olindacat

I'm a nobody here too, OP, but must say this site I go out of my way to find and read from time to time. A lot of disruption in the democratization of film, the new generation of young people wanting to push their way in, who didn't maybe have the same often brutal baptisms of fire others had to endure. (There was once a time when experience was a requirement... no, it seems, the powers that be want yes people who do what they are told, and not real artists.) I can tell you the audio world, from this nob's POV, is so daunting I have largely been blown away by it, and I am 56, and first had my hands on a mixer in a sound booth at the Rainbow Grill at (I think) 30 Rock back in 1979! I was only 16! Let me just say it was a travesty that the stage manager stuck me in there as I also had to do the lighting and sound for the show, whenever he was gone! So... there are productions and then there are productions. Odds are most of the people in this community have spent their lives working in the best productions you or I have ever heard. They got degrees in audio engineering. It is a science. They may have been musicians, songwriters, odds are they gravitated to sound because they love it. Have you ever played golf with someone better than you? It's analogous because there is always someone out there who will beat you, who has put in more work than you, has more gifts... but that doesn't mean you should let yourself (like me) be blown out either. I worked in magazines most of my career. I was in sales. That is a terrible job but it is what makes things happen. No sales, nobody works. But, I had nothing to sell without the writers, photographers, editors, designers. Later in life I had this fabulous idea I'd start my own magazine. I had big ambitions. I also had competition, and had reality converge with my 'vision'. Those things forced me to rush out a piece of crap. For 24 years I did more crap, only it got marginally better. Was I ever going to do it like I could, had I spent my time selling and raising the real cash to hire out gifted talent, that loved what they do and are exponentially better at their 'craft' than I? No. I hated sales, like most people do, and continued to put out my crap. It won awards, it is a niche thing, but honestly... it's crap. I remember, back in those late 1970s and early 1980s, I worked for the same production company at another (bigger) show.No way was I going near audio there! Real International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union members, audio engineers, handled that! I recall there were (among them) a few moody, often irritable, nasty-seeming fellows. Hurt my feelings on a coupe of occasions. Over the past few years, in trying to figure out something else to make crap with, like video, I found myself realizing 80% of what you 'see's audio. It occurred to me that I too could do it myself. More crap. Do you give up and fold up your tent? Nah. But, these folks here are like the golfing equivalent of the PGA Tour's best players, many anyway. Like pro golfers, they have worked their butts off untold years so when we appear in threads on this forum, and want instant gratification, it is tantamount to an insult. It is insulting. I don't mean this in a negative way, as you have already seen and read what others here have said, and you are clearly mindful of their feelings... but like others said it might take 10K hours, or 30! But, in the end, even if what you do is crap, it might get incrementally better, and one day, you might be on here offering some idiot like me advice... and you can bet your bottom dollar I'll need it and be thankful. I wrote this because I have posted one or a few questions in the past, bought some things here on this site, and it has always been good to moe, and I feel for the many people here who have worked their whole lives in audio, and might feel slight by us newbies. We do 'get it', but some of us are so marginalized we are desperate! (I wouldn't be reading this thread if I found such a wealth of quality information at gearslutz, dvxuser, reducer, etc....)