'Music-making & Audio' 4chan board manifesto

TL;DR at the bottom

Music listening is a popular activity, which is why we have /mu/, but music-making (in all its aspects such as instrument-playing, composition, singing, production, audio engineering, sound design, acoustics, equipment, etc.) is also something that a lot of people have interest in.
Unfortunately there's no community on 4chan around these topics outside generals on /mu/ (mostly /prod/) and in some cases on other boards (such as /g/'s DAW threads for example).
Said generals make it very hard, if not impossible, to have good discussions, as they come with a deal-breaking set of issues that a separate music-making board would drastically improve, if not solve completely.

A good example is the musician board on the "russian 4chan":
https://2ch.hk/mus/
https://2ch.hk/mus/catalog.html
Translated:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2F2ch.hk%2Fmus%2F
Such board on a site like 4chan will most definitely be much more popular.

Non-general threads with specific music-making topics on generally do far better than music-making generals on /mu/, which proves that the site is full of people interested in the various aspects of music making but since the generals are most needed by beginners, they end up being full of entry level discussions that discourages anyone who's worth their salt from even lurking, which creates a feedback loop that results in the continuous degradation of the thread's quality.
In /prod/ threads we've experimented with making themed generals where each thread had a specific topic or question, and we've seen a very significant increase in participation and discussion quality thanks to all the people who whould normally have no reason to open /prod/ but entered those thread to discuss the main topic.

A general mostly populated by beginners benefits nobody, as the more advanced people have no one to talk with, and the beginners are blindly leading each other posting wrong information.
As a result there are very few knowledgeable people who participate, and in the rare instances where one wants to talk about something more advanced or niche, there will be nobody to discuss it with, unless another knowledgeable person happens to be lurking while the thread is up (which almost never happens as it's a very short window, considering that a single thread has to contain posts about several different topics). So posts about uncommon or non-beginner topics end up being left ignored.
The generals often don't even reach the bump limit because they have to compete with a myriad of threads about music-listening topics that will push the generals down if they're not being actively kept bumped.

On a separate music-making board there could be specific threads about specific topics, which would easily attract the right people by being visible from the catalog for a longer time, and there would be actual space for talking about something in depth without having to compete with all the irrelevant stuff going on in the same thread (which would be split among separate relevant ones).
There could easily even be collaborative projects (other than what appears on /mu/ and [s4s] once in a while), production challenges, resource sharing, and everything a proper music-making forum should have (which is almost impossible now that the threads need to compete with unrelated stuff).

On any forum keeping things on topic is a fundamental part of promoting discussion, which is why there are separate sections for everything, but here we have every discussion under one thread, so on top of mixing all the discussions it only takes one shitposter or animated discussion to completely derail EVERY discussion about music making (which is already difficult, with all the different topics being grouped under one thread, so what ends up happening is that there's rarely more than one discussion at a time). When that happens there's absolutely no way to talk about anything related to the general theme until the distraction disappears.
Of course, shitposting is part of 4chan as a whole and would also happen on a dedicated board, but in those cases it wouldn't derail EVERY music making discussion as it does now, so threads could still thrive.
A couple of years ago it only took /prod/ one shitposting incident (the infamous "/prod/ocaust") to make almost everyone who's not a beginner or a shitposter decide to leave, and the discussion quality has been noticeably worse ever since.

All the different aspects of music making are of much greater interest than some other topics that currently have their own super slow boards (even excluding those that exist solely because Moot liked them). There are even separate boards for 2D and 3D graphics (which combined would still be slower than a music-making one).
For example, a huge number of people play instruments or want to learn, but don't even enter /mu/ because they know that it's mostly a music-listening board that tends to have a board culture that's generally incompatible with serious discussion (because of the younger average age, I assume), so having a separate board that's not /mu/ would attract a lot of people from all around the site that avoid /mu/.
I lost count of all the times I met other producers on other boards and upon asking if they visit /prod/ they responded dismissively like "why the fuck would I go there?".

Several boards were created for topics that weren't being discussed as much before their creation (since the people interested would have to visit generals inside of other boards) but have now become very active communities thanks to all the people they attracted.
Just look at the board categories. Every board under Creative is about DOING something creative, except /mu/, which is about CONSUMING something creative (since it's almost exclusively about music listening), like the boards under Interests are.
It only makes sense to put /mu/ (with all the music listening threads, celebrity worship, waifuing, shitposting, etc.) under Interests and have a separate board for music-making under Creative.
It's certainly worth at least making a trial board to see how it goes. It would be too good not to at least try.

If you're interested you can send a line to the 4chan staff through https://www.4channel.org/feedback under "Board Suggestion" and let them know that there's an interest for it, so perhaps they can decide to make a trial board.
Even just a quick:
>Just wanted to let you know that I'd love a board for music making, since it's hard to have this sort of discussion on /mu/ and other boards. Thank you.
If you want, you could ask for a "lite" board with fewer threads in the catalog and whatnot. It would probably be more likely to be accepted.
The more people show interest, the higher the chances of it actually happening.

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TL;DR:

There's a huge interest around the site for the different aspects of music making.
Instrument-playing, composition, singing, production, audio engineering, sound design, acoustics, equipment, etc.

We can only have these discussions in generals.
Said generals are mostly on /mu/ (mainly /prod/) and it sucks because you can't have a proper discussion on /mu/ or in wide topic generals.

/prod/ sucks because it's mostly beginners and shitposting so everyone else has no reason to lurk.
Music-making threads that aren't general are actually pretty active so there's definitely interest outside of them.

Generals on /mu/ have to compete with a ton of music-listening threads, so if they don't reach the bump limit in a short time due to having every topic in one thread, they get bumped off the catalog in no time.
Because of this, the rare time one wants to discuss a non-beginner topic, the post won't be online long enough for the other rare knowledgeable posters to see it.

Everything is in one thread so all it takes is one shitposter or animated discussion to derail ALL music-making discussions.
Some of you might remember the /prod/ocaust of 2018, which permanently ruined the general, even to this day.

Some things that are normal in music-making communities are almost impossible to do in a general.
Things like collaborative projects, production challenges, resource shaing, etc. would have their own threads and the time they need before drowning in a sea of shitposting like they do in /mu/.

Boards for way less popular topics already exist.
A music-making one wouldn't even be among the slowest.
It just makes sense to move /mu/ to the "Interests" category and put a new music-making one under "Creative".

A good example of such board is on a Russian imageboard: https://2ch.hk/mus/

It's certainly worth at least making a trial board to see how it goes. It would be too good not to at least try.
Just send a quick line at https://www.4channel.org/feedback (Board Suggestion) saying that you'd like in a music making board.