Now first off, I want to say this is not a dig at the team or anything, more about me than the site. I am struggling in getting involved with the site and was wondering if others could tell there success stories and how they got the value out of the site and the team. Just to inspire me.

I have a set of headphones, Sure SRH940's, I hate wearing them to sing as I cannot hear myself and found a workaround is to pan all the sound to the left speaker and hold/balance the left cup to my ear which leaves my other ear free to hear my voice and minimises bleed. Am I being weird here, is there a better set of headphones, I really bought these for mixing, or is this normal practise?

Guys, if you had to choose one plugin subscription, which one would you choose?

I often think about what our mission is at Mastering.com. It's something that's constantly in flux. On the surface, it's pretty simple... to become the world's #1 audio school. But why bother? Why is that important? Ultimately, it comes back to music. And I believe that music is undergoing a radical change right now (along with many other forms of art). The act of creation is shifting. AI is forcing us to ask questions about what music and creativity means. And without going on a massive detour around all the different reasons why music is important (maybe another time)... I keep coming back to one core idea: Pure creativity. Being a "purist" is not always a good thing... But the more time goes in, I keep coming back to this word. -- → What is "pure creativity"? Pure. What does it mean? A quick Google defines the word as: "Not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material." There are so many ways in which the creative music making process can be adulterated in today's world. I think it will become increasingly important to defend against these influences as time goes on. There are many practical decisions you will need to make as a musician and artist that will become increasingly vital. -- → How much of the production, mixing and mastering process do you hand off to others? Since you're reading this and you're on our mailing list, it probably means you've already decided that taking the production process into your own hands is important to you. I think this will become increasingly so, and the alignment and ownership of all elements of the music creation process will help you create in the purest way possible. Of course, there is a benefit to collaborating with third parties, and it simply depends on your goal. But the ability to write, record, produce, mix and master music yourself puts you, the creator, at the center of it all. -- → How much are you willing to use AI? This is the big one, and the talking point.

I already have all the plugins, maybe too many so I cannot commit to not buying them...I have though, not upgraded to Cubase 15 yet so I am proud of that. I do commit to working harder than I have been an also commit to putting the fear of failure and ridicule behind me but in the words of a master procastinator....I'll start in the new year!!