Can you produce when others are listening/watching?

[Genevieve]

When someone's in the room I don't usually FEEL like producing.. would prefer to just chill with them. I'd feel so.. unsocial and odd to be doing something else while chilling with someone.

But it was kinda weird when i first move in with roommates to be producing while they could hear me fucking up and redoing things. Felt kinda weird about having people hear my shit when I'm not satisfied with it.

But I have showed people... me just fuckin' with things who were curious about production no problem. Actually think it's kinda fun to show them how I do thangs.

[benjam]

Nah not at all I cant get into it when someones distracting me

[InternetSlaveMaster]

Usually I just turn on the hand dryer, it makes it easier to not be heard.



But in all seriousness, it never really bothered me. Produced infront of a few friends/the girlfriend before, it's not like they know what's going on so I'm like a god or something. Also produce with my producer friend, it's fun, he's always got an interesting viewpoint on things.

Most interesting time was in my Humanities class, every year you have to do a performance. The class is full of 60 kids, my Senior year (last year) my performance consisted of me demonstrating how I make music, so we projected my laptop screen up on the giant overhead in the auditorium, everyone was blown away. Started out with making something from scratch (and explaining what I was doing). I mentioned how the tune sucked (I'm my toughest critic), and I heard people whispering "What? This doesn't suck", was pretty neat lol. (The tune did suck though, lmao. Generic trance tune, I didn't know what to do since I was making it up on the spot.)

After that I showed some of my project files. Got an A+

Whole thing worked well since my friend went before me, he made 3D animations to my music, so people got to hear the music then see how it was made.

No reason to be shy/nervous unless Biome is standing behind you or something.

[MassAphekt]

When someone's in the room I don't usually FEEL like producing.. would prefer to just chill with them. I'd feel so.. unsocial and odd to be doing something else while chilling with someone.

But it was kinda weird when i first move in with roommates to be producing while they could hear me fucking up and redoing things. Felt kinda weird about having people hear my shit when I'm not satisfied with it.

But I have showed people... me just fuckin' with things who were curious about production no problem. Actually think it's kinda fun to show them how I do thangs.

i couldn't agree more with everything you said, i don't enjoy annoying people with the retarded amounts of redoing things to get them to sound right lol, it almost feels selfish in a sense because you're having fun while ruining other people's peace when they want it you know?

[MaZa1]

If im doing my own music i dont want ppl to sit in the same room listening what im doing since i dont think my tracks are good so i rather upload em to SC and get feedback from strangers.
And i hate trying to explain ppl what this and that knob does since many times i know what those do, but its hard to explain what they do, especially to someone who knows nothing about the program, producing etc.

[ninjadog]

I can only do it out loud in front of my GF, she's used to it but thinks it's the most boring repetitive thing ever. When I lived with roomates I dident mind producing with headphones, but I dident like making them listen to me making a tune. I have no problems playing full tunes to people tho.

[Electric_Head]

I have no problem producing with someone watching.
In fact I get their contribution and call it a colab.

[Divane]

Often you will not do the same things you would do alone. When someone is watching you won't experiment as much.

I prefer being alone.

[Syxx]

When my house is full of people or if its late at night, i use my headphones (KRK KNS-8400), then when i have the house to myself or its not very busy i mix on my monitors.

[MassAphekt]

sadly my kns 8400 cable fucked up otherwise my situation would be as great as yours
i was running late for class a few weeks ago and the long ass cord wrapped around a bike rack yanking it and damaging it Ive yet to call krk and see if its just a cable replacement needed to get them to sound normal again, you can hear em them but no lows whatsoever and it sounds messed

[IC0N]

I can. But I feel like I'm boring sometimes, especially when I spent 3 hours on an 8 bar loop.

It's funny cause one of my roommates came into my room yesterday while was producing and sat on the couch. Unfortunately for him I spent the next 15 min listening to a 4 bar loop over and over and doing a lot of surgical eqing.

[Cobaltum]

Just a quick easy question but hopefully bring out some interesting pointers about this but yeah uhh
Simply, myself, I can't produce when I know others can hear what I'm doing, especially when it's mixdown and drop arrangement time. I can never fully get into it because I know people next door, above me and my roommate could hear EVERYTHING. Every playback, every skip etc etc and I know it annoys the hell out of them but I can't produce at
Low volumes. I need it to be loud so I can really feel and hear everything. Anyone else have this problem?

IMaking music to me is very personal and every great track I've made was when I had time alone but nowadays I never do. It's almost like a conscience thing where I don't want to annoy everyone with my music because I do a lot of repeats/edits and arrangements. I'm pretty sure that's drive anyone crazy that lives next door to that

no but that would be interesting, streaming online while producing with more than 50 viewers, or having some people watch you working irl. I guess the track would be quality

[Mad_EP]

I really don't care who hears what when I am working - and again, this is where my classical training has come in handy for me.

After a couple decades of slow, monotonous practicing on cello - doing repetitive drills that sounded anything *BUT* impressive to anyone.. I never cared what people thought of my playing except when I was performing. However, In a music school - often you can hear what the person on either side of you is playing... and I knew people who tried too hard to impress those in the practice rooms next to them, rather than work on what they needed to work on. Those people ended up just running through the stuff they could already play - and never made any improvement.

Even as an adult and teacher - there are times I have a few extra minutes and I will practice... and I don't care if what I am doing sounds impressive to the students as they arrive or not. I am practicing how I need to practice to play the way I need to play.

Same gets applied to production.

[TeRRo]

Depends on my mood. I produce with headphones so I rarely have that problem.
However one time I was sitting in my room with my buddy watching some adventure time and whatnot, and all of a sudden I heard something I REALLY wanted to sample, so I excused myself, opened up Ableton and started doing my magic. Sat there for about 20 minutes before I even realized he was in the room turns out he had no problem with it, as someone else said in this thread: if they have no clue what you're doing you're gonna seem like a god to them
That's actually the story of how I started the first tune in my sig haha

[killakam98]

Just use Teamviewer or Livestream up to 50 people can watch you produce and hear everything.

[dickman69]

Pretty much the reason I couldnt make tracks this summer is I was always w/ my friends... Id be like, man I got to work on beats an my friends would be like ITS COOL WE'LL JUST CHILL but then they all spazz out and are like WERE BORED and watch tv and shit... I can make beats w/ my roommate there b/c its no big deal hes doing his own thing and I listen on phones if its some annoying shit like playing back the same bit overoverover. But ppl watching me I get all rushy and fuck up shit man its no good

[blinx]

I actually have a friend that i almost prefer to be around when i write stuff. He doenst help or anything he just chills and gets down to the tunage, even when i have to edit/repeat something an insane amount of time.

I feel like it helps keep my stuff interesting. INstead of me zoning out on something i hve realtime feedback from a like minded (but different) POV/individual.

My wife on the other hand i cannot do any real writing/composing with her in the room, things get annoying/repeatitive for her to quickly. She is my biggest fan but doesnt fully understand what/how i have to do stuff. Though during mixdown and mastering she is a nice assest to have around. Noone will tell me quicker if somehting sucks like she will lol brutal honesty lol.