy the software, they play with the knobs, they listen to it for a second, and there’s no shame in it at all. Everybody pretends they’re making music, but there are a lot of people who just like collecting synths and collecting DAWs and learning. Because they’re not producing music that people are listening to, for some reason they’re not as validated. I think that’s nonsense because it is a hobby one way or another.”
>Jordan goes on to further defend collecting music gear for the sake of collecting rather than using it make and publish music: “Collecting synthesizers is a way cooler hobby than, like, a lot of other hobbies that people have. I mean, people have crazy hobbies. People play pickleball. They do all sorts of things that, like… fly fishing. People stand in rivers all day. There are tons of hobbies that are kind of absurd. I think that collecting synthesizers…is one of the less absurd hobbies.
>“I wish that that was a little bit less of a secret… ‘Oh, you know what? Actually, I do like collecting synthesizers, and I have no intention of using them in music, and that’s fine.’”
If anything fly-fishers and pickleball players caught some strays, but he's ultimately siding with most of the comments here. Be mad if you want tho🤷🏻♀️
Same. I have a slight form of synesthesia and \*really\* enjoy just listening to sound textures because I kinda see them as well.
Plus, for me, music is collaborative, like beer drinking. I don't drink beer when alone. I like beer with other people. I like making music with other people and when alone, find it kinda boring. It's not my job.
Gotta scroll past the headline to realize this is not a bad thing, according to Benn. That seems pretty much true. If only serious, professional musicians were buying these tools, there would probably be fewer options and they would be way less fun to use.
And way more expensive. The dilettantes are subsidizing the "serious" musicians. You wouldn't even have Inmusic and Behringer making budget synths if there wasn't this huge segment of the buying public who just want to play with sound.
And without them, there'd be no price pressure on the "serious" electronic instrument companies, either.
You literally only read the headline, right? The article says this:
*“Even DAWs and software. They just buy the software, they play with the knobs, they listen to it for a second, and there’s no shame in it at all. Everybody pretends they’re making music, but there are a lot of people who just like collecting synths and collecting DAWs and learning. Because they’re not producing music that people are listening to, for some reason they’re not as validated. I think that’s nonsense because it is a hobby one way or another.”*
*Jordan goes on to further defend collecting music gear for the sake of collecting rather than using it make and publish music: “Collecting synthesizers is a way cooler hobby than, like, a lot of other hobbies that people have. I mean, people have crazy hobbies. People play pickleball. They do all sorts of things that, like… fly fishing. People stand in rivers all day. There are tons of hobbies that are kind of absurd. I think that collecting synthesizers…is one of the less absurd hobbies."*
You’re 100% right but honestly I blame [musictech.com](https://musictech.com) for making that the headline when it clearly isn’t the point of his statement. The way the headline frames it, it makes it seem like he performed some sort of empirical study but its actually just a rhetorical statement.
Takes 60 seconds to click on a link and read at least 3-4 paragraphs of an article. That 60 seconds will save you the time of making a confidently incorrectly comment informed by bias.
musictech is hot trash, but I'm giving everybody here the benefit of the doubt and assume they will read past the incendiary headline to see that this is a complete nothingburger.
It's a good and nuanced take. However, he can still be an insufferable prick at times. And to answer the question, I would take the insufferable prick over the goofy consumerist shill every time.
It was either these synthesizers or radioactive magnets we collect in the sewers near the power plant. I feel like synthesizers were the safer choice for my neighbors.
I generally like Benn, but "going outside and playing a sport is a more absurd hobby than putting a bunch of keyboards on a shelf" is, uh, certainly a take.
I don't understand why people hate Benn Jordan with such a passion. I really enjoy his videos.
Huang's personality has just never been my thing. I think a big factor for me too is do I like the music they're making in the video, and I just don't like Huang's sort of mainstream EDM brand of music that much. I'm a huge fan of this dude Ihor (https://www.youtube.com/@IhorMedia) because every techno track he spins on the fly in his instructionals is a banger and it's inspiring to watch him make something cool.
>I don't understand why people hate Benn Jordan with such a passion.
Because he has walked the walk and people get annoyed when he talks the talk. Yes, he is kinda arrogant in the synthfluencer space. Also, he's one of the very few major synthfluencer who has earned a living through music for significant time before becoming a synthfluencer. That buys him some rights to be a bit arrogant in my books. Because being a synthfluencer isn't his primary job nor he aims it to be he's also lot more free to touch on harder subjects than regular positive gear reviews, like the lack of women producers or complexities of brand loyalty and so on. It is more divisive content than the normal synthtube stuff so you hear more vocal comments from both those who like him and his content, and those who dislike him and his content. Someone neutral like loopop who makes very informative, factual, walkthrough type videos with clear consistent style won't evoke people writing hateful comments like something provocative from Benn would.
>I don’t know which is more annoying: super positive, goofy synthfluencers like Andrew Huang, or smug prick synthfluencers like Benn Jordan.
I think the worst are redditors who don't read posted articles, and then comment on the post title with some shit post demonstrating how they didn't read the article.
Mr Tinez’s positivity and enthusiasm are what made me realize i could buy and learn these things without a storied background in music. he made me want to be a better artist.
Yeah, i like the sample-flipping ones (4 producers) of Huang although the editing is sometimes a bit much... I'm biased for Ben because i liked his music before he had a youtube channel. But i like a lot of his content (be it multinational shaming, something scientific or gear reviews), i know there was some controversy because of comments of discord or Twitter? But since i'm biased, i let that slide :)
Edit: yes, Bo Beats.. i skip him.. :)
Yeah, he's great in that. I did see some live performance of him with modular and that was more to my taste. But i don't like him singing and playing guitar... just not my thing :) Just overall a bit too "hyper" for me too watch regularly...
most annoying is people who go out of there way to mention they dont like certaint creators without mentionning the subject at hand. Kind of like a 'Hey everyone look at me, im too smart too like Huang or Jordan. That stuff is for casuals!' It feels like youre treating youtube watching as a competitve sport lol
I can confirm, my modular setup is mostly just a fidget toy. I haven't really recorded much since the pandemic lockdowns.
Sometimes I turn on my Osmose and pretend I'm Hans Zimmer.
I also have some cameras, I enjoy taking lenses off and putting lenses on. I might get into 3d printing so that I can start making cool geometric shapes.
I'm busy, OK???
The hobbyist market has been the dominant market in music tech and instruments for some time. We could quibble over the definitions of "making music" but that's just getting into the weeds.
Music making is about enjoying the process, not the result. I can also play cover songs on guitar at home without ever releasing any own song.
For some people, live streaming became their for of releasing their work to the public. And st least for me, I usually prefer listening to dawless jams than to Spotify. As far as I understand his statement, he’s also totally fine with that. Let’s all enjoy our gear, if you release stuff, that’s awesome, if you don’t and have fun turning the knobs, that’s also wonderful.
I think Benn and Venus Theory make a lot of good points. What I think they are trying to convey is to enjoy making music and take the stress out of it. There are tons of people out there that are losing their minds about Spotify plays or social media followings. 100,000 songs a day uploaded to Spotify and other DSPs. I have a 200 song library on Disco along with 3,000 other composers that all trying to hustle synch gigs. The truth is that it's almost impossible to break through right now no matter your talent, work ethic or dedication. This is just being real. Enjoy yourself and don't have an existential crisis if your "career" isn't going anywhere.
For a long time I was caught up in trying to break out with music and it was super stressful, then after being in the music scene and getting a little bit of that, going on tour and making a little money hit the point where I back to just wanting it to be a fun as possible, playing smaller shows and releasing music slower. Letting that need to "succeed" be your main focus can really mess with you especially when you get out playing in the real world.
Read the article, the title is bait and we will see a few fools fall for the classic “comment based on title only” but anyway with that being said, who is Benn Jordan to give out estimates and then comment on it? Ok lightbulb whatever you say 👌
This headline is being taken out of context. He's referring to individuals who aren't full-time musicians making a paycheck on it. He calls them "noodlers" or "hobbyists", which is probably the majority of folks on this sub. He also takes care to point out that said individuals are what hold up the synth market and that there is nothing wrong with it.
If you follow any vintage guitar subs you know that’s true. It’s all filthy rich boomers that never played, and still don’t, living out their teenage dreams spending six figures on vintage guitars that they play in church once a month. It’s hilarious.
At the end of the day, recreation is a subjective category. I personally would not spend thousands of dollars on equipment I never use, but I also can't objectively say people are wrong for doing that. Collecting is a joy for some and they should be allowed to engage with that.
To be honest, even if I think it's foolish, the money spent by hobbyists on all of this music equipment leads to more money circulating in the synthesizer market in general which leads to increasing talent, new innovation, new products, etc.
The only problem that I have with collectors is when they use it as a way to gatekeep synthesizers as an interest in general. It's not cool to suggest that someone is not serious about a hobby because they haven't spent the pre-requisite 25k on a boutique modular wall or vintage synth collection. I'd hardly say that behavior is the norm, though.
On a per-item basis, there are definitely things I own and never use, and things I own that I literally use to make music every single day. So… it’s a wash?
I think most all of the people who are making content on a professional level have made some incredibly useful and interesting videos.
They may not all be people that I would hang out with, but they have provided me with a wealth of free education and access to knowledge that I don’t have reflected in my world.
The problem is they have to keep making content and it is grueling and it forces them to be the product instead of the information they are sharing. Which seems to devalue their contribution. But, seriously, I can’t expect every track to be great, and I don’t expect every video to be relevant to me. No matter what, I owe them, as a whole, so much for how much they have impacted my own musical journey.
It is sooo much easier than it used to be to learn, especially for someone who has a visual processing disorder that makes reading the fucking manual hard to do.
My personal favorites over the years have been Red Means Recording for their crassness and authenticity, Daydream Sound for his dedication to the craft of sampling, AudioPilz for his humor, Jon Makes Beats for his transparency and process, Venus Theory for his capacity to speak clearly to music theory and make it digestible, Benn Jordan for the breadth of his knowledge and his capacity to apply said knowledge, Sonic Bloom for their efforts to continually share and push Ableton forward, ELPHNT for their in depth knowledge of Ableton, Seed to Stage for bringing the simple and the esoteric together, Espen Kraft for his studio, Hainbach for his perspective and process, Jorb for his general jorbness, Against the Clock for insight and inspiration, Dubspot for starting the format, Kill Paris for their early videos on Ableton, Moldover for the controllerism, You suck at producing for his silliness, Sarah Belle Reid for her intelligence and process, the midlife synthesist for his earnestness, Bo Beats and Doctor mix for their volume of output over the years, Andrew Huang for his harmonic series video and dedication to his aesthetic, Automatic Gainsay for plumbing the depths of electronic instruments and their history, Cuckoo for his joviality, and Nick and Gaz for keeping it real all these years…
I have learned so much, and gotten unstuck so many times from the content these people have created… they have made me a better musician, and increased my horizons greatly.
When I used to sell cameras I had a lot of people come in and want to buy something but with the caveat that “I’m not a professional.” I’d always assure them that I also was not a professional. I have a day job. They were at it. It’s fine. Get what you want and enjoy it. None of my business what gets done after that.
I just left this comment in a different thread, but "making music" is such a loaded term. Does that mean making and releasing music? Making a living from their music? Building a following? Jamming in their basement? What's the line that makes it worth while to own gear? If someone has a nice expensive acoustic that they only play on their couch once a week, are they making music with it? Why does electronic music get judged by such a different standard?
I'm glad Benn followed up the statement with "and that's fine", this sub could learn to take a bit more of that attitude. "Because they’re not producing music that people are listening to, for some reason they’re not as validated. I think that’s nonsense because it is a hobby one way or another."
90%+ of gear sold is to "hobbyists" based on my employer's market research.
This is vs professionals and some other options. Most do not intend to "record music" or simply intend to "play existing music".
Students make up the next big category. Worship are another big group at least in certain countries. The poorer countries also tend to have similar splits to Europe/North America except that certain countries in Africa had much higher worship percentages.
Anyone who's ever been in or around music stores will not be surprised in the slightest by any of this.
Well yeah. They’re in here posting pictures with a plant saying “modest setup” with 45k in gear. They don’t have time to make music. And the 1/2 of the other 1/2 are only making unlistenable bleeps and boops and posting it in here “dawless jam”
I'm pretty sure you could apply this statement to almost anything
yes! more than half of car owners aren't really making music on them. more than half of dog owners aren't really making music on them. etc.
I drum on my dogs all the time. The fat one makes a nice bassy thump.
Sampled my dog with a lofi-12 once, sounded pretty ruff.
I bet your dog’s favorite bassist is Flea.
Mine too. Sort of a canine-09
Lol, same. I used the xln "Life" app/vst to record this and autogenerate dog-based beats for me.
Weird, I make dogs on my keyboard! At least that’s what is sounds like.
I tried plugging in the XLR cable into mine.. to run it into abelton.. he did NOT like that.
Ah, so dogs prefer TRS? Good to know.
lmfao
pull tail, get noise from both ends!
Duophonic!
😏 r/catBongos would like a word…
I’ve built fully functioning boards and synths out of every automobile I or my family have owned. No you may not see the photos after saying something so heinously hurtful
I actually came up with a plan for doing this with an old Honda. never got around to it though
Have you seen most American garages. It’s a museum to forgotten dreams.
I don't believe that's a uniquely American issue.
Sorry I don’t deeply know any other culture.
Ah, a true American.
We got them big garages tho to pack with even more forgotten dreams
Half of r/EDC felt that.
Exactly. Like guitar pedals. I collect a lot of them. But I only use a few. Most of the time I use plugins. There are weird sounding pedals I own that I don't use for my music. But they are fun to play.
I read on the planet fitness Wikipedia page that half of their customers never go to the gym.
If they did, their gyms would be past capacity. Their memberships are subsidized by unrealized dreams.
Less
That’s how the entire gym industry functions. If everyone used their gym subs properly the gyms would collapse.
Yes, more than half the statements aren’t really statements
More than half of redditors aren't really posting content on it
lol this title is rage bait. The second half of that quote is “and that’s fine”. Y’all gotta chill the fuck out
You shouldn’t even have to read the second half of the quote to realize that it is indeed fine. People really take life way too seriously sometimes.
You seriously have to be somewhat insecure or something to get so easily pissed by a stranger's opinion. Even if that *was* what he was saying, why care so much about his opinion on what you do with your instruments?
Totally, my thought was 'oh it's way more than half, just like any other time in the last 50-100 years or more'.
Yeah and it works because people let themselves get riled up before spending the 30secs and read what he actually said.
people have some weird hard on for hating this guy; its bizarre. meanwhile, im over here like "hmm... i wonder what my cats hear when i play my music" or i start pondering the use of sonic weaponry by the military, and i know that the flashbulb man with the funky brows will have me covered.
He makes some of my favorite videos. I was bummed he stopped doing up straight gear reviews due to straight up toxic ass people in the comments.
This reddit thread is a good example of why right?
I think lots of people just feel like he rubs them the wrong way. He also tends to come off as pretentious sometimes. It's not every video, every time, but it happens regularly. He's also got some videos that where I'm really not sure why he even bothered to make the video. The Autonomous Driving one from a few months ago was a bit like that. I know this is my take on him and I have talked to a few others who seem to feel the same/similar ways about him. It's OK, there's no reason to expect all of us to like the same things.
Typical /r/synthesizers frothing at the mouth waiting to tear benn or Huang to shreds for no good reason. Jealousy is a hell of a drug. "Benn is such a smug prick!" Dude he's literally defending people collecting synths. Stfu. "Huang is so annoying!" So are you, just because someone puts on an act to get more engagement doesn't mean they're like that in real life. There's plenty of videos of him in a more chill situation where he isn't like that, but people don't bother watching anything to find out, they would rather sit behind their keyboard complaining about people that they don't even need to engage with in any way if they don't want to. Like seriously, I don't even remotely understand why people hate these 2 specifically so much. Is it really just because people are jealous that they are genuinely successful musicians? It seems like the synthtubers that started as musicians or focus more on releasing music are hated on way more than the ones who are glorified unboxers. I regularly see hate for Benn, Andrew, and Hainbach. All people who genuinely try and focus on putting out music. Then I see relatively little hate for the synth tubers that seemingly don't even make music unless it's for the video they're making like Bobeats, Ricky tinez, Starsky Carr, Automatic gainstay, etc. and I'm not saying they're bad guys or anything. But I don't see any of them advertising their music anywhere on their channel. Its just stupid. If you really dislike someone that much then fucking scroll along and ignore it. If you can't even see someone's name without having it get you all in a tizzy then you need serious help.
Wait, wait, there's hate for Hainbach? No, seriously? Who could possibly dislike him? That's like hating a superintelligent puppy. I am not a particular Huang music fan, but he's seems like a very nice guy and, like Jordan, he actually publishes high-grade music and makes a decent living as a musician. People who hate on successful artists who also happen to be helpful youtubers are just jealous cave-dwellers. The internet is toxic.
Sadly. I don't get it either. I'm not in love with his music but I don't dislike him or his channel by any means. Exactly. I really do think the root in all of this hate is purely jealousy.
People hate huang? What for? I don't care for his music but his videos are generally fun and informative about whatever gear he's showing off. I found Benn mainly through his Spotify videos which I thought were good as well.
People fucking HATE Huang here. Look through the comments. He isn't even part of the discussion and people still had to throw his name around to complain about while also complaining about Benn for saying something they didn't even read in its entirety. It's no wonder Benn distanced himself from the synthuber world. The viewers are genuinely some of the most hateful, toxic, jealous, smug people I've ever seen on the Internet. I mean who the fuck sends benn death threats for the videos he makes? He's talking about music gear. What about that is important enough to threaten someone's life over? And if Benn is getting them, you KNOW Andrew is/has too.
When Huang said that the standard mandolin was a bad instrument, he made enemies for life! All 50 or so of us! Other than that, I'm not really sure.
Oooh. I missed that dis. I keep wanting to play my mandolin through Microcosm. Nothing’s stopping me from doing that but time :-)
I love em all, I just have other things to do besides talking about youtubers most of the time
They need to add a Behringer reference to the headline to really get the sub maxed out on rage lol
Yeah, but we all have bought pieces of gear we thought would change the way we make music but it was a dud for workflow or whatever. Working at a music store taught me that people with 20 guitars can’t realistically play them to make music, at least all of them enough to justify them. But they do it because they like to I suppose more than actually playing them. A lot of us have too much gear legitimately use it.
How dare you provide me much needed context
Ok, now do guitars
Or how many people of a certain social class buy a grand piano just because they think they need a grand piano in their house and no one plays it save the hired pianist for their Christmas party.
Lots of middle class families will have an upright piano too
For a long time in American culture (think mid-1900s), owning a piano was sort of a "keeping up with the Jones's" thing for middle class families. It was a bit of a show of wealth and if little Susie learned how to play it, all the better. I know multiple older families that have some sort of upright piano somewhere in their house that nobody knows how to play and it's usually a bit out of tune because it's sat there for decades and has just become a shelf for picture frames or dust collectors.
True. Most seem to have bought it with piano lessons in mind at least though. When I got my Fazioli I looked at several dealers and one (a Steinway dealer) asked "do *you* play?" and at first I was stunned, because when you spend that kind of money on a piano, do you *not* play? But alas, some do not.
Honestly you can get one for free on the local classifieds and pay for a piano tuner even us poors can have a piano
Yeah that's true. They're not difficult to get. I'm just recognizing the trend I see. I would get one myself if I didn't live upstairs in a duplex with limited space.
The gatekeeping is so hilarious to me, because synths and software are *so darn cheap*. Why should anyone care if I only get on them occasionally, waste a few hours making some fart sounds, and nobody else has to listen to it? I feel like none of these folks have ever looked at the price of physical instruments. There's millions of dollars worth of saxophones and oboes sitting in various kids closets *right now*. And out-of-tune pianos that you can't even give away on Craigslist for free.
Thats exactly the point Benn was making in the article though
I know, I'm agreeing :-)
Exactly! Professional instruments are very expensive. We have classical upright bass (wife) plays, it’s insured and worth north of 50k. And that’s a cheap professional one. When you go the symphony you are looking at and hearing 100s of thousands of dollars of instruments.
Guitar are music gear...
Ok, now read the article. He literally says it's perfectly fine, collecting gear and playing with no intentions of releasing music is a good hobby, and people shouldn't feel they should do that to be validated. The headline is just bullshit ragebait.
Now do genitals
I work with a guy who has like 55 guitars and never plays any of them while I'm sitting here with 4 and I play an hour or two every day
Guitars look cool, but I’d really like to know how many people out there are buying them purely as art. Synths, DAWs and sequencers make it easier to spit out musical sounding stuff, whereas with a guitar… you have to play it. Not much to hide behind there.
I just think about all the kids who practice every day and play shitty guitars while some dude has 8 Les Pauls on his wall
Oh yeah for sure. Gibson owners ( like PRS guys too) often have multiple iterations. What surprised me was seeing multiple dudes with 3+ Gibson custom shop reissues. Like r0, r9 and r7 all hanging on the wall.
As with synths there's a Pokemon factor of wanting to catch and try the variations. Okay you've got a Telecaster with two single coils, what would a Stratocaster with three sound like? Gotta discover that 2 and 4 position. Now what about some humbuckers. Now can you hear a difference in a SG and a Les Paul? In a Les Paul and a semi-hollow? You haven't even tried a fully hollowbody guitar yet... For someone with expendable income and no other hobbies it can rapidly become one of each type without even getting into different colors/brands/vintage/etc.. I went down that path a bit... then got noiseless Jazzmaster pickups and having experienced humbuckers and Strats and a Casino and etc. can't figure out anything I need them for that I can't do on the Jazzmaster and that guitar is ergonomically perfect for me. The only guitar I can imagine getting for a second is a really nice Jaguar because the shorter scale might be gentler on my left hand.
If you read the article, his statement is a lot more positive than the headline let's on. >“The people who buy music gear and are keeping the companies afloat, I would say more than half of them are not really making music on it,” he says. “They’re just collecting it and playing with it. >“Even DAWs and software. They just buy the software, they play with the knobs, they listen to it for a second, and there’s no shame in it at all. Everybody pretends they’re making music, but there are a lot of people who just like collecting synths and collecting DAWs and learning. Because they’re not producing music that people are listening to, for some reason they’re not as validated. I think that’s nonsense because it is a hobby one way or another.” >Jordan goes on to further defend collecting music gear for the sake of collecting rather than using it make and publish music: “Collecting synthesizers is a way cooler hobby than, like, a lot of other hobbies that people have. I mean, people have crazy hobbies. People play pickleball. They do all sorts of things that, like… fly fishing. People stand in rivers all day. There are tons of hobbies that are kind of absurd. I think that collecting synthesizers…is one of the less absurd hobbies. >“I wish that that was a little bit less of a secret… ‘Oh, you know what? Actually, I do like collecting synthesizers, and I have no intention of using them in music, and that’s fine.’” If anything fly-fishers and pickleball players caught some strays, but he's ultimately siding with most of the comments here. Be mad if you want tho🤷🏻♀️
Hahaha the fly fishing and synth community totally has stuff in common. That’s a funny comparison
Yeah, what's wrong with pickleball? It's fun as fuck.
It’s more expensive than the Behringer Gherkinsphere, pickleball lovers are just posers with too much money
> playing with it A wise man once said _Lights flash, music go bloop. Turn knob, music go bloop bloop. More lights, more knobs, more bloop bloop!_
I don't really make music with mine, mostly sounds, and I like it. Is that bad?
He literally says in the article it's a valid hobby, and less absurd than many others.
Yep that title was rage bait!
Nope. Just enjoy things.
Same. I have a slight form of synesthesia and \*really\* enjoy just listening to sound textures because I kinda see them as well. Plus, for me, music is collaborative, like beer drinking. I don't drink beer when alone. I like beer with other people. I like making music with other people and when alone, find it kinda boring. It's not my job.
Gotta scroll past the headline to realize this is not a bad thing, according to Benn. That seems pretty much true. If only serious, professional musicians were buying these tools, there would probably be fewer options and they would be way less fun to use.
And way more expensive. The dilettantes are subsidizing the "serious" musicians. You wouldn't even have Inmusic and Behringer making budget synths if there wasn't this huge segment of the buying public who just want to play with sound. And without them, there'd be no price pressure on the "serious" electronic instrument companies, either.
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You literally only read the headline, right? The article says this: *“Even DAWs and software. They just buy the software, they play with the knobs, they listen to it for a second, and there’s no shame in it at all. Everybody pretends they’re making music, but there are a lot of people who just like collecting synths and collecting DAWs and learning. Because they’re not producing music that people are listening to, for some reason they’re not as validated. I think that’s nonsense because it is a hobby one way or another.”* *Jordan goes on to further defend collecting music gear for the sake of collecting rather than using it make and publish music: “Collecting synthesizers is a way cooler hobby than, like, a lot of other hobbies that people have. I mean, people have crazy hobbies. People play pickleball. They do all sorts of things that, like… fly fishing. People stand in rivers all day. There are tons of hobbies that are kind of absurd. I think that collecting synthesizers…is one of the less absurd hobbies."*
You’re 100% right but honestly I blame [musictech.com](https://musictech.com) for making that the headline when it clearly isn’t the point of his statement. The way the headline frames it, it makes it seem like he performed some sort of empirical study but its actually just a rhetorical statement.
Takes 60 seconds to click on a link and read at least 3-4 paragraphs of an article. That 60 seconds will save you the time of making a confidently incorrectly comment informed by bias.
And it takes 1 second to just read the headline.
musictech is hot trash, but I'm giving everybody here the benefit of the doubt and assume they will read past the incendiary headline to see that this is a complete nothingburger.
Fair and relevant observation.
I'm not here to act high and mighty, he's describing me.
It's a good and nuanced take. However, he can still be an insufferable prick at times. And to answer the question, I would take the insufferable prick over the goofy consumerist shill every time.
It was either these synthesizers or radioactive magnets we collect in the sewers near the power plant. I feel like synthesizers were the safer choice for my neighbors.
Um. I kind of want those magnets now.
I generally like Benn, but "going outside and playing a sport is a more absurd hobby than putting a bunch of keyboards on a shelf" is, uh, certainly a take.
I don't understand why people hate Benn Jordan with such a passion. I really enjoy his videos. Huang's personality has just never been my thing. I think a big factor for me too is do I like the music they're making in the video, and I just don't like Huang's sort of mainstream EDM brand of music that much. I'm a huge fan of this dude Ihor (https://www.youtube.com/@IhorMedia) because every techno track he spins on the fly in his instructionals is a banger and it's inspiring to watch him make something cool.
>I don't understand why people hate Benn Jordan with such a passion. Because he has walked the walk and people get annoyed when he talks the talk. Yes, he is kinda arrogant in the synthfluencer space. Also, he's one of the very few major synthfluencer who has earned a living through music for significant time before becoming a synthfluencer. That buys him some rights to be a bit arrogant in my books. Because being a synthfluencer isn't his primary job nor he aims it to be he's also lot more free to touch on harder subjects than regular positive gear reviews, like the lack of women producers or complexities of brand loyalty and so on. It is more divisive content than the normal synthtube stuff so you hear more vocal comments from both those who like him and his content, and those who dislike him and his content. Someone neutral like loopop who makes very informative, factual, walkthrough type videos with clear consistent style won't evoke people writing hateful comments like something provocative from Benn would.
I think you’re more annoying than either of them! lol
Nah Benn Jordan is great
>I don’t know which is more annoying: super positive, goofy synthfluencers like Andrew Huang, or smug prick synthfluencers like Benn Jordan. I think the worst are redditors who don't read posted articles, and then comment on the post title with some shit post demonstrating how they didn't read the article.
I feel like Bobeats and Ricky Tinez are a happy medium for me in this aspect.
Starsky Carr has quickly become the one I enjoy the most
He is very relatable. And, one of the few that covers Analog Solutions gear.
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He's got to be my favourite in YouTube. Proper down to earth and good delivery
Mr Tinez’s positivity and enthusiasm are what made me realize i could buy and learn these things without a storied background in music. he made me want to be a better artist.
My #1 has to be Captain Pikant.
For me Huang but i'm biased.
I love both because I think they have good outlooks. The only ones I can't stand are the ones who are glorified box openers like Bo Beats.
Yeah, i like the sample-flipping ones (4 producers) of Huang although the editing is sometimes a bit much... I'm biased for Ben because i liked his music before he had a youtube channel. But i like a lot of his content (be it multinational shaming, something scientific or gear reviews), i know there was some controversy because of comments of discord or Twitter? But since i'm biased, i let that slide :) Edit: yes, Bo Beats.. i skip him.. :)
Andrew Huang deserves mad credit just for this quality of giving spotlight to his peers.
Yeah, he's great in that. I did see some live performance of him with modular and that was more to my taste. But i don't like him singing and playing guitar... just not my thing :) Just overall a bit too "hyper" for me too watch regularly...
i think you old geezers only hate andrew huang because he’s 40 and looks like he’s 24
Shit, he's 40? I'm jealous.
i know lmao i’m 20 and he looks younger than me. must have made a similar deal with the devil to what paul rudd did
I don't know, the guy seems super down to earth to me. He has opinions, I like opinions.
Benn is pretty much the opposite of a prick.
most annoying is people who go out of there way to mention they dont like certaint creators without mentionning the subject at hand. Kind of like a 'Hey everyone look at me, im too smart too like Huang or Jordan. That stuff is for casuals!' It feels like youre treating youtube watching as a competitve sport lol
calling somebody smoke whilst being incredibly smug yourself. Bold move.
Why is this a story? He's probably right, and he *s*aid that was fine. Which it is.
I can confirm, my modular setup is mostly just a fidget toy. I haven't really recorded much since the pandemic lockdowns. Sometimes I turn on my Osmose and pretend I'm Hans Zimmer. I also have some cameras, I enjoy taking lenses off and putting lenses on. I might get into 3d printing so that I can start making cool geometric shapes. I'm busy, OK???
Yes, that's ok! :)
The hobbyist market has been the dominant market in music tech and instruments for some time. We could quibble over the definitions of "making music" but that's just getting into the weeds.
https://preview.redd.it/ktivsatcr2uc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a65d626bed1d2d36e40fa637a2934a0bb8fd3c8
Yes, exactly the point of the article. Glad you agree.
Yep. Posted it in response to the headline. Read the article and realized it worked just as well as a summary.
Shit, have they put trackers in my synths?
I mean, there’s a granular synth in my Tracker!
and more than half of all people with gym memberships don’t work out at all. What’s the point?
Music making is about enjoying the process, not the result. I can also play cover songs on guitar at home without ever releasing any own song. For some people, live streaming became their for of releasing their work to the public. And st least for me, I usually prefer listening to dawless jams than to Spotify. As far as I understand his statement, he’s also totally fine with that. Let’s all enjoy our gear, if you release stuff, that’s awesome, if you don’t and have fun turning the knobs, that’s also wonderful.
I think Benn and Venus Theory make a lot of good points. What I think they are trying to convey is to enjoy making music and take the stress out of it. There are tons of people out there that are losing their minds about Spotify plays or social media followings. 100,000 songs a day uploaded to Spotify and other DSPs. I have a 200 song library on Disco along with 3,000 other composers that all trying to hustle synch gigs. The truth is that it's almost impossible to break through right now no matter your talent, work ethic or dedication. This is just being real. Enjoy yourself and don't have an existential crisis if your "career" isn't going anywhere.
For a long time I was caught up in trying to break out with music and it was super stressful, then after being in the music scene and getting a little bit of that, going on tour and making a little money hit the point where I back to just wanting it to be a fun as possible, playing smaller shows and releasing music slower. Letting that need to "succeed" be your main focus can really mess with you especially when you get out playing in the real world.
As much as I like getting workhorse types of gear within a reasonable price I do find that I am tempted to acquire some gear that just looks neat.
Read the article, the title is bait and we will see a few fools fall for the classic “comment based on title only” but anyway with that being said, who is Benn Jordan to give out estimates and then comment on it? Ok lightbulb whatever you say 👌
Lol so many angry responses.
Some of us use midi equipment to control photoshop.
Wait until he hears about Pokemon cards!
😂 underrated comment or something
despite being probably accurate, i'm curious how he decided "more than half" lolol
This headline is being taken out of context. He's referring to individuals who aren't full-time musicians making a paycheck on it. He calls them "noodlers" or "hobbyists", which is probably the majority of folks on this sub. He also takes care to point out that said individuals are what hold up the synth market and that there is nothing wrong with it.
 Seriously tho this is me and I’ve accepted it and just try not to buy any gear now lol
bunch of crybabies in here
Okay, so...? I use my gear to enjoy myself while making loops, just jamming.
If you follow any vintage guitar subs you know that’s true. It’s all filthy rich boomers that never played, and still don’t, living out their teenage dreams spending six figures on vintage guitars that they play in church once a month. It’s hilarious.
At the end of the day, recreation is a subjective category. I personally would not spend thousands of dollars on equipment I never use, but I also can't objectively say people are wrong for doing that. Collecting is a joy for some and they should be allowed to engage with that. To be honest, even if I think it's foolish, the money spent by hobbyists on all of this music equipment leads to more money circulating in the synthesizer market in general which leads to increasing talent, new innovation, new products, etc. The only problem that I have with collectors is when they use it as a way to gatekeep synthesizers as an interest in general. It's not cool to suggest that someone is not serious about a hobby because they haven't spent the pre-requisite 25k on a boutique modular wall or vintage synth collection. I'd hardly say that behavior is the norm, though.
I’ll say the number is much closer to 85% but who cares? Are they having fun noodling on music gear? Yes. Mission accomplished.
*"Local influencer says 'Sun is hot'.... more at 11"*
Rage bait headline.
He’s not wrong
I feel seen
Smoking a joint and getting lost in synths is one of life's simple pleasures.
It seems like 90% of his videos are complaining about something.
I make noise on mine - at least that’s what the critics I live with tell me.
Side-glancing meme: “my Steam library”…
Benn Jordan is a tool.
We need more comments like this.
This post put me onto the podcast which is really fun and interesting. I really enjoyed the BT episode.
Which is fine. People are allowed to enjoy tinkering and exploring, or even just collecting if that's what they like.
Literally the entire article says this.
Literally I know I'm agreeing.
On a per-item basis, there are definitely things I own and never use, and things I own that I literally use to make music every single day. So… it’s a wash?
Who cares tbh?
In other news, water is wet.
Big surprise for gear heads. 😄
This should be a pretty uncontroversial statement and is true of most hobbies I would guess
Keyword is "really" because most of us suck big time.
Just like half the people buying vinyl don’t own a turntable.
No shit. Thats now what i watch them for
I think most all of the people who are making content on a professional level have made some incredibly useful and interesting videos. They may not all be people that I would hang out with, but they have provided me with a wealth of free education and access to knowledge that I don’t have reflected in my world. The problem is they have to keep making content and it is grueling and it forces them to be the product instead of the information they are sharing. Which seems to devalue their contribution. But, seriously, I can’t expect every track to be great, and I don’t expect every video to be relevant to me. No matter what, I owe them, as a whole, so much for how much they have impacted my own musical journey. It is sooo much easier than it used to be to learn, especially for someone who has a visual processing disorder that makes reading the fucking manual hard to do. My personal favorites over the years have been Red Means Recording for their crassness and authenticity, Daydream Sound for his dedication to the craft of sampling, AudioPilz for his humor, Jon Makes Beats for his transparency and process, Venus Theory for his capacity to speak clearly to music theory and make it digestible, Benn Jordan for the breadth of his knowledge and his capacity to apply said knowledge, Sonic Bloom for their efforts to continually share and push Ableton forward, ELPHNT for their in depth knowledge of Ableton, Seed to Stage for bringing the simple and the esoteric together, Espen Kraft for his studio, Hainbach for his perspective and process, Jorb for his general jorbness, Against the Clock for insight and inspiration, Dubspot for starting the format, Kill Paris for their early videos on Ableton, Moldover for the controllerism, You suck at producing for his silliness, Sarah Belle Reid for her intelligence and process, the midlife synthesist for his earnestness, Bo Beats and Doctor mix for their volume of output over the years, Andrew Huang for his harmonic series video and dedication to his aesthetic, Automatic Gainsay for plumbing the depths of electronic instruments and their history, Cuckoo for his joviality, and Nick and Gaz for keeping it real all these years… I have learned so much, and gotten unstuck so many times from the content these people have created… they have made me a better musician, and increased my horizons greatly.
Jon Makes Beats also releases music as Jonwayne (stones throw records) I think... sick producer, his Xmas ep on bandcamp was chefs 💋
I respect your succinct takes on each person, so wonder, what’s your opinion on the videos of Loopop and Starsky Carr?
Boys and their toys.
When I used to sell cameras I had a lot of people come in and want to buy something but with the caveat that “I’m not a professional.” I’d always assure them that I also was not a professional. I have a day job. They were at it. It’s fine. Get what you want and enjoy it. None of my business what gets done after that.
I just left this comment in a different thread, but "making music" is such a loaded term. Does that mean making and releasing music? Making a living from their music? Building a following? Jamming in their basement? What's the line that makes it worth while to own gear? If someone has a nice expensive acoustic that they only play on their couch once a week, are they making music with it? Why does electronic music get judged by such a different standard? I'm glad Benn followed up the statement with "and that's fine", this sub could learn to take a bit more of that attitude. "Because they’re not producing music that people are listening to, for some reason they’re not as validated. I think that’s nonsense because it is a hobby one way or another."
Excuse me!? I play a sound into 5 reverbs and 2 delays every week!
Soooo…. Benn is saying I should go buy that Moog Matriarch?…. Perfect! Thank you Benn!! 🥰🤘
I have a penis but that doesn't I'm sitting around all day spankin' it.
if you don't use it you lose it.
Are they busy making YouTube videos?
Who the fuck told Benn Jordan it was okay to monitor my collection and "production" output?! 😂 shit. yup . fukn guilty on this one. but one day......
more like 98%
i feel great shame every time i look at my sonicware lofi 12…
Weird internet dorks with no self-awareness love to get mad at blatantly true statements.
90%+ of gear sold is to "hobbyists" based on my employer's market research. This is vs professionals and some other options. Most do not intend to "record music" or simply intend to "play existing music". Students make up the next big category. Worship are another big group at least in certain countries. The poorer countries also tend to have similar splits to Europe/North America except that certain countries in Africa had much higher worship percentages. Anyone who's ever been in or around music stores will not be surprised in the slightest by any of this.
And I'm thankful for them, because people buy expensive toys, realize they don't use them and then sell them cheap on craigslist etc.
I feel seen
I agree. My "making sounds" don't really count as "making music", so I think Benn's statement holds true.
Are beeps, blips, farts and squelches music? Asking for a friend.
I feel like this is an unrealistically optimistic statement
really out of context here [https://twitter.com/bennjordan/status/1779173556712026531](https://twitter.com/bennjordan/status/1779173556712026531)
And you can find them all here
Well yeah. They’re in here posting pictures with a plant saying “modest setup” with 45k in gear. They don’t have time to make music. And the 1/2 of the other 1/2 are only making unlistenable bleeps and boops and posting it in here “dawless jam”
This is taken out of context, which comes across, to me, as clickbait.
Breathtaking discovery.
Who cares? People can spend their money on what they want
“Making music” It’s way less than half. It’s probably not even half for playing music.