Working on multiple projects at a time vs. just one?

[mdk]

In case of very complex construtcs, this may be an essential info - one missing thing changes everything. e.g. repitch a very complex pad, and You may loose the groove, the sound may become harsch, the freq bands may move and interfere with another instruments. automations may change the particular devices behaviour in unwanted way…

right, but again this underlines how personal each approach is, I like those situations where something familiar gets completely changed, it often leads to interesting new ideas

[vitalispopoff]

true - experimenting is always an option worth considering.

[snugsound]

I think it's a very personal thing and what works for one person won't necessarily work for anyone else.

Personally, I like to "finish" (or close to it) a track in 2 or 3 sessions. Usually it goes something like this:

• sound design, programming, writing (usually in Session view)
• rough arrangement, rough mix
• mix, add fills/risers/etc., automation

The risk in starting too many tracks at once is that it may be difficult to get enough momentum to finish any of them. There was a time where I had way more ideas than finished tracks, and I found that quite frustrating.

If that's not an issue for you then by all means work on 20 tracks at once

Edit: when I'm preparing an EP it's not uncommon for me to keep going over the same tracks, fine tuning little details and trying to balance out the mixes between them, but that's usually well after they tracks have been arranged and mixed

[mdk]

There was a time where I had way more ideas than finished tracks, and I found that quite frustrating.

I've got about 250 or so unfinished tracks sitting in my Live 8 folder but one thing I do every so often is to spend a day or two just rendering them out to audio, however much there is. It might be just 16 bars, it might be a 10 minute unedited 'performance'. Then I listen to them whilst doing other stuff, doing my work (programming), in the car, cleaning the house etc. It doesn't take long before I know which ones I really want to focus on, which ones have sounds or patterns I want to try in other contexts, how to finish a mixdown etc..

I find its a good way to dissipate the frustration, rather than sitting with Live open thinking I have to finish something, it becomes clear what I want to focus on.

but as we all agree, YMMV.

[vitalispopoff]

I've got about 250 or so unfinished tracks sitting in my Live 8 folder but one thing I do every so often is to spend a day or two just rendering them out to audio, however much there is. It might be just 16 bars, it might be a 10 minute unedited 'performance'. Then I listen to them whilst doing other stuff, doing my work (programming), in the car, cleaning the house etc. It doesn't take long before I know which ones I really want to focus on, which ones have sounds or patterns I want to try in other contexts, how to finish a mixdown etc..

I find its a good way to dissipate the frustration, rather than sitting with Live open thinking I have to finish something, it becomes clear what I want to focus on.

I used to do that too, also all the renders were instantly imported to the iTunes lib and tagged to be put in the particular playlists:
sketches, projects under construction, projects to be released, releases. This was great method to deal with all the started projects, and manage archived releases as well. It was surpisingly easy to select the tracks to build a new liveset.

Currently all the OS automations are gone, and I'm too lazy to rebuild this. Well, it's just a matter of time though.

[apyssjw]

This is something I've addressed in the past. I've always worked on as many projects as possible to try and keep creatively engaged. But it meant that I just had so many projects that I couldn't keep track of what was what. I had to start categorising the projects into individual themed folders, 'sketches' 'developing' so as to be able to identify the type of project before working on them. I found this forced me to concentrate on specifc tracks a little more as I would stay within folders etc for a while. Maybe slightly off the wall but helped me to focus.

[regretfullySaid]

Something else that's really helped me when projects accumulate is to rate them, like 1 for awesome to 5 for meh, and put that number before the file name so they'll list in order in the browser ie

1 booty crunk.als
1 split.als
2 funky donk.als
4 splerf.als
etc

When you have some time for project maintenance go through all your stuff and start renaming your als files like that!

[Citizen]

Personally, I like to "finish" (or close to it) a track in 2 or 3 sessions. Usually it goes something like this:

• sound design, programming, writing (usually in Session view)
• rough arrangement, rough mix
• mix, add fills/risers/etc., automation

I m

Hmmm, interesting - I thought everybody did their fills/risers and automation before their mix down.

Generally, I try to have the track 95% finished before moving into the mix stage.

Thanks for your responses guys - I've learnt a heap.

[snugsound]

Hmmm, interesting - I thought everybody did their fills/risers and automation before their mix down.

Yeah that's probably much more typical! I should clarify: I generally have some of this stuff worked out early on but I find you can never have enough and so I tend to treat these as "finishing tasks" or "polish", so to speak. Again, YMMV

[vitalispopoff]

TBH I've got a serious problem with this - i.e. I'm working on every aspect of the track almost at the same time. It's kinda chaotic, but - I'd rather look at it as cleaning the mess, that's created; You know this kind of work: like house constructions: when it's just built, someone has got to clean it a bit in order to start further works, like setting the water, current, gas installations, and then again, it's time to clean that chaos to begin with another part of construction.

[ChiefNugget]

Some great suggestions here. Always good to hear how others do this stuff. I like to keep the Live Library set to only factory settings and packs that install directly to the Library. All my presets and clips and third party instrument racks, etc get copied into my personal preset Live project. Samples used for Sampler patches, drum racks, etc are housed in that project's samples folder.

That said, I'm a little lax with saving instrument patches and clips to that preset project at times and find myself referring to my collection of projects to copy tracks that have the patch and MIDI sequences into other projects. This is fine if you can keep all your projects organized. I have three main folders - "riffs", "songs - early", and "songs - developed". Those are saved under my personal project directory or in collaborative project directories (which tend to have fewer, if any, in the "riffs" category).

[ChiefNugget]

Something else that's really helped me when projects accumulate is to rate them, like 1 for awesome to 5 for meh, and put that number before the file name so they'll list in order in the browser ie

1 booty crunk.als
1 split.als
2 funky donk.als
4 splerf.als
etc

When you have some time for project maintenance go through all your stuff and start renaming your als files like that!

Great idea. Would be nice if the Live browser had a native rating and tagging feature, preferably with "booty crunk" being the pinnacle of ratings

[jestermgee]

Many points I posted in your other thread can apply here:

viewtopic.php?p=1468302#p1468302

[Tarekith]

I like to work on multiple projects too, be it songs, albums, or totally unrelated things.

http://tarekith.com/bounce-around/


It really helps me to stay motivated, instead of getting hung up on one idea when things aren't working well. DJing, Live sets, hardware sets, writing tracks, it's all fair game at any time here.

[simmerdown]

i usually have 8-10 tracks in the works at a time..sometimes less but never more

not at all uncommon for 2 or even 3 tracks i'm playing around with to become one, i like that, an ahh moment when you realize they wanted to be together all along