I guess this makes the Midwest the taint of America.

I’ve never gotten around to actually reading up on this, but I’ve always suspected it has to do with the frequency of gratification. In real life you could study for 8 hours and, while you’ll learn a lot, you don’t get that dopamine (or whatever) hit until you complete the test, succeed at the project, etc. Games, however, are constructed so that you get little rewards at regular intervals to keep you hooked, like levels, new gear, etc. Some, particularly a lot of mobile games, obviously prey on susceptible people with that loop, but even “regular” games can get pretty addictive with that sort of progression.

(I’m far from anti-gaming. It’s my main hobby. This is just my guess at how the psychology behind it works.)

This would be a pretty interesting way of finding out.

I replied the same thing to another comment, but I had thought it locked down the whole library rather than just the one game being played. I could have sworn I ran into that issue but it’s been a long time since I tried it do I suppose I misremembered.

Ooooooh. I was under the mistaken impression that your whole library was locked down, not just the one game. Good to know!

I was under the impression that if someone is playing a game from your library you can’t access it unless you boot them out (or you put steam in offline mode, meaning no updates or multiplayer for the duration). Is that no longer true?

No worries! I just shot you a DM being that this thread is already so long. It’s the first I’ve sent on this platform, so let me know if you don’t end up receiving it.

If people are happy, who will make our memes???

If you really truly are interested in it as a career don’t hold back, but know that it’s a looooooong road for very little money and absolutely no guarantees. Like anything fairly creative, only the top percentile make actual good money (or even sustainable money), and even then you usually have to freelance and build your own reputation to get there. That said, there are viable adjacent jobs that use that skillset. I worked in corporate AV for a few years, which involves running sound, lighting, and video for events. It’s far from glamorous though, and mostly involves manual labor in setups and teardowns. You’re basically a roadie who also runs the gear, but instead of mixing cool rock shows you’re mixing a few mics and a PowerPoint presentation for a pharmaceutical convention. The hours can also suuuuuuuck. My longest shift was 20 hours. I got home at 3 AM after that and then had to be back at the shop for 7. You live on free coffee and cookies that the banquet staff give you (you get to be on a first-name basis with every hotel banquet server in your city). It can be weirdly fun as a youngster but I have no idea how the older techs survived. I regularly worked 40 hour weeks when I was part time and 60-80 when full-time. I burned out by like 22.

The music store gig was really fun though. I ran the rentals desk and spent a lot of time teaching my customers how to use the pro audio gear. That’s also the most ridiculous place I’ve ever worked in terms of memorable stories.

You can also run sound in a dive bar, but that’s mostly about who you know and involves more networking than you’d expect to work in a dive bar for very little money.

As far as actually being a professional audio engineer or producer who makes a living making records - that’s the real tough part. I suppose it’s possible to land a staff job in a studio, but that’s not really how it worked in my small city. I freelanced with my own gear and home studio for years until I met a (relatively - this is Canada) big-name producer who I’d built rapport with from my job in the music store. He offered to let me work out of his proper studio for a very reasonable rate. Note that this wasn’t a job - it was an offer to pay him to use his facility. Still, it was the closest thing I had to a break and for a few glorious months I was (barely) scraping by as a full-time recording engineer. The clientele I had built up over the previous decade were almost exclusively local punk and garage rock bands, meaning none of them had money, and now they had to pay real studio fees on top of my own, so I was charging way too little. I was technically doing it though, but then I finally fully burned out - due in part to some looming personal issues - and that was that.

As to all your other comments - alllll of that can be learned through study and experimentation. I went to an overpriced school to learn the fundamentals, but a diploma like that means shit and you can learn it just as well on your own. With stuff like EQ you don’t need to be able to instantly pick out a good/bad frequency fully by ear - there are little tricks for zoning in on what you’re looking for (crank the gain on the EQ and scan the frequency range until you find the tone you’re trying to get rid of, then turn it down. Hint: it’s almost always the lower-mids making stuff sound muddy.)

This all being said, if you’re interested in this stuff I suggest dipping your toes in as a hobbyist first. If it becomes your obsession maybe consider a career, but only if you’ll be content working adjacent jobs rather than recording bands full time. Also, in case I didn’t make it quite clear, there’s a ton of networking involved. It’s easier if you actually play in a band, as I did (you don’t have to be good - just out there meeting people). I suppose it’d still be possible otherwise if you spend most of your free time at local shows and really get to know the musicians. Also, by the time I was getting in, home recording was a vibrant industry so wasn’t just competing with other engineers for jobs - I was also competing with bands just doing it themselves. I’m sure that’s only gotten tougher these days with cheap gear being so accessible.

I hope this doesn’t come across as demoralizing. I just want to make sure you know what you’re potentially getting yourself into. If you’re hating your current industry, though, and this all sounds overwhelming, another approach is to find something tolerable but maybe not what you envisioned, and make the best of it. In creative fields work typically becomes your life as it’s a constant grind to make ends meet and something that was once pleasurable inevitably becomes tainted by association. Some people have the emotional fortitude to survive under those conditions but I suspect they’re few and far between. I’ve worked probably a dozen jobs in my life before landing in my current role. Depending on how you count it, I’ve been here about 11 years and I fully expect this will be the company I work at for the rest of my working life (in part because my family bought the business a few years ago after several of us had worked there for years). The job has nothing to do with anything I went to school for and is in an industry I have no personal interest in. But, the work itself is interesting and sometimes creative,. Most importantly, the people are good, so I’m about as happy as a person can be in a job. Keep yourself open to opportunities like that, if you can find them. Buying the business helped, but even before that I had pretty much accepted that I was a lifer because this was the first grown-up job I felt content in.

I used to actually know a ton about this stuff but haven’t touched a musical instrument or audio device in over 12 years. Sooooo, bear with me.

All of this will depend entirely where your interests lay in terms of audio production/engineering. One of the core skills would be the ability to pick out different sounds from a soundscape. I suspect you already have a knack for that given how much you seem to think about audio quality. Tied in with that would be an understanding of how digital audio works in terms of bitrate, dynamic range, what clipping sounds (and looks) like, etc. I’m sure there’s tons of info on all that online. Analog audio has a whole other set of skills associated with it, but I doubt it’s super accessible these days for a beginner. That’s outside of cassettes, at least. I’m sure old 4-track cassette recorders are super cheap. As much as I loved analog recording, you’re probably better off just going digitally and using processing to get an approximation of the “traditional” analog sound, though, if that’s your jsn. Or if you’re going for a black metal sound or something else intentionally grungy, go to town on a cassette deck.

From there I’d say the biggest skills would be understanding basic mic technique, the general physics of sound, and how to properly set your levels (basically the ratio of preamp vs amp). Next up would be figuring out basic processing - namely the different types of EQ and compression. Effects play into that too - especially reverb and delay - but EQ and compression (plus proper micing and levels) are generally going to be the foundation of a good mix.

That being said - this all entirely depends on what you’re going for. If you don’t do anything musical yourself and aren’t inclined to record other musicians, you can have tons of fun remixing other people’s work. I’m pretty sure there are sites out there where you can download raw audio tracks to mix yourself. Another viable option if you’re into electronic forms of music is to get a sequencer and experiment that way.

I got my start when I was maybe 13 or 14 with a cracked copy of Fruity Loops (I think it’s called FL Studio now). I used that to write dumb electronic songs despite having no theoretical musical or audio knowledge (besides having previously used the built in Windows sound recording software to layer weird shit I recorded with a crappy mic). That software also came with demo tracks that I experimented with. About a year later I got a bass guitar and started a punk band, and that led to all sorts of weird experimentation with recording mediums. From there I bought a shitty reel to reel tape deck and began recording punk bands out of their jam spaces, eventually went to school for audio engineering, had a bunch of jobs related to the art (while freelancing doing recording work and live sound), and finally burned out and never touched a guitar or mic again.

None of that is necessary or even something I’d recommend. It’s a perfectly legitimate hobby if you want to keep it small-scale. You can start it with almost no money, but that’s where I’d caution you if you have anything approaching an addictive personality - the gear can get super addictive as you begin a quest for the perfect tone. For a few years there I worked at a musical instrument store and most of my paycheck went right back to my work (the staff discount sure helped though). Likewise, most of what I’d make freelancing would go back to gear as well. That’s one of the big reasons I quit cold turkey one day. I still miss it as a hobby, but I know the second I start it back up I’ll be right back to dreaming of expensive tube preamps. Your own mileage may vary if you have better self-control.

So it really is the same everywhere.

That one surprises me less, based on the limited stuff I already know about GMO companies like Monsanto. Still madness, of course.

Very fair point. And just to clarify, I loathe them all about equally regardless of how they obtained their wealth/power or what country they’re from.

That’s the way to do it. I used a broken laptop like that as my daily driver for a few years after losing my desktop and being unable to replace it.

They should name that shop Potpourri.

I assume she’s using a separate keyboard/mouse, right? Though I’m enjoying the mental picture of someone trying to touch type on a vertical keyboard.

Very good point! I imagine meeting someone in person and finding out they have the same unusual hobby would have been quite the thrill. I’m old enough to distinctly remember a world before the ubiquitous internet, but never had a super niche hobby to have given me that sort of experience.

That’s a fair point but I suspect this has always been the case. I bet if we could go back to the prehistoric period we’d find someone saying, “Cronk found himself another dick-shaped leaf to add to his collection.” I’d almost think with less available to amuse them, people would be finding joy in all sorts of weird hobbies or collections.

Imagine how different the world was for people with super niche interests before the internet. Back then, this would have been seen as the weird (or at best eccentric) guy in your town who collects fire alarms and won’t stop talking about them. Now he’s presumably got a fulfilling social life via his unusual hobby, and an outlet to share his thoughts to a willing audience.

For all its many faults over the last decades, this is the pure internet at its best.

I guess the technical difference would be that one had ancestors who took their power by force and managed to cement it into hereditary rule, while the other acquired it as a “captain of industry” and then largely did the same thing through lobbying or other forms of cronyism.

Mostly the same end result, but for some reason we put one on our coins and hold celebrations in their honor.

I do prefer your champagne analogy though.