A month set for 9-5 writing/creating- what would you do?

[Zygi]

You sounded totally like me, hence the comment

[ian_halsall]

Invite some ladies over.

Or better still some Ladyboys

[regretfullySaid]

Asian ladyboys ftw

[ian_halsall]

Male ladys

[regretfullySaid]

Ladies

[ian_halsall]

I gotta say I would invite some ladies but I don't know any and if I did they wouldn't come

[regretfullySaid]

[ian_halsall]

I think we hijacked someone's legit thread here!

Oops

[regretfullySaid]

Not really. Asian ladyboys are chock full of inspiration. If you can't get an albums worth of material in a month from that, then there's no hope.

J/k sorry

Keep some imbibes on hand, maybe a little smoke but go easy. Keep throwing ideas down, you can't arrange what isn't there.

[ian_halsall]

Indeed - work hard!

Vary it.

Do some tutorials.

Do some sound design.

Explore a feature of the software you don't udnerstand.

Listen to some music by other people.

Watch a bit of telly.

Stay alert for ideas - inspiration (not that I know it) can allegedly come from anywhere...

[regretfullySaid]

But a lot of that is time wasting.

Then Google.

Then.

Night Gone.

I guess - I know what you mean with "overmapping" things - pointless because - yes everything is in danger of sounding the same - and then you make something so complex you cant get familiar with it anyways so its self-defeating. But an easily accessed adsr, filter, lfo rate never hurt anyone!

Dont worry - Im in the same boat - feel like Ive wasted alot of time researching music rather than doing it. Creating mappings and setups that cover every imagined eventuality - except that of actually writing music and letting it throw up the problems first.

Id really like a controller dedicated for an arp, distortion fx and a delay. So Ill prob do that. The rob papen stuff would definitely benefit from direct control as the gui is a bit fiddly. Arps are crazy fun mapped (kirnu with automap) - the possibilities are endless, and exciting things can come out of that.

I'm just talking about recording. Sure, practice what you're playing but take it from a lot of us, the amount of time you spend on working on making your workflow more streamlined to make the process quicker can be couter-productive to just doing it. DEADLINE is the key word here.

Sometimes the quickest way to get shit done is by using the mouse, not a controller. And that's only after you have stuff to work with ie recordings.
Having good admin to sort out what you already have is more important, I think, in the sense of having a certain order that works for you to access the different elements of projects. Like saving tracks, clips, racks, etc.
Say you decide to just go in and start playing stuff and recording a bunch of stuff then you need a good organized method to know how, when and where to access what you're looking for.

Preferably the best thing to get to is having a template setup so you don't have to worry about most of that, everything is already there and you can just practice, record, play, arrange, mix, master, done.

If not, record everything and save everything in it's own type of folder so you know where to refer back to stuff, ie tracks, racks, clips, etc.
Then you can just drag them back in any set you have up.

[login]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVQ8c19unnM

I think he has a point: have separate "sound design", composing and "mixing" sessions. Try to have goals for each one, get tracks finished and then just polish them.

[ian_halsall]

Depends where you are at in your career - if you are still finding your sound then it makes sense to vary it with tutorials, manuals, sound design.

If you found all your sounds then plough straight on through.

Since so much is sample based - finding that elusive sample that brings a track to life or gives it meaning - listening to other people's music, telly etc. can be really productive.

That's why working with someone who is into music but doesn't spend all their time using a computer to make music is so useful.

They say "what about dropping that sample in there?" and so on.

I think that's one of the reasons DJs have been so successful remixing.

[boderekstits]

good thread. i would also recommend putting limitations on your tools (instrument racks, effect racks, drums, etc). I recently did that and i'm getting more stuff done. I'm still watching a lot of tutorials to help with workflow, and to just learn how to do shit. Too many plug ins is trouble for finishing music.

[ian_halsall]

Yep - I use Massive and FM8 in everything.

But I also have WOW filter and Camelphat and while I thought that they sounded great I haven't used them in any proper tracks yet.

Here's a track I did using just pure Ableton stuff (Operator)

https://soundcloud.com/ian_halsall/hiss-time

Here's one with Massive and FM8 and no FM8

https://soundcloud.com/ian_halsall/you- ... e-yourself