Hitting the wall?

[Paul Nolan]

does anyone else do this?

creatively, figuratively, hit the wall?

i mean you get an idea, get a rough working version of the track, and then....you just hit the wall and cant put anything else in, you cant seem to find anything that fits the track...nothing. a complete dearth of either ideas to enhance the track, which eventually leads to a loss of will power and an irresistible urge to delete the whole thing and do something else because its not what you want, or its not to the standards you set yourself, and cannot, or feel incapable of, taking it an further?

thats how i feel. i rarely feel happy with my lot. ive never finished anything that i felt was even decent enough to let anyone else other myself hear it, and i dunno if its just, as i said in my education post, the way i work, what i'm looking for, if i'm expecting too much of myself, whether i lack focus, whether i'm not good enough...all these things pass through my mind to be honest.

so has anyone else ever felt like this...be interesting to hear your considered and wise opinions o board of greatness!



cheers

P

[Voodu]

Actually, i have hit this "wall" many times. I wish i could say something clever to snap you out of it, but it's normally a sudden lack of inspiration that causes it.

[markaugust]

I have this all the time.
the rough basic of the tracks does not take me that long anymore,
but the last little things, or just that one last sound it misses can take me days sometimes weeks.
all I can say is persist, don't let it bring you down, if you keep on pushing there will be a time that the wall will fall, and you' ll be the happiest around on that moment.
for me it helps to have more then one track that I have to finish, so I can swap m around to keep my ears fresh for the endless listening and trying all those sorts of different things to get the 'click' that I want.

[markaugust]

I've just spent three days getting a bass right...

[ultrasource]

I'm just peeling myself off the wall that i hit years ago.
it all comes in peaks and valleys. Stay the course.

[arctic ranger]

The really cool thing about Live and any other daw, is that if you hit the wall you can save it and come back to it months. Until then, hit the bottle.

[colin_h]

<snip> Until then, hit the bottle.

ah, february in the north.
i enjoyed a few sloppy
winters in whitehorse...
not quite inuvik, tho- we still
got a couple hours of daylight.

[Moody]

Story of my life.

[ILTK]

I feel that many times when I hit that point of feeling 'this doesnt work/sound good etc..' it's because I been working on some part isolated for to long, you know, first couple times you play say a bassline it sounds awesome, then you start tweaking or working on say the chord section and hear the same section loop over and over and it all becomes boring, like hearing the same song on the radio over and over, first time it's great, then it gets overplayed and you don't like it anymore.

Ever worked on something all night and go to bed feeling it's not all that good? Then you wake up next day and play it and it sounds great again?

I useually try and work on another section when this happens, or save and take a break and perhaps pull something else out to work on.

I also tend to feel that anything I do does not sound as good as something someone else did, even if that's totally untrue in a way this is a good thing, it constantly makes me try harder to improve.

This also happens (To me anyway) because I work alone to much, like I have a preferred set of chords that I use to much, a scale I'm more comfortable working in, a way of doing drum parts etc.., when you work alone you hear those things to many times and it all becomes boring to your ears, and you hit that wall because you don't get inspired by your own stuff, having someone else to work with can realy help to.

I think sampled loops, midi files with basslines, chord progressions are GREAT for breaking this barrier, just throw someone elses basslines, chord progression, drum loops whatever into the mix (there is millions of midi files you can go download) and because you now have something made by someone else, it sparks all kinds of new ideas and gets you inspired again, try it, just blatently rip something off and stick it in there and work of it, then after you get inspired to do other stuff around it you can delete whatever you ripped of since it served it's purpose.

[SubFunk]

ILTK wrote:

I feel that many times when I hit that point of feeling 'this doesnt work/sound good etc..' it's because I been working on some part isolated for to long, you know, first couple times you play say a bassline it sounds awesome, then you start tweaking or working on say the chord section and hear the same section loop over and over and it all becomes boring, like hearing the same song on the radio over and over, first time it's great, then it gets overplayed and you don't like it anymore.

Ever worked on something all night and go to bed feeling it's not all that good? Then you wake up next day and play it and it sounds great again?

I useually try and work on another section when this happens, or save and take a break and perhaps pull something else out to work on.

i am with you on that one. if i feel stuck, time for a break or something different. then returning fresh and yuppy...

also generally i try to stay away from *isolating* and even looping to small sections, because i start to loose the whole picture.

and i NEVER isolate a sound, solo buttons are *evil* i have worked in many studios where some engineers gaffa taped all the solo buttons on the desk, to not even touch them by accident. good stuff.

[Angstrom]

This is the drawback of working alone.


If you are in a band, you start to comlain about hitting the wall and wanting something amazing and brilliant in the middle 8 ... your bandmate steps in and either puts something in there that is good. Or just as usefully, they put something shit in there!!

That's where producers come in, where managers come in, where band members come in. They say, "stop fucking around and finish it off, just a temporary mix for this important deadline. You can finish it properly later."
next thing you know the 'temporary arrangement' is on a record. And, you know, that can be a good thing - it may be 'unfinished' to you , but to a listener it is often perfectly fine. Probably every album you listen to and thing "thats perfect" , the artists involved think .. "if only I had another day to put that bassline in tune"

MY BIG IDEA:

Bands argue all the time, often they release stuff that they think is compromised by, A: the crappy drummer, B: the singer with 3 notes , C: that half baked solo .. etc.

eventually they argue the band to peices and say "I'm a genius, I can do it my own way with modern technology"

Unfortunately - despite band arguments and musical disagreements being awful to live through .. I think it actually produces the best music. Everyone has a different point of reference, everyone has to argue the case for a musical segment. Ideas come from 'left field'. Also - there's less ability to be precious if some fucker just ups and releases a dat specifically marked "unfinished" !


for those working alone - try using Eno's Oblique Strategies

[SubFunk]

Angstrom wrote:

If you are in a band, you start to comlain about hitting the wall and wanting something amazing and brilliant in the middle 8 ... your bandmate steps in and either puts something in there that is good. Or just as usefully, they put something shit in there!!

That's where producers come in, where managers come in, where band members come in. They say, "stop fucking around and finish it off, just a temporary mix for this important deadline. You can finish it properly later."
next thing you know the 'temporary arrangement' is on a record.

well what can i say, you are totally right there, the biggest difference between a *pro* and a *none pro* is getting things DONE in time, you have a deadline, if you can deliever a result on a deadline, then you are pretty much there.

i came across hundreds and hundreds of musicians / DJS and producers in my life and YES, that's it, in the real world *talent* means nearly nothing if you can't deliever...

most of the people who have records out, or live from music, generally... (managers / producers / soundengineers, etc.)are not really better then most *hobby musicians* ok, yes you do need knowledge, experience and good ears, but... just a very, very few have been really talented and above the average... but they all had one thing in common... DOING IT.

(and sadly some really talented guys i know, don't get anything done!)

[nebulae]

Creativity is like any muscle. If you overuse it, it gets tired. If you don't use it enough, there's atrophy. Sometimes, when it won't work, you can't do anything to "get it up". And sometimes, there's just not enough hours in the day for all your ideas.

Here's a few things in your favor:
1. Live is one of the best tools to let your creativity free. Not only are the midi and audio plugs just wonderful for making crazy shit up, they can also help you through a rut and take you in directions you wouldn't imagine.
2. Working in session view lets you come up with combinations that you didn't even think of.
3. From a workflow perpective, you can just play and play, and worry about how to put it together later.

Ok, so then the problem is how to put it all together later:
1. Use a notebook and a pen. Take notes about what ideas you want to finish up as you create. For example, "vocal track needs to fix breaths and consonants; add compression" or "lead synth needs crunch - add Saturator till speaker bleeds".
2. Go through your list of stuff to do and cross stuff off, and add to it every time you listen and have new ideas.

At some point, the list will be done, and the song will tell you that it's time to mixdown and go to mastering. At that point, master it and listen on multiple sound systems and get some input from your peers (if that matters to you).

I find this process very good for just getting shit done and feel accomplished. I may go back to a song a few months later, but for the most part, when a song is done, it feels done.

When I go through periods of low creativity, I still fire up Live and just play with different ideas. I then save these ideas in a folder called "Low Inspiration". I currently have 27 ideas in the last month that I've created which can be starting points of ideas. Or they can all suck and I'll delete them. Whatever the case, when I hit the wall, I just keep going, because you never know which song will bring down that wall very very quickly.

[Voodu]

That's great advice Nebulae!!!! There has been many a time when I didn't feel inspired at all opened up live and worked on the same project until completion (over a few days or weeks) and it actually ended up being some of my favorite work.

No matter what you should at least force yourself to open live and work on a synth patch, or load a drumloop and try putting a bassline to it. If you get a cool bassline out of it just save it as a live clip and call it a day. Then the next timne your working on a drumbeat try dragging that bassline in there with it. That's what's so great about live clips!!!

Another thing is, don't panic when you hit a lack of creativity. It doesn't you mean you don't have any skills, or talent, it could be as simple as your not getting enough rest, or the pressures of everyday life are getting to you.

[sonsofthehounds]

i often refrain from just getting on there at times because i'm close to finishing a track and can't see past the end of that. I have to pursue that track solely then either finish it or bin it before i work on any new ideas. It's a fckd up way to work too...i know it's counter productive and lazy.

However I've only been working with live for a few months now and I must admit that my time is definitely optimised with this software more than anything else.

I now just get wired into my virus and nord lead synths using controller envelopes...it's unknowingly liberating for someone with lack of actual playing ability. Instead of working with notes and the patch I have created with the synth I work with the parameters inside the patch in a rhythmical way similar to the way i work with drums and percussion.

I could always use controllers automation in cubase and logic but it seems as if live is designed more to work with the elements and parameters of sound design and synthesis PRIMARILY as opposed to secondary to arrangement.

Think I've gone off the plot...anyhows.....I think it's all food for thought...right, get off the fcking forum go boot live...there's one brickwall to get thru...we all know that one.