Listening your own noise

[Euro Trash Bazooka]

I keep copies and masters of everything I do. I can't even bring myself to record on tapes of shitty band practices recorded on boomboxes and stuff like that. And I often listen to most of them because I obviously make great music (otherwise why would I bother recording it and putting out most of it, right?

[junkyardshaman]

I never keep myself any copies of anything, if somebody wants them, I sell them, but most stuff I have also put on bandcamp so I occasionally go through some of them. I do not "aim to improve" or anything like that. I don't care at all about whether "I am good" or not, it is always a matter of perspective and completely irrelevant. To me they are all captured states of consciousness in a certain time-space-composition. I never have any recollection of any recording processes, but from each album I can hear what my overall state of mind during that period of my life was. Sometimes I feel like listening to them, sometimes I don't. I am more interested in what's ahead and what I am doing next.

[sadneck]

When I feel like I've finished something, I listen to it in my car multiple times to make sure I'm 100% happy with it, then I probably won't listen to it again  at all. Or if I do, it will be briefly to remind myself how it sounded before I start something new.

As said by others in the thread before me, if I didn't enjoy my work, how could I expect someone else to? Having said that; I have in my mind an idea for a next release focusing on being purposefully boring/annoying/pointless, but that's by the by.

[host body]

i do listen to my own stuff, especially noise since it doesn't have the same exhausting recording, mixing and mastering phase that band music has where by the time you get the music released, you're so full of listening to it you never want to hear it again. with noise, i don't really mix the end product separately on a daw or spend too much effort in mastering since most of the mixing is done when you're actually composing or recording that stuff. so i'm not tired of the end product when it's done, on the contrary because my stuff is at least half improvised there's probably stuff, nuances i maybe haven't even noticed.

i also like making backround music for myself, recording a loop or two and just leaving them on while i do other stuff.

[HateSermon]

I'm currently working on a new release so I've been listening to the same tracks repeatedly. I find that, much like visual art, sometimes you need to walk away from the project for a week or so and come back to it with fresh ears or eyes. I've reworked this one track in particular many times and might not even end up using it - changing approaches to vocals, changing scrap sample material - sometimes you end up hating it. Once it's physically released and out into the world I'll maybe listen to it a handful of times and then put it on the shelf for a while, returning to it months later.

[Euro Trash Bazooka]

I find that, much like visual art, sometimes you need to walk away from the project for a week or so and come back to it with fresh ears or eyes.

Taking regular breaks from recording or working on something is mandatory, it's called quality control. It's even more important during the mixing phase of a recording.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

Sometimes I listen to it endlessly both during and after production, until I like it even if it's not really that great. Often I get a relationship to the recording similar to that one has with old demos and records one has listened to when younger, or on special occasions. Other times I let it lie for years and then come back to it. In the latter case, I am often surprised one way or the other, as things I thought was terrible prove to be rather listenable and others I thought was great at the time sound like bullshit.

This effect is definitely stronger with noise than with other kinds of music.

[brutalist_tapes]

100 % agree with the quality control sentiment... in my opinion, you need to step away from your own creation and try to listen to it as listener would... i started out as record collector before i made my own noise, and over-indulgent "musician types" who only cares about their own enjoyment of playing always irritated me to no end...

[doll]

I like to listen to my own stuff a few times before putting out. A good critical listen with headphones really tells me whether it's worth putting out. After its released I'll usually go back and give it one more focused listen and revisit it every once in a while. I find it especially helpful to listen to my own stuff before I record so I can revisit old ideas I forgot about or improve on them. also to hear things that I use too much so I can try to move away from them. I enjoy hearing my own stuff, I couldn't imagine making something that I seriously would never want to hear again.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

I enjoy hearing my own stuff, I couldn't imagine making something that I seriously would never want to hear again.

This particular ideal should really be at the core of all noise production. In fact, it should be at the core of any musical endeavor at all. No one should release shit they really wouldn't care for if someone else had made it even if they had fun making it. In a supposedly "avant garde" genre with few restrictions, this is a restriction to which I think everyone should (try to) submit.

[Balor/SS1535]

I enjoy hearing my own stuff, I couldn't imagine making something that I seriously would never want to hear again.

This particular ideal should really be at the core of all noise production. In fact, it should be at the core of any musical endeavor at all. No one should release shit they really wouldn't care for if someone else had made it even if they had fun making it. In a supposedly "avant garde" genre with few restrictions, this is a restriction to which I think everyone should (try to) submit.

I agree.  Everyone should strive to make the kind of music that they would want to spend time listening to.  I also think that this goal would make composing/recording a much more enjoyable and fulfilling process, and allow for a greater depth of inspiration to come forward.

[doll]

I enjoy hearing my own stuff, I couldn't imagine making something that I seriously would never want to hear again.

This particular ideal should really be at the core of all noise production. In fact, it should be at the core of any musical endeavor at all. No one should release shit they really wouldn't care for if someone else had made it even if they had fun making it. In a supposedly "avant garde" genre with few restrictions, this is a restriction to which I think everyone should (try to) submit.

i like creating restrictions for myself, but i don't care much what others do with their noise. If it is good i don't care whether the artist likes it or not, or how they go about their process, I will probably listen to it regardless. Ideally everyone would like what they make but artists tend to be overly self critical so i get why others may not want to listen to their own stuff.

[NaturalOrthodoxy]

I think that the whole 'taboo' around enjoying one's own art is a product of a really insidious false modesty, as if the idea of enjoying your own noise/music/whatever is somehow arrogant.

The only time I couldn't stand to hear my own music is when I own the fact that I made something shitty and should have worked harder on it, and chalk that failure up to a lesson. If you've successfully hit whatever goal you set out to achieve when making music, then you should have made something you can sit and listen to yourself.

[theworldisawarfilm]

I think that the whole 'taboo' around enjoying one's own art is a product of a really insidious false modesty, as if the idea of enjoying your own noise/music/whatever is somehow arrogant.

The only time I couldn't stand to hear my own music is when I own the fact that I made something shitty and should have worked harder on it, and chalk that failure up to a lesson. If you've successfully hit whatever goal you set out to achieve when making music, then you should have made something you can sit and listen to yourself.

Well said.

[NaturalOrthodoxy]

Sometimes it's also a matter of putting sounds in the right order. You think a recording sounds lackluster or don't have the right feeling for it, yiu begin to cut some pieces and rearrange some sounds, and it might get somewhere and begins to sound pretty decent.

For real. My process tends to be recording maybe once a month (fooling around with a synth, rattling some metal around, finding crazy noises using cassette/field recording/sample), then coming back to edit them later on using a DAW, usually in sessions of no longer than an hour. Unfortunately my circumstances don't allow for recording loud with amps etc (usually line straight into laptop or via a mixer/a pedal or two) so I'm constantly listening to my raw recordings to work out how to get a good sound out of them with my modest means. It often leads to be being pretty burned out at such a piecemeal process or exasperated that I can't go hard and loud in a rehearsal room as I'd perhaps like to. But eventually, I'll realise the potential for almost everything I record even if it means sitting on it for months until recording something that compliments it by happy mistake. It even feels good to "eat the whole animal" so to speak and find creative ways of not letting any recording go to waste.