Frust beim Produzieren - wie geht es Euch? / Being frustrated as a newbie - nothing works - your experiences?

Promote your gigs or events.
Post Reply
SophiaK
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed May 29, 2019 9:37 pm

Frust beim Produzieren - wie geht es Euch? / Being frustrated as a newbie - nothing works - your experiences?

Post by SophiaK » Sun Sep 15, 2019 3:50 pm

Hallo,

ich liebe Djing und bin über Jahre auch auf die Musikproduktion gekommen.

Und während das eine sehr viel Spaß gemacht hat zu üben bekomme ich seit 10 Jahren meinen Arsch nicht hoch beim Produzieren.
Bis heute ist nichts veröffentlich

- es ist unfassbar technisch
- auch nach Jahren klingt es nicht wirklich gut wie bei den "Profis"

und des ist mühsam sich nach einem Tag im Büro erneut vor dem PC zu setzen.

1.
Wie sind Eure Erfahrungen?

2.
Wie schafft Ihr es dennoch dranzubleiben?

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5272
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Frust beim Produzieren - wie geht es Euch? / Being frustrated as a newbie - nothing works - your experiences?

Post by [jur] » Sun Sep 15, 2019 4:35 pm

Don't forget that this is an english-speaking forum.
I moved your post to a more appropriate place.
Ableton Forum Moderator


jestermgee
Posts: 4500
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:38 am

Re: Frust beim Produzieren - wie geht es Euch? / Being frustrated as a newbie - nothing works - your experiences?

Post by jestermgee » Tue Sep 17, 2019 2:52 am

I will start by saying, whatever you feel is perfectly normal and happens in ANY area of interest.

Djing, Production and songwriting are all different areas but people do tend to get things confused thinking they are all the same thing basically and that's where frustrations normally start.

Production work can be very technical if you let it but first suggestion would be to completely forget being at a "professional" level, without good skills you cannot expect that. You sometimes need to make loads of garbage first to progress and learn. As someone who has been producing mostly as a hobby and pastime for 20 years now, I still feel I have a lot to learn.... Music theory would be one of them :)

I count myself lucky because I started out in the mid 90s when the market for production software wasn't so over saturated. There weren't plugins or "DJ software", no hardware controllers, just basic MIDI keyboards, sequencers and in my case, just audio samples and trackers. Getting started I didn't even know what ADSR stood for, what a cutoff was, or the differences between an 8 bit / 16 bit sample or sample rates or anything really. But I learned what these things were and what they did over time. The main thing is I was having fun learning what they did with absolutely no focus on my sound being professional or even if anyone else would like it. I just would load up Fasttracker and go "I wonder what this thing does" then I would play with it and understand it, write it down then move to the next thing.

I have thought about selling my gear and "giving up" many times because I will go months without creating something or I will have projects unfinished for years... hundreds of them. I worked in a job where I sat at a computer for hours then would come home to kids (babies) and have only a few hours at night where I would be tired and not bothered to do anything so for 2 years I made nothing and felt like my old hobby was now done.

But one day I watched a documentary of all things which had a piece of emotional music in it that I really felt I wanted to capture so I sat down and smashed out a piece of music in a few hours which captured that exact feeling I wanted and I even 8 years later I can listen to that piece and know where it came from and it generates the same memories for me and it was just one of those things that I recall that makes me remember why I loved music and why I was so interested to get into discovering how to make it for myself.

I have kids, study, work, and lots of things going on in my life now where I didn't 15 years ago but some days I can still get totally lost in what i'm doing, make a tune that makes me smile and sometimes makes me cry and I remember why I turned to making music over the years and never worry about matching the pros or trying to understand "everything". If I feel drained and couldn't be bothered, I just do something else and forget trying to "make music" and just play around or learn a new technique or even just play minecraft with the kids. Some days tho, just a single sound is enough to stir up something creative and get me started on something or inspired to finish off something and it tends to flow with the seasons.

Inspiration comes and goes which is why most artists take breaks from time to time. Can be draining to create and perform all the time, no shame in taking a break even for years. Sometimes a different hobby or project can be a good change. Sometimes you just may have reached the end of interest and a complete change is needed. Everyone's different and music isn't always for everyone so if you are at the point of frustration and exhaustion, do something different or just switch from trying to create to just learning. Do a small online course in an area you're not real good in or just play with sounds, beats, loops and muck around throwing in effects and getting a feel for things you haven't really got into.

Sometimes we need to be bored to really discover what we are good at. Something I tell my kids often as they complain.

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5272
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Frust beim Produzieren - wie geht es Euch? / Being frustrated as a newbie - nothing works - your experiences?

Post by [jur] » Tue Sep 17, 2019 3:48 am

SophiaK wrote:
Mon Sep 16, 2019 3:40 pm
And which one?
To the "Local" sub-forum (I first accidentally moved it to the Lounge, though).
Ableton Forum Moderator

Lazzaku
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2019 11:49 am

Re: Frust beim Produzieren - wie geht es Euch? / Being frustrated as a newbie - nothing works - your experiences?

Post by Lazzaku » Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:13 pm

i know how you feel. it is sometimes really hard to sit down and produce, especially when working full time in an office.
when i have this barrier i just play games on my pc and after an hour or two i'm really filled up with ideas in my mind and i can't resist to try out things in ableton.

the hardest part is always, when you work like i do, to create the fundament of the song (the beat, kickdrums, hats, etc)… after that i can't stop and i need to move on with the bassline, plucks, pads, etc....
Intel Core i7-11700K | Z590 UD AC | 2x 8GB DDR4-3200 | RTX 3070 Ti
Windows 10 Pro | Ableton Live 11 | RME HDSPe AIO Pro

Post Reply