Your Biggest Songwriting Problem - Discuss

logic_user99 · Post by **logic_user99** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:03 am

Q: Do you find it easier or harder to work with another person when it comes to compositional, computer-based projects?

I find that it works in a completely different fashion than when you're playing in a 'traditional' band setting.

Thoughts?

JDSampo · Post by **JDSampo** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:19 pm

creature wrote:" This has been spurred on by a thread on the Reaktor forum about "Do we have too much choice?".

This is a very good point actually. I feel there is so much choice you tend to overload on synths and effects. I am certainly guilty of this. One thing I decided early this year was to stop buying stuff and just make do with what I have got. Completely different to how it used to be. Year ago you would be lucky if you could buy a new hardware synth every year.

So my biggest problem to date is i have so many tools available to me, I spent to much time dabbling wiht stuff that isn;t going to be useful to me.

Steve

I made the same decision recently and dumped all my VSTs and use only Reason for instruments and Live for recording audio when composing. I haven't found it in the least bit limiting. This has had the side-effect of me starting to learn my finite selection of software really well rather than having 20+ instruments I barely scratch the surface on.

It's been cool because it feels more like 'the old days' when my studio consisted of a couple keyboards and a four-track. I was much more creative then than I've been in more recent years and now I'm starting to feel that again. And I save a ton of money

--JD

logic_user99 · Post by **logic_user99** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:32 pm

JDSampo wrote:
creature wrote:" This has been spurred on by a thread on the Reaktor forum about "Do we have too much choice?".

This is a very good point actually. I feel there is so much choice you tend to overload on synths and effects. I am certainly guilty of this. One thing I decided early this year was to stop buying stuff and just make do with what I have got. Completely different to how it used to be. Year ago you would be lucky if you could buy a new hardware synth every year.

So my biggest problem to date is i have so many tools available to me, I spent to much time dabbling wiht stuff that isn;t going to be useful to me.

Steve
I made the same decision recently and dumped all my VSTs and use only Reason for instruments and Live for recording audio when composing. I haven't found it in the least bit limiting. This has had the side-effect of me starting to learn my finite selection of software really well rather than having 20+ instruments I barely scratch the surface on.

It's been cool because it feels more like 'the old days' when my studio consisted of a couple keyboards and a four-track. I was much more creative then than I've been in more recent years and now I'm starting to feel that again. And I save a ton of money

--JD

Good points, both. There's a very strong arguament for picking your toys carefully, and learning how to use them for what you want to do.

*has brainwave*

I think I'm going to post a little compo up on another thread...!

supamonsta · Post by **supamonsta** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:12 am

I need an "arrangement external advisor plugin",

to be able to get rid of the multiple variations that do NOT bring interest to the track, and keep the good ones,

then to be able to arrange the choosen patterns in a coherent song structure...

I'm like lots of us : too many times sticked in a good sounding 8 or 16 bars loop and wondering what next, trying things then deleting, multiplying infinite variations, each sounding "good, but..."...

I think (for electro music) DJying can help a lot for this... but I'm sadly not a dj (I would by cerato and turntables if I did'nt spend all my money in softs, computers, controlers or hardware stuff....)

so let's buy a "DJ advisor VST" .

cheers

Grappadura · Post by **Grappadura** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:34 am

Right now I´ve got the same problem once again. I already had a complete song ready, but when I went on refining it, I came across a monster loop! Now everything else I had already made doesn´t really fit well with the loop, but no way I´m going back.

So I sit and ponder how can I remake this song... And my conclusions are: Add as few new instruments as necessery (makes it harder, but the song stays focused). Play with drums and frequency. Chop the monster loop up to see if there is an easy variation that I can use.

Any suggestions?

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:50 pm

Grappadura wrote:Right now I´ve got the same problem once again. I already had a complete song ready, but when I went on refining it, I came across a monster loop! Now everything else I had already made doesn´t really fit well with the loop, but no way I´m going back.

Any suggestions?

I suggest using the monster part as a surprising 'second part' to the song
get the first (and original) part over in a reasonable amount of time for it to say its piece (probably about 2 / 2.5 minutes), have a breakdown of some kind ... then bring the monster loop part in as a whole new section.
If it really really doesn't follow, then use it in another song

I used to share a flat with a guy, an old school rocker, who would write songs this way - he wrote a load of unrelated chunks. He then just looked for chunks that went together vaguely. Everyone used to congratulate him on his incredible artistic key changes ... which were of course just what he could wrangle out of the parts on offer.

Grappadura · Post by **Grappadura** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:18 pm

Cool! I´ll check that out. The monster loop is quite dominating, thats kind of the problem right now; its absolutely tight, and makes the rest of the song sound not tight. Without this loop, the song would be almost done and sound coherent.

I admire people that can make a whole song out of just one loop. Take something like "call on me" by eric prydz. I don´t like the song very much, but I like how he makes a whole song out of that little verse, just by using filters, delays and the like, never altering his four-notes-pattern. I´d like to do something similar with my song, so it stays focused.

This makes sense to me, because of the dominance of the monster loop. If it is dominant, let it dominate.

logic_user99 · Post by **logic_user99** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 1:31 pm

I think another sticking point is 'working without boundaries'.

I was trying to write something last night, in a similar vein to Photek's 'Form and Function' album (I love the drum sounds on there). It started out ok, but then I slipped into the habit of trying out too many synths and trying to make the sounds exactly as I was hearing in my head, rather than just trying to get a hook/break down so that there was enough content to work with!

It's often quite discouraging when you can't get your drums to sound quite right or get that 'wobble' on your bass. Even though you might be playing the same notes, or have programmed the pattern down just right, it's still not going to be how you want it to be.

This leads back to the 'having too much choice' arguament. Even if it's 100 snare samples as opposed to 10, or 20 bass presets as opposed to 5, if you take your eye off the prize for just two seconds, you're lost in a veritable mine-field of imagination-destroying options!

JDSampo · Post by **JDSampo** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:14 pm

logic_user99 wrote:I think another sticking point is 'working without boundaries'.

I was trying to write something last night, in a similar vein to Photek's 'Form and Function' album (I love the drum sounds on there). It started out ok, but then I slipped into the habit of trying out too many synths and trying to make the sounds exactly as I was hearing in my head, rather than just trying to get a hook/break down so that there was enough content to work with!

It's often quite discouraging when you can't get your drums to sound quite right or get that 'wobble' on your bass. Even though you might be playing the same notes, or have programmed the pattern down just right, it's still not going to be how you want it to be.

This leads back to the 'having too much choice' arguament. Even if it's 100 snare samples as opposed to 10, or 20 bass presets as opposed to 5, if you take your eye off the prize for just two seconds, you're lost in a veritable mine-field of imagination-destroying options!

That really hits the nail on the head. I'm very prone to that problem but I've had the best luck when I stop worrying about that stuff and just "get on with it". The inner composer and the inner producer/engineer start arguing and the composer needs to win at this point in the process.

"That snare's not right!"
"But it's a snare where a snare should be so shut up and let me lay down that bass line before I forget what I'm doing."
"But don't we want something more 'moogy' for that bass?"
"Yes, make a note of it and I'll go back later, I have a melody line to write."

I've found that by taking that approach, I'm much more prone to happy accidents. Sometimes that crappy snare or weird bass sound I plan on replacing has a way of working out in the end.

--JD

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:50 pm

logic_user99 wrote:I think another sticking point is 'working without boundaries'.

To me this is actually the main problem. From what I've read here, many people seem lost because of the possibilities they have. And I think this is not only from a sound (too many VSTs) point of view but also from a composing point of view. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who likes different kinds of techno/electro/drum'n'bass or songwriter stuff or metal. So I wanted to take all these influences and make one big melting-pot out of it. But now I see that as mentioned above in another thread there will be some parts that sound great but that just don't fit the song.
What I want to say is that we need boundaries. One needs to say ok now I'm gonna write a house, techno, slow or whatever song and stick to that idea. Off course there can be influences of other styles but the song has to have its own identity and be coherent sound- and composing-wise.
A good example for extreme diversity in electronic music is for me Infected Mushroom. They have managed to bring acoustic and distorted instruments, asian scales and whatever into their music and still have a coherent concept.
I agree that one should be open to new stuff/influences but to bring them step by step into your compositions. I mean we will all write many more songs, the important thing is to be able to take decisions and stick to them in order to finish them, because as I read somewhere on the net, nobody is interested in semi-finished songs.

Maninkari · Post by **Maninkari** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:11 pm

I certainly don't have many ideas... I kinda know what I want to do, but I have no actual idea when starting to make something...

chrisedmo · Post by **chrisedmo** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:17 pm

For me its lyrics and vocal melody.

Secondly musically its finishing.. i have hundreds of half finished songs, but i struggle to find a complimentary verse to the chorus or a way to finish etc.

I sometimes think now that we do have too much choice of anything - which potentially sounds great but im not sure it is - too many distractions.

Maninkari · Post by **Maninkari** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:29 pm

chrisedmo wrote:I sometimes think now that we do have too much choice of anything - which potentially sounds great but im not sure it is - too many distractions.

yes I think so too. restrictions make one creative. I mean take a look at DJ Scotch egg, he's fiddling around with a tracker on a gameboy, being restrictet to 8bit synths with a max of 4 tracks at a time and some distorted vocals via the mixer.
and his music is freaking awesome

Clor · Post by **Clor** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:15 pm

For me it's mixing xD
I don't care at all about mixing. So it's always quite messy and stuff is too loud or unhearable.
Luckily songwriting is no problem for me

SimonPHC · Post by **SimonPHC** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 7:56 pm

My biggest problem is knowing scales, or to be more precise, know them by hard. I can work them out, but that takes concentration and time which leads to being distracted from the song, sound and vibe...

Next to this, not yet having found the right interface for me is killing my spirit.

Also, these days I have no 'own' studio environment, where I can get into that state where magic starts happening.

Your Biggest Songwriting Problem - Discuss

A secondary question.