Probably a dumb idea…but if we want we could make a bunch of music production docs or video tutorials…like how woulg does for glitch.cool…and like the old idmf resampling doc by biotainted.
Written by the community for whomever.
And whomever wants to can proofread it to fact check and also spelling and grammar check or vet, before the docs or videos are officialy published.
Idk just an idea…
I’ve been thinking this exact thing for a while and think having a “knowledge base” for production, sound design, theory, synthesis, etc, is a really cool idea.
Also we could take certain posts in the studio section in regards to specific topics and put that information into a more organized, more detailed and more clearly worded document
Also i will volunteer to help contribute some information to the
“sound design, sound mangling, and resampling” document
along with whomever else…
I can make the documents and do all the proof reading, publishing etc. as well as contribute where I can to the content.
I don’t know, I think anyone who wants can look for information on the Internet. It took me a thousand years.
Just to follow up on this. I’m working on a place for this kind of “documentation” on the forum as we speak. Right now I’m gathering ideas and trying to work out how and where to structure it.
This will be a somewhat challenging task I think, as how it is structured needs to be carefully considered. Organization will be important here, and there will likely be a bit of trial and error involved. What i don’t want to have is something that grows quickly into a disorganized mess, or something that is overly convoluted or has lots of useless or even incorrect information. With too many hands in the cookie jar trying to contribute their two cents to various articles, this becomes more likely, especially early on. It needs to make sense and deliver some sort of value to the community at large, not just a few of us.
It would be easy to get lost in the weeds with this, so planning is key, as well as taking an iterative approach. Rules for how to contribute and what sorts of things can have their own articles to it will definitely need to be set in place, refined, and moderated.
Ultimately, my goal is to create a place here where the community can share their expertise on all sorts of topics related to making music, be that tutorials or walkthroughs or even things like “this is what granular synthesis is and what you can do with it”. I want it to work a bit like a Wiki of sorts. Something that various members can contribute to, that could be a learning resource for all of us and a concise and organized way to share our skills without having things get buried in the other threads.
Again, this is in the planning stages for now, as I explore the features Discourse has to offer as well as consider a structure that makes sense.
As I get closer to having a solid initial system and structure I will be querying the forum members (likely starting with the admins and mods) to get various sets of eyes on it and get feedback. More to come on this in the coming days and weeks.
Im thinking a group dm consisting of those that want to contribute to this…
Also we should avoid saying stuff like download this specific plugin or this specific plugin works like this to make this…and keep it so that the information is generally applicable.
So…
One group dm for synthesis
One group dm for sound design
One group dm for resampling part 2
One group dm for music theory
One group dm for mastering
One group dm for mixing
One group dm for how digital signal processing works(we go into how different fx and synths work)[optional]
And one group dm for basic techniques used to make different music genres (glitch, breakcore, idm, dubstep, techhouse, edm, acid etc…)
And The people share the information with op dmer who organizes everything into a google doc…and then once finished the op dmer sends it to @manton to proofread and spellcheck and grammar check.
Ok so, so far its kvlt, me, guy, and manton…
I’m all for sharing knowledge, and I think there’s a lot of it here. I also agree it’d be a good way to put the IDMF/Glitchpulse label on something out in the wild. Please don’t read any of the following as pooping on the idea because I think it’s a great one, more of a quick list of potential pitfalls and things to consider when writing (ie shit that pisses me off when I read tutorials).
Correctness: This is both the baseline and the holy grail. The internet is full of partial or flat out wrong answers. Do your due diligence and make sure what you’re putting forth is actually correct. It’s a simple idea that a lot of people get wrong, and sort of ties into the rest of the list here.
Theory/Generalization: This is total teach a dude to fish stuff - explain why the information you’re putting forth works. This doesn’t need to be first principles/math equations, just a layman’s ELI5 sort of reasoning for why what you’re doing works, which also ties into the idea of the information being correct. I think that really helps whoever’s following along to really reason about the problem and be able to apply it in other situations. “Just turn the knobs like this” doesn’t really teach anything. There’s totally the opportunity to get way into the weeds with this, but I always figure if you write for a precocious high schooler, you’re probably okay.
Make sure it’s actually useful to someone: Don’t be a solution in search of a problem and don’t just recreate existing tutorials that already do a fine job. Make sure that what you’re writing about is either 1) a general problem you see crop up a lot, 2) a weird edge case that’s hard to solve or 3) a new and novel way of approaching a problem. Bring something to the table, even if that’s just synthesizing other information so it’s all in one place.
Practical Examples: Walk me through how this works in practice and how to apply it. Don’t pick the trivial example – showing how to EQ a sample outside the context of a song doesn’t really show anyone anything useful that you can’t get from the manual or youtube, it’s just moving knobs around, etc etc. Show how you’d use this in the context of creating an actual track and why it’s handy. Pictures/annotations are great. Bonus if you can show how to do it with multiple tools/DAWs.
References: Bonus points. If you do any research for the tutorial, cite the references. Not because it’s ‘correct’ or anything, but because it lets readers follow the same breadcrumbs you did and learn more about the subject. I love to go down rabbit holes from references, so this is probably just personal preference showing.
Editing/Peer review: As already mentioned, but I think this is super important. This doesn’t need to be dissertation/Simon & Schuster level, but shop it around (on here or elsewhere), make sure other people of different ability levels get what you’re laying down and that it doesn’t have any glaring spelling/grammar/clarity issues. A confusing tutorial is worse than none at all and a well written one can really attract attention.
The project seems like a great thing and I’m excited to see what comes of this.
Agreed.
Definitely don’t read this as pooping on the idea. This is exactly the kind of thing I’m hoping to get from others as I build this out. Thanks for all of the detailed comments, it’s very helpful. Hopefully I’ll be able to create a foundation that works well.
This is from Nathan (Permutated, co-founder of IDMf) that I found in an old folder…
Mixing Foundations.pdf (85.1 KB)
I’d like that too, I’d want to help out since it wouldn’t be my first time writing guides on this topic
THINKING INSIDE THE BOX - hipnotic tut - eq,fx etc.doc (324.5 KB)
Found this sitting on an old HD, pretty pretty pretty good (from DogsOnAcid like a million years ago)
Point well taken!
However don’t underestimate the immense body of knowledge and experience that resides here at IDMf. (we all have learned so much!)
It’s a bit random and chaotic… but a touch of organizing and summarizing the collective knowledge would be a legitimate contribution to those who bother to take advantage.
So I believe! 
Hey everyone!
I haven’t been a lot as of recently, but things are beginning to settle down a bit and I am slowly getting more and more of my free time back.
With than in mind, I have opened up what i have so far of the Knowledge Base (Admin) for all to view.
You won’t currently be able to create new topics or reply to topics (I promise, that’s coming!), but it should give you a rough idea of what is to come.
It is filled with an assortment of overarching categories, some of which have some basic pages already (a few daws, some plugins, and a few other things).
The goal will be to open this up sooner rather than later so that the community can start to contribute.
What I’m looking for from here is feedback from the wider group, as this has already for the most part passed the @Manton vibe check.
Nothing is concrete here, it’s more of just a concept still, but this is the general vision and idea.
The knowledge base is broken up at the top level into several broad categories. This is to help with navigation and make things a bit more clean and organized.
Each topic under a category will be around a specific subject, or… topic (i know, that’s redundant, but just bear with me).
For instance, DAWS and Production tools might have a topic for Logic, Abelton, FL, Reason, Reaper, Cubase, etc… as well as topics for particular synths and stand-alones, (Such as starwave, VCV rack, nodal, etc).
We will help with categorizing and organizing by applying tags to topics, such as DAW, VST, Hardware, Software, Standalone, etc… (the list of tags is currently small, but you can use your imagination).
The first entry in a topic will always be (for now) a wiki. The wiki should provide a high level overview and give some basic details about the subject.
Wiki posts that reference another subject that has a topic should link to that topic. (for instance, in the “notable instruments” section of Logic Pro’s topic wiki, sculpture is referenced, and in the sculpture topic wiki, Physical modeling synthesis is referenced. The referenced subject appears as a link to that topic. We should follow a similar convention whenever possible for navigating easily)
For replies to a topic, the vision is to have user tutorials, tips and tricks, etc…; anything related to utilizing whatever the subject of the topic is from a practical or specialized sense.
I’m trying to work on a system where we can have different kinds of “reply categories” that a user will select from in the knowledge base when they want to reply to a topic (for instance, member tutorial, questions, feedback, etc…)" as well as a way to sort and filter replies (so for instance if you only want to see tutorials, you can do that and not have all of the noise of other kinds of replies). I also want there to be a way to have a “reply thread” for certain types of replies, such as if we have a bunch of people who want to share feedback about a specific tutorial. (Much of this functionality would have to either be added with plugins, or I’ll have to build custom components, so this is sort of a stretch goal, but it is on my mind)
I want to get this the the point where we can open parts of this up for member contributions soon, i just want to do it in a way where it doesn’t become cluttered with nonsense. There will likely be a bit more heavy moderation and limited access at first, for instance, when it first opens up for contributions you likely wont be able to create new main topics or category groups, but should be able to post replies if you want to share a tutorial or workflow.
If there are topics you’re dying to have when it first opens up (a style, DAW, tool, type of synthesis, etc…) either post it here or reach out to me via DM, and I’ll see what i can do about getting a wiki topic added for it before it opens up.
Again, i want this to be a well organized resource for everyone, where we can ALL contribute, I don’t want to gate-keep this forever, I’d rather put in in your guys hands, I just want to make sure we have something well thought out so it doesn’t turn into a garbage pile immediately (not that it would, but we all have lots of ideas and things we want to share, and I envision clutter if i were to just open the floodgates).
If you have questions, concerns, feedback, or something you would like to see, let me know here or in a DM.
You can also post ideas here and let your peers like you post, that would give me an idea of what the community finds important and interesting.
Anyway, that’s all for now. More to come. Thanks for all the conversation and well thought out posts around this already.
Gotta go. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thank you 
@Guy_Wachtel
This is great @Guy_Wachtel, thanks for taking the time to do this. Eventually I will overhaul the Discord channel and would possibly be interested in connecting that to these resources to reflect them on there. That’s further down the line when we start building a database.
I’m also getting into making short tutorial videos on my youtube channel for Ableton, mixing/mastering, and synth techniques and once I get that ball rolling consistently it might be an interesting feature to allow users here to make there own put them in the corresponding topics to give video resource as well in addition to documentation. Just an idea.
