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

[Tarekith]

And vice versa, you find you have two many ideas for one track so you split it into two.

[Citizen]

^^^

Yeah, thats been happening a bit - I'm starting to incorporate that into my workflow.

Some really good responses here guys - thanks for sharing - you've given me quite a few insights!

[Citizen]

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

I've tried doing this just recently, but my tracks don't seem to want to be friends

You would think the track with the weak percussion and the killer progression would want to make sweet, sweet love with the fat drum track in need of melodic parts!!! But no!

[vitalispopoff]

And vice versa, you find you have two many ideas for one track so you split it into two.

I don't remember to do it ever.
On the other hand, using unfinished tracks in liveset is my on-a-daily-basis habit. Also it helps to construct an track orders in albums I'm working on; but again - the mixing process is a nightmare: a countless jumping from one project to another, and rearranging them in order to avoid cutting the renders in a album mixdown project. PItA

[convex]

Some great ideas in this thread. I have hundreds of projects that are unfinished at any given time. One thing I started doing a couple of years ago to help me contend with project bloat on my hard drive is to keep a spreadsheet with columns for BPM, File Name, Track Name, Instruments Used, Project, Rating, To Do notes, Already Mixed Down Y/N, etc. This way the lists of file names in my browser aren't mysterious to me when I haven't opened some of them in a while. It also allows me to sort by BPM, Rating, etc. (Need to add Key next), and color-code some things. I'm constantly reevaluating the quality of the projects as I work on them and adjusting the rating accordingly, so that I can always keep the best of the best and most-likely-to-be-finished-soon projects sorted together. Once I finish something, I change the rating to complete, and it gets sorted out of the way to the bottom with older projects.

Yes, this can be tedious exercise in OCD, but the payoff is that I don't have to open every project to know what it is. I just glance at the spreadsheet to remind myself where I'm at and decide where to start for the day. It took me a while to get into the habit of adding a line to the spreadsheet every time I create a new project, but I'd be lost now if I didn't have a database to refer to.

This also keeps me from tinkering too much with things that aren't going anywhere just because I happened to open it to see what the hell it was. Sometimes I find an old forgotten gem that I can finish quickly, but I found that more often I'd tinker for a while only to rediscover the reason I originally set it aside. I should probably just delete the lesser stuff, but the hoarder in me isn't there yet.

[regretfullySaid]

Some great ideas in this thread. I have hundreds of projects that are unfinished at any given time. One thing I started doing a couple of years ago to help me contend with project bloat on my hard drive is to keep a spreadsheet with columns for BPM, File Name, Track Name, Instruments Used, Project, Rating, To Do notes, Already Mixed Down Y/N, etc. This way the lists of file names in my browser aren't mysterious to me when I haven't opened some of them in a while. It also allows me to sort by BPM, Rating, etc. (Need to add Key next), and color-code some things. I'm constantly reevaluating the quality of the projects as I work on them and adjusting the rating accordingly, so that I can always keep the best of the best and most-likely-to-be-finished-soon projects sorted together. Once I finish something, I change the rating to complete, and it gets sorted out of the way to the bottom with older projects.

Nice.

That's what I like about Foobar2k. It allows you to customize the interface at a low level so you can set things how you want. I made my own panel pretty easily to sort through my music like this, and the results are instant, along with the search (results as you type) There's an extension that allows you to get tag information from Discogs so you can get more detialed tags like Publisher (label) and Style. Then I can just drag the tracks from foobar and drop them into Live.
For getting Key info I use Rapid Evolution 3 (with extended Key Codes) and Bpm is a mix between RE3 and a BPM detector add-on for foobar.
When I've demoed Traktor, my search results and tag embedding is wayyy quicker with foobar than Traktor itself. It's actually quicker to search in foobar and drag it in the program than rely on the standalone program itself. Weird innit.
Also the database foobar uses is SQLite.



Now if Live could do that internally, that would be awesome. The 9 browser has a small potential pointing in that direction, but not as fully.
It's got a long way to go as it is.

[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

I've tried doing this just recently, but my tracks don't seem to want to be friends :(

You would think the track with the weak percussion and the killer progression would want to make sweet, sweet love with the fat drum track in need of melodic parts!!! But no!

:lol:

not something you can really plan, it'll just happen...helps to give a good listen to everything you have in the works every so often, sometimes i just quickly run thru all going concerns...

[convex]

That's what I like about Foobar2k. It allows you to customize the interface at a low level so you can set things how you want.

Looks handy for DJ'ing, but overkill for what I need when tracking the status of my own projects. Anyway, I too hope that the updated Live browser has some things I can use along these lines. A real rating function, a BPM column for projects and a freeform Comment column would be nice, but I haven't seen any of those in the Live 9 previews. The new Rank column appears to populate automatically by frequency of use which is nice I suppose, but isn't much good to me.