Stuck in a Slump

[Taylor Barclay]

Hey everybody,

I'm posting this here in "Music and Audio Production" because I believe it relates to it closely.

A lot of things changed recently with my music setup. I went from an old Gateway computer with FL Studio and not-so-legal plugins, to finally investing in myself to start my career. I now have a white MacBook, Ableton Live, and Komplete 6, along with other software and hardware.

I used to be able to just sit down and play on my MIDI and come up with a starting point and go from there. Things usually just flow, one melody builds to another, excitement builds, most of you should know the feeling I'm hoping.

But lately, pretty much since I got my new setup, it's like I have a huge block going on. I can't seem to get into a flow at all. Even with my limited formal music knowledge, I never had a problem getting into a groove and zoning. Maybe it has to do with most of my setup still being unknown? I usually learn on the go though..

I can't seem to figure out what the problem is. It's really somewhat depressing, it's almost like when I can't do music I'm not really able to express myself. Imagine a writer with no hands to type with (and no voice recognition software for the counter-points in here.)

I'm kind of confused here

[locojohn]

Hi,

I know precisely what you mean. I moved to Live on Mac from Buzz Tracker on PC. In Buzz I was able to make wonderful sounding mixes in a very short time. In Live I cannot do it so quickly. Something is missing, but overall I still find it a good program, just with entirely different approach. Undoubtedly it requires experience and knowledge, ability to use hot keys and to quickly drop samples, put effects over them, render them as new samples, then load them back and repeat, and so so on and so on. It just isn't as fast as I used to do it with Buzz, but there are other valuable things in Live that are missing in other programs.

I personally think that key to success is to practice, practice and practice with it until you manage to do all what you want to do before inspiration leaves you.

Andrejs

[cacti]

when im in a slump i smoke some weed and do do a video tutorial, something cool usually comes out of it.

[mholloway]

I think this happens to everybody.

For one thing you need to get on top of your new gear via trial and error and experimentation -- think less about "final product" material and more about using the tools just to get to know the tools.

Also when I'm "not feeling it" with composing songs, I just spend a few sessions working solely on patch design or sampling and focus on adding new material to my library, to utilize later when i'm feeling songwriting-inclined again. There are lots of ways to be productive that don't necessarily involve churning out a whole new track.

-M

[luddy]

When I switched to Live, I spent some time setting up a template set that has an instrument that I like to use when writing, locked and loaded. It also has a bunch of keyboard and MIDI maps so that I can start and stop recording in session view from a kb controller. I also organized a bunch of my own presets and patches into proper folders so that everything I need to get started on pieces is at my fingertips. After that writing became as fast or faster than it was for me in my previous DAW.

I think it feels like walking in molasses for everyone when they change DAWs. You just have to bear down and push through the learning curve. There's some right-brain/left-brain stuff going on too; when you have to be conscious of technical stuff it interferes with making music.

hth,

-Luddy

[trikster_b]

It happens to me from time to time. Usually what I do is unplug everything from my laptop except the charger, take it into another room, open up Live and just do random stuff like sound design or making a beat or something.

Having limitations worked for me and I was able to really learn how the program Live works and not anything else. And since I was using a slightly underpowered laptop with its onboard soundcard and a headphone jack, the most I could do really was make beats before having the CPU max out. I learned all the tricks of chopping up loops and making glitched out rhythms by doing it this way with just a mouse. I learned how to tweak all of the effects and other stuff like that simply because I wasn't distracted with making a track that the onboard soundcard would not be able to handle at all.

And doing all of this in a different room than I normally do helps. I can't really explain why, but it just does for me.

Your issue sounds like you just need to get used to Live. I think if you used my method, you would really get to know how the program Live works if you're forced to work with limitations.

[thefinger]

how limited is your formal training, exactly?

i suggest expanding on that. ive had a couple years of formal theory and ear training and, as a direct result of this, inspiration is the last problem i find myself having.

i smoke some weed

or this.

[macmurphy]

if i find myself in a slump or feeling blocked i find the best way to deal with it is to accept it for what it is - an 'enforced' break - and don't fight it.
take advantage of the time to do other things.
most of all try not to get stressed about it. i used to and it made it worse for me but i came to the realization that i can't be creative all of the time,
and breaks are good - they recharge your creative,um, battery.

[Guff Tong]

I did find that when I moved from my previous DAW (Octamed Pro on Amiga, then Reason on bog std PC) to Live the learning curve was way different.

I think the unknown quantities of the new set up can sometimes create a kind of psycological void between rudimenatry 8 bar loops that come really easy into a fully fledged 3.5 minute tune.

I remember nearly giving up Live at first but stuck with it and now can manage a 16 bar loop!!

srsly tho, stick with it...its like learning the guitar: One day it all just fits in place and you just 'get it'.

I have in fact tried to go back to the trackers (Renoise now) since using in Octamed in the 90's and find I'm having to learn it all again!!

[KrisM]

I had some issues when I first started using Live. Even after extensively using the demo, I was still foggy on a lot of things and even irritated with it at times. I just stuck with it and read/watched every tutorial I could get my hands on. Tom Cosm's tutorials helped a lot during my early days of learning to use Live. Once I had an understanding of just how it did things I got my mojo back and things were as they should be.

From time to time I do have issues, but those days I either write, sound design, or slog through it.

I moved to Live on Mac from Buzz Tracker on PC.

Funny, I did the exact same thing. I actually still use Buzz from time to time via Winebottler It builds a handy little Buzz.app for me to launch natively in OS X. But I digress.

[!STiTCH!]

When I moved to Live recently I took a couple old songs and went to task re-creating them in Live. It was very helpful for learning (which Im still working on) as well as gettin some older stuff ready to play out live for the first time.

Good Luck

[locojohn]

I moved to Live on Mac from Buzz Tracker on PC.

Funny, I did the exact same thing. I actually still use Buzz from time to time via Winebottler It builds a handy little Buzz.app for me to launch natively in OS X. But I digress.

You are even running Mac OS X 10.6.4 on a 13" MacBook body, just like me. Winebottler -- is it just wine or some other windows wrapper I don't know?

Andrejs

[Taylor Barclay]

To answer somebody who asked, my formal music knowledge is limited to what I could pick up from reading the book "The Complete Idiots Guide to Learning Music Theory."

I do plan on taking music theory classes beginning this Fall at a junior college I'm attending though. It will just be difficult to do General Education and some Music classes on the side also, along with working, but I want to do it so I will do it.

Everyone else thanks for all the helpful responses. Back when I got started doing music production, tutorial videos were my bread and butter to get me started, so I'll be paying a visit to those again. I do need to just learn the program inside out, top to bottom. I've already accepted that it won't be like the other programs I've encountered at all, so that is the first step. It's like DAW rehab .

Thanks again.

[thefinger]

i started out with that book. while it was good for what it was, its no substitute for an actual college textbook on the subject.

heres some resources though that might help fill in the gaps:

http://www.musictheory.net/lessons
http://www.teoria.com/

imo once you get to the point where you are deconstructing other peoples works and examining the phrasing, etc. you will find yourself riffing off of other peoples ideas and coming up with your own variations. its handy to keep a journal too, document these so you can go back to them.

i know its boring but music theory is extremely front ended and the further you go the less you will require books, teachers, etc. and once you do you will have a killer edge over the herd of bedroomers and part-timers who dont even bother (provided that is what you want)

[Tone Deft]

try covering a song you like, if only for the sake of pushing through the entire recording process to use all your tools.

if that doesn't work...
...shave your balls.

there's nothing like a shorn scrotum to give a man a different outlook on life.