Is it me, or is there sudden plague of trolls recently?

[slashvanyoung]

Have the questions and topics really changed so much over the years? Really? I think a lot of that is actually down to perception. Weed through the 400+ pages of the main forum and you'll see that even as early as 04 (when the forum started to gain wider popularity) and before there was already a plethora of threads about plug-ins, modelling and sample replacement.

Back then PODs and Andy's C4 settings were all the rage and people thought they'd magically turn turds into gold. And if half of these threads were to be opened today, people would get torn new a-holes for their "noob questions". The tools change, not so much the attitude.

I absolutely agree that it can be frustrating if newcomers are seemingly incapable or plainly to lazy to read or search beforehand, especially now that virtually every topic's been covered before.

But, the constantly growing user base aside and therefore the increasing chances of seeing such threads, the regulars themselves on here have changed rapidly over the last years, gathering more and more knowledge and experience. One shouldn't underestimate that as it surely plays as big a role in the perception of change as the evolution of the user base as a whole.

I'll stick with what I always said: Don't like a thread, don't participate. There's so much going on in this forum that if a thread doesn't get quite a bit of attention, it vanishes in the realm of the backpages shortly.

But people rather keep them alive with useless rants...

 

[drew_drummer]

I was being a little flippant when I posted earlier, but ...

FWIW I read the Joey thread and the suggestions in there seemed to be pretty on the ball and relevant to what he was asking. I'm not sure why yours was different.

Certainly Ermz, that thread had some good suggestions which is why I was just gonna leave it until this thread piped up. But it strikes me that if you're a name that people recognise around here, you get respect and helpful advice.

If you're a bit less of a proven guy like myself (I record my band and very occasionally my friends band) or are a 'musician turned engineer/recordist' ... I think it's kind of hard to get genuine interesting responses to questions.

I don't know why that is really. I guess there is the perception of a division between the people who are doing it for real, and the people who are just fucking around. And perhaps in people's minds I and others like me have been thrown into that catagory.

But I record real drums. I record real amps with real cabs. I don't have decades of experience, but I have a few years. I've done a lot for my own band, and I've recorded drums for a couple of different bands of my friends.... so I don't think I really belong in the same catagory with all the tacty fuckwits.

Maybe this has nothing to do with anything. I dunno...

It *is* tiresome seeing so many of the same threads. I tend to just avoid those ones, and focus on the threads that are interesting to me. Shit... I'm still reading Glenn Fricker's acoustic drums for metal thread every week or so, and writing down little notes to help the next album sessions.

I'm not here to learn how to be an engineer or to rip off people's presets. I am here to learn some stuff that will help me in recording my band, for the sound I want. Currently that is where I am at. Maybe in the future I will branch out and start thinking purely in terms of production for other projects that I am not musically attached to. But right now... I'm learning the best way to present my ideas, and this place has be instrumental in that.

Plus some of you are cunts. And I love cunts.

 

[guitarguru777]

Drew I think they see it more as a "contribution" thing. At least some of them do. I see comments all the time about my posts stating "YOU DONT EVEN CONTRIBUTE" so in my own way I have begun to do so ....

Im not saying you don't contribute, I am just saying its something to think about

 

[slashvanyoung]

It comes down to popularity and reputation in the end, as with so many many aspects of life.

Contributing to this place is one way to earn your attention, one that actually takes a bit effort. But you can also be a controversial and obnoxious cunt or simply a somewhat famous person to get your spot.

A nice example: Eyal Levi used to post here in the early days of this forum, but also the early days of his band (Daath). He didn't get a single response to quite a few of his threads.

Now imagine him coming on today and outing himself as the guitar player for Daath and I'll guarantee you, no matter what kind of thread he'd start, he had all the forum's attention.

That's life and life doesn't steer clear of the Sneap board.

 

[Ermz]

My main issue is that the most popular threads appear to be the ones that deal with the 'latest' amp sims, sample packs, or what not. It's understandable, because it caters to the lowest common denominator, and appeals to a great many of the people who read these boards, so there is relevance to many rather than a few. But it rubs me the wrong way because it propagates this attitude of 'I have to get the newest trendy piece of shit to be good', rather than core engineering principles, which at their heart never change. In all this time, this decade of Sneap forumhood we are approaching, nothing in these quick fix amp sim realms has yet to come up to trump the classic combo of a Dual Rec and 5150, which people were using a decade ago. None of it has changed, and certainly nothing has improved. You have different colors from amps like the 5150 III, but they haven't 'superseded' or sent the other amps into obsolescence. People are raving about amp sims that can't even match this level like they are some new revelation.

Anyway, back to Drew: Here's something Lasse, I and a few others talked about in the past. If you make your thread names flashy with shit like 'GREGS NEW IMPULSE, AXE-FX, MY BEST PRESET EVER' you will get a few thousand looking at your thread rather than a few hundred. I've literally done this as a test in the past, where I posted the exact same mastering thread, with the exact same content, except in one I had tons of exclamation marks and talked about the bullshit plug-ins I was using, rather than describing the actual content of the music/production work. The one aimed squarely at retards got much more views. This is how you need to treat people.

Most people are stupid, and that is no different here. They will react instinctually to what they see, and will click on the threads that seem most exciting, or are the most relevant to them in aiding their quick-fix ambitions. They don't want to know that you succeeded in achieving something pivotal with skill. They want the TOOLS that let you do it, so they themselves can knock up the same results in 5 seconds

So if you're looking for more attention to your threads, try to use more buzzwords, or make it somehow stand out from the rest. If your name alone can't attract the people, then try to make the content appealing.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

I happen to like a few trolls here and there to shake it up. Lulz are spawned in this fashion.

 

[SocialNumb]

^I agree. That thread that's linked in post 10 http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/9387399-post10.html is hilarious.

 

[Keregioz]

I don't think banning is the answer.

I don't know if you were referring to my post, but, just in case, I was being sarcastic.

 

[GarethSE]

Plus some of you are cunts. And I love cunts.

Best point made so far in this topic.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Trying to figure out why you guys seem to give a fuck. Welcome to the internet, there have always been trolls and idiots. They are unavoidable.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Bahahahahhaha, excellent post all around Loren

 

[Dimaura]

I can see where Drew is coming from. I as well have been taking a lot of the stickys into consideration and literally taking notes.

1. the recording real drums thread,
2. the preparing for re-amping thread.
love em

CONTRIBUTION: The point you guys will have to accept is that I (and lots of others) will not going to be teaching Andy, Lasse, Joey, Murph (and lots of others) any breaking ground shit. I'm working with a $3,000 set up + real drums and amps so no, my shit is not gonna be in the ball park. I want to be good at making a nice sounding kick drum come through the recording and so on, not getting the heaviest preset to lay on my midi metal.

SEGREGATION; not that there needs to be a levels 1,2, and 3, for all facets of the forum.but I'm sure a 'budget recording' wouldn't have anybody up in arms. It will not we relevant to the pros but,I'm sure I would end up as a nice sock pile of very basic info, (i.e miking positions, line noise, bit rates, room sounds) the shite the pros/semi pros already have down to a science.

Newbs will ask newbie shit, and dicks will be dicks. Just, don't shit on the people asking for honest advice / trying to give honest advice.

Love you guys.

 

[TheDriller]

Wild Idea:

Put a temporary lock on the Off-Topic forum (say, for a month) and see how things work out.
I'd wager the problem with this place isn't necessarily too many n00bs, but rather that a lot of posters spend all their time laughing at stupid pictures and auto-tune videos in the Off-Topic section and pay fuck-all attention to the main sections.

I say ditch the pseudo-4chan bullshit of the Off-Topic board and lets concentrate on some actual audio stuff.

 

[drew_drummer]

Wild Idea:

Put a temporary lock on the Off-Topic forum (say, for a month) and see how things work out.
I'd wager the problem with this place isn't necessarily too many n00bs, but rather that a lot of posters spend all their time laughing at stupid pictures and auto-tune videos in the Off-Topic section and pay fuck-all attention to the main sections.

I say ditch the pseudo-4chan bullshit of the Off-Topic board and lets concentrate on some actual audio stuff.

I'm fully behind that. I like to laugh as much as the next guy... but it does detract from the usefulness of this place.

Anyway... big fucking shout out to all the guys who have taken the time to post some interesting shit here.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

^ No fucking way. I'd just end up taking my useless banter to the real parts of the forum. That would be a terrible idea.

That's like when you tell your 19 year old kid to not go out and drink on the weekend. 100% of the time the kid is going to go out and get plastered.

 

[TheDriller]

^ No fucking way. I'd just end up taking my useless banter to the real parts of the forum. That would be a terrible idea.

That's like when you tell your 19 year old kid to not go out and drink on the weekend. 100% of the time the kid is going to go out and get plastered.

Sure, i get you.

But what I'm seeing here is a bunch of guys bawling about "nobody is posting good, useful stuff anymore", which seems to be largely true.

What I'm saying is that the Off-Topic board has inflated to become the "main" part of the forum, with plenty of guys posting in it relentlessly, including some that I can honestly say I've never once seen them contribute anything even vaguely useful to the "real" forum. Their main interest is in posting inane bullshit.

My suggestion is that we put a lock on the Off-Topic temporarily, to see who actually sticks around and who was simply in it for the faggy pictures.

This forum is/was the very best resource on the internet (and arguably, on the planet) for learning about audio engineering. there are plenty of other sites out there for lolcats and auto-tune parodies, but there is only one Sneap Forum.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Yeah, well I like the OT section, and I don't really consider myself a troll or a n00b or a fucking TACTer.

The OT section is where I get my laughs on the internet, without having to fuck with those other shitty sites.
I'm not a pro engineer and I don't aspire to be one, so I guess I'm not welcome here anymore.

I think I'll kindly leave.

 

[Skinny Viking]

you know ... I had the idea a while ago that maybe instead of complaining about how the RMM section and other parts of the forum have gone downhill, maybe we just need to "take it back" so to speak. For the last month or so I've tried to make it a point to go into the RMM area and seek out posts and clips made by the people I actually interact with regularly and listen to what they've done + leave feedback, etc.. basically just get more involved in it. If all of us put that effort in and just payed less attention to the posts we complain about in there, it would probably get back to how it was a few years ago. But it really would all depend on everyone making that effort to get more involved.

If Drew or Marcus or the muthafuckin Hulk (yeah YOU Krispies) posts something in that section, I try to make a point of joining in on it. If I post something, I'd like to think you guys would reciprocate.

Just a thought

EDIT: Don't you even THINK about leaving Tony!

 

[Mago]

What I'm saying is that the Off-Topic board has inflated to become the "main" part of the forum, with plenty of guys posting in it relentlessly, including some that I can honestly say I've never once seen them contribute anything even vaguely useful to the "real" forum. Their main interest is in posting inane bullshit.

It's strange that a lot of guys say that they avoid the RMM and production subs and at the same time they say that theres not much productive stuff going on...just sayin'

I have no idea how it used to be, since I wasnt here at those times, but I feel like still everyday theres something to see there.
And if there wasnt so much attention towards the n00btrolls the threads would sink much faster.

edit: or in short: +1 to what Los said^^.

 

[TheDriller]

Yeah, well I like the OT section, and I don't really consider myself a troll or a n00b or a fucking TACTer.

The OT section is where I get my laughs on the internet, without having to fuck with those other shitty sites.
I'm not a pro engineer and I don't aspire to be one, so I guess I'm not welcome here anymore.

I think I'll kindly leave.

Tony, I'm not having a go at you personally,
I've never considered you to be in with the trolls.

Just putting out an idea.

And yea, I hear where you're coming from.