#1

Continuing the discussion from Where are the women and non cis males?:

I really felt I wanted to respond to this, but in a separate thread so as not to distract from the core of the other one.

I think this is interesting and speaks to different perspectives very clearly because the love I have for this forum (it is, by far the forum where I’m most active) is partly because it is so much more than about the gear for some of us. Again, that goes to the perspective of someone who also goes to the OP-1, Elektron, and MW forums and doesn’t feel much pull to participate often. From someone who doesn’t go to other music/gear forums they probably see this too as a gear heavy forum, but I value the art, philosophical, and unpredictable NON-gear discussions most of all here. Further, usually the more technical/gear discussions don’t feel like they have the same tone of materialism/gear-lust/whatever that other forums sometimes have.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a brief love-note to the forum because the quote made me reflect on what I see as valuable about this forum. Obviously, perspectives will vary though.

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#2

I just want to signal boost that aspect: I find it useful, as part of thinking about music, and in a forum run by an electronic musical instrument manufacturer, to think about musical instruments. I find the nature and quality and tone of that discussion much, much more interesting and valuable here: I feel like I’m talking to musicians about instruments, rather than to gadget operators or collectors.

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#3

As an engineer, I enjoy technical discussions about gear because I like making things. I also make music, but don’t consider myself a musician. I guess it’s just a diverse crowd that participates for different reasons.

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#4

In the last years I have grown very tired of too gear-oriented forums. I can’t say if it’s a very “male” thing or not, I’m not an expert in this field, but while I am very much into electronic music equipment, I always see it as a means to create music, not as an end to itself, which is why I rarely got to MW or the Elektron forums except if I have a technical problem to solve, or am checking on updates on something specific.
I came to this forum through Junto, after I had promised myself to not get into any other forum, and actually started to close accounts on a bunch of forums where I was already. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a forum I actually wanted to be on, and that I wanted to communicate on.
As already said by other forum members, the great things about this forum is that it’s actually about music as well, and not just about talking gear. The very fact that it hosts the Junto project is already reason enough for me to be here, and is a clear sign.

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#5

The distinction between lines and gear forums seems to be that lines is about music and the tools used to create music, as opposed to gear and the music you can make with that gear. There is a strong music / arts / process focus here, and the community of artists who call this place home sets the tone for that every day.

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#6

For me, the good stuff here is all about creative approaches - irrespective of gear. I’m not a Monome user, and don’t have a modular (yet!), but I’ll still read that stuff - eg the Cold Mac thread, because there’s inspiration there on creativity, irrespective of gear.

The thing that actually led me here was the Junto - which fully embodies what I’m on about…

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#7

So far this has been the best forum I’ve found that talks about things other than gear, which is why I appreciate it so much. I do tend to participate in a disproportionate number of gear-related topics since that’s my area of expertise. I’m a lot less comfortable talking about arts and process related things since I often feel outmatched in those conversations, but I do enjoy reading them.

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#8

:grinning:
feeling lucky to be here

image.jpeg3024×3024 975 KB

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#9

imo this forum is about love and inspiration and inclusion and current state of arts and related or tangential things.
there is gear and i am a musician but this place is so much more open than other internet communities i have been a part of.

and i have to say, the level of intelligence at least as i perceive it is awe-inspiring. thoughtful joyous intel abounds.

:smile_cat:

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#10

art
community
energy
learning how to move ideas
how to grow
expand
how to pay attention

how to listen.

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#12

I like the forum because it’s got a lot of useful information and people that know the Elektron gear inside and out. But it also has so many entitled jerks that it becomes unbearable at times… I saw a similar trend on many other manufacturer forums.

It must be hard to run / moderate such a forum as a manufacturer since you don’t want to alienate people from your products by over-policing them on your forums, but at the same time if you don’t do that then you risk alienating other people if they feel harassed on your foum.

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#13

Capitalism is kinda bullshit all too often. There are always tradeoffs. I really appreciate it when companies choose human beings (and their well being) over other more financial concerns.

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#15

I definitely agree, but in reality I see very few companies actually doing about this. Pick any company’s online forum or reviews section and abuse is rampant.

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#16

Ordered! Thanks for the recommendation.

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#17

Exactly the same here…
Don’t know anything about modular or monome, but I like reading about it. Most of the times, it gets too complicated for me, but still interesting. I don’t know the difference between a piano and a guitar, but it’s great to hear from people who do know their stuff.
By chance, I got to know the Junto and I love doing them.

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#18

the only other forum I know, that isn’t like that, is the mutable instruments one. interestingly monome and mi have many things in common regarding their overall approach to things.

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#19

Hey all, nice reflections on what the place is! Here’s some of my thoughts on how to bring in more ppl on here. :basketball_player:

I think what we all should do is take a chance and invite our fellow musicians — be them boys or girls, men, women, occasional extinct dinosaur or a b-movie film star spirit, — to sign up here and join the discussion. Good-natured type only please, but other than that… bring them all in!

Matter of the fact is lines in reality’s quite a secret corner of the Internet (and that is one thing), plus there is not much girls — slightly more than “not any” — who happen to clutter up their living rooms with million of modules, soldering stations, & programmable microprocessors (I can only count some few I’ve met to spend their off-time debugging algorithmic xenakis-inspired pattern generators they built in Max :upside_down:)

So yeah; I’m going to take my own advice and try gettin’ some folks in. I bet some of them will see appeal of this place and stay, roaming around here for a while makes me optimistic to say so.

As for those who don’t… They might have their own reasons for that, but not that this place is unwelcoming or unfriendly (and certainly not non female-friendly! :sunflower:)

My 2¢

#20

A few people on the lines forums might remember that way back in the bad old days of the Internet (I mean way back, in the 1980s), I was one of several people who pushed for the creation of online communities for electronic musicians. The AUVM Listserv had EMUSIC-L, and later SYNTH-L, where an artificial and only partly successful attempt was made to differentiate talking about electronic music and taking about electronic music gear. There was rec.music.synth on the Usenet newsgroups, and then there were the mailing lists: The Golden Triangle, Beyond-EM, Analogue Haven and Digital Hell…

In my experience, there was an initial flush of inclusiveness and eagerness to share and listen, followed by a lovely honeymoon of one to four years… after which one distraction or another contributed to the gradual attrition of the forum until there was effectively no one left. To some extent, arguing that this natural shift of attention from forum to forum is somehow unfair is like arguing that the tide is unfair to barnacles; it happens, for reasons that are beyond the control of any human agency, and one works within it rather than attempting to force it in one direction or another.

That being said, I value the overall flavor and tenor of lines a great deal; it hits a lovely note that I hadn’t experienced online in quite some time, and I am grateful for it and hope to contribute in ways that folks will appreciate. The future will be what it will be, and in the present, this is a wonderful place to be a barnacle. :yum:

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#21

Never been much of a forum user but stumbled across this site a while back. I’ve tried to add a few comments here and there, but often i’m more a reader than writer :slight_smile: I do get a bit intimidated when I see a topic that looks interesting, then I see there’s 1.5K replies! Just need to find my way here, I’m sure it’ll all work out :wink:

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#22

Nothing but gear talk is a problem with a lot of electronic music forums and indeed music making forums on a whole. Years ago I used to participate in IBreatheMusic forums which had a strictly enforced no gear talk policy which led to great focussed discussion on theory (it was also a bit of a noodly guitar boys club). There is a classical guitar forum I used to like that was more focussed on repetoire and technique, rather than gear. The same things happens with Painting websites, the discussions are more often about the paint and brushes and not how to apply them.

I like that the threads about books to read and philosophical ideas are so popular here. Perhaps that shows that inspiration and ideas are as important as tools.

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