thought for the day - revisit old tracks or start new?

[Homebelly]

Its a bit of a coincidence that this thread has turned up as i was talking to some one about this the other day. Part of my love affair with Live is based around the idea that no idea is redundant. It is so simple to cull a bass line, for example, from one tune that is going no where and use it in another tune that might just go a little bit further.
A year or so ago, when i was spending serious time learning Live, most of that time was spent raiding songs i had started but never finished in my Logic folder. I used to get a little pissed at my self for never finishing a tune, now i tend to figure that the tune is going no place, and so i then decide what aspects of this folly might be useful later,, keep those and then ditch the rest.

I'd also be interested to hear how Live has altered peoples writing style.
For me it has changed the entire writing paradigm. Hundreds of years ago when i was primarily a guitar player i would build around the standard song forms, I still hung onto this idea once i started using computers more and more, but with Live i have almost completely let go of that method and now it is all about short ideas inspiring other ideas and hoping that eventually all of those ideas will form into a more concise whole. This ties into the first part of this post as an idea in one set might be the inspiration to continue with another set.

[Able Danger]

IMO, just about every permutation and combination of notes, instruments, sounds, chord changes, etc has already been written. All that's left nowadays is to regurgitate what's already been done.

And with the ability to 'create' music easier than it's ever been, and getting cheaper and easier daily, we'll continue to be overloaded with crap.

u need to dump an E and go to a club..

[Homebelly]

IMO, just about every permutation and combination of notes, instruments, sounds, chord changes, etc has already been written. All that's left nowadays is to regurgitate what's already been done.

And with the ability to 'create' music easier than it's ever been, and getting cheaper and easier daily, we'll continue to be overloaded with crap.

By the same token, every word and combination of words in the English language has been spoken and written down, type writers and computers make it easier to write these words down, and so all that happens is people then write these types of redundant opinions that show an almost complete lack of imagination

[Angstrom]

I find the idea that music has to be original to be enjoyable pretty funny. Irish people have been listening to the same damn song for over 3000 years and they still seem to enjoy it.

Someone ought to tell them that the enjoyment of music relies on constant innovation. Oh no, wait, it's commerce that relies on constant innovation, I wonder how those two got linked.

Of course there are still technological developments in music, and those drive change just like the invention of the piano did. Although the current techno-democratisation has spawned a whole load of shallow throwaway shite there has always been terrible throwaway shite. The popular music of the 1920 was absolute bollocks to my ears, as was that of the 1880s and the mediaeval minstrelry of the 1400s was crap too.

Sure we have exponentially more throwaway crap, but we have also been gifted with a whole new way to find music we like, so I reckon we come out even.

[Nick the Zombie]

For what it's worth, I like to recycle old track ideas by sampling them and twisting them into ideas for new tracks. Just chop the drum hits, effects tails, etc. out of the loop and turn them into new sounds.

- Nick

[forge]

I'd also be interested to hear how Live has altered peoples writing style.
For me it has changed the entire writing paradigm.

yeah I was going to say the same thing - also in reference to the new structures of projects and file manager combined with hundreds - even thousands - of GBs of storage constantly accessible - I wonder if music wil be able to evolve better when it is easy to just load up a project from 5 years ago and totally rework it

there are a few reasons all my old projects and backups have been so difficult to easily access, selling a sampler, losing CDs, not enough Hard disk space, combined with seemingly frequent moves all over the place each time losing a bit more of the baggage in the process

but considering I bought a 400 GB hard driver just recently (which is what has triggered all this house keeping) I can't see I will ever have this problem again.

From now on everything I do will be accessible easily, and so this act of consolidating it is kind of like deciding what I'm going to bring with me

I have whole hard drives and CDs and DVDs full of shit that I have never loaded again - samples I created 10 years ago and got buried in layers of folders nameed 'audio ttrack 15 - 1" in a 'sounds' folder - shit like that

I got this new hard drive at least 2 months ago now and I have been gradually sorting it all out ever since and I've still got a way to go

so I guess the point is, any of the ideas that were any good are starting to show themselves and are being weeded out from the countless folders of useless rubbish

[RhythmSickness]

Over the years I have used different systems, (amiga, pc, mac, hardware) to create music, and although I do try to archive the things that I do, I will find that periodically, every few years I will lose the majority of things I have (ie, moving from 8bit to 16, losing a hdd, etc) So my own take on it is use what you can when you can, I still return to old tracks that I now only have mp3's of and develop ideas from them, and I still create completely new ideas based on new ways of working (live etc) I do find the odd purge very helpful though, in much the same way that throwing away most of your sample library can also be very useful. In that it focuses your ideas down narrower alleyways if you will. And also that limitations are often a greater source of creativity.

[Martyn]

I have moments of ruthless destruction where my old tune folders are concerned. I just go through them and pick the ones that show the most potential and simply delete the rest, audio n all. Even then I still end up with lots of crap that never seems to develop anywhere.

The tunes that I end up actually finishing tend to come together in just one sitting, usually when I have a week or so off work. I find that if I break something off before finishing it to a satisfactory arrangement, it invariably gets pulled in a different direction when I return to it, simply because my headspace and mood has changed so much, as a result it gets relagated to the trusty "unfinished ideas" folder. It's very rare that an old idea from that folder ends up bearing fruit.

None of this really matters too much to me though, it's the process that I enjoy, I'm under no obligation to finish anything at all for anybody other than myself.

[Moody]

Old songs are all I have.

[minimal]

i keep on trying to get something out of my old shit
but nothing happened yet

[Homebelly]

i keep on trying to get something out of my old shit
but nothing happened yet

Sounds to me that you might need lay off the fibre and get some more liquids in your diet....

[andydes]

Right now I’m very tempted to completely purge my hard drives of everything I’ve ever done and start from scratch. I might even dump the disks in the Thames, in case I ever get any foolish ideas in the future about trying to recover anything. What do you think?

[furrybum]

Combine old tracks to make new ones. Surprising how often this works and generates something greater than the sum of it's parts

[forge]

Right now I’m very tempted to completely purge my hard drives of everything I’ve ever done and start from scratch. I might even dump the disks in the Thames, in case I ever get any foolish ideas in the future about trying to recover anything. What do you think?

I think you'd hate yourself in 5 years

[polyslax]

for all the hype about CDs lasting 200 years when they came out, anything I burned over 5 years ago generally doesn't load

You obviously weren't keeping them in the freezer, like you're s'posed to!

I record something pretty much every day. WIPs get saved to a folder named Current using a date-based file working name. I usually have 3 or 4 tracks on the go at all times, and I often go back and plunder unused material from these WIP files. I also have tons of material digitized from recordings I made to tape in another century, and I comb through this on a regular basis as well. Tracks move along as I feel inspired by them – some marinate for months until I go back and rediscover them.

I think I understand sweetjesus’ point as well, in the context of people who are having trouble getting beyond creating short clips and beats. Sometimes we see the question posed on the forum from people who have written a hard drive full of 2 bar loops but don’t know what to do next. There’s really nothing left to do at that point but get down to it. Dig in to the material you’ve written and make a track, even if it's not all that great - you have to learn the craft to an extent. It’s comparatively easy to make cool loops and beats – while creating a finished track can be tough, tedious going.