Anyone throw away a song they've been working on for days?

[sporkles]

You'll quickly find that deleting an idea altogether is silly. Even though it's not working as a full composition, there may be elements in there that you can use in a different project: with Live, it's easy to drag tracks and clips from an old project into a new one — remix yourself! Mash up your ideas, and be creative. Just make sure that you give both your projects — and the tracks within the projects — sensible names, so that they're easy to identify later. Keep your projects and library organised in logical folder hierarchies, so that you know intuitively where to find your stuff (cause you will amass quite a few folders!)

Good luck!

[sporkles]

i dont delete most stuff because almost every project is in a "nested" folder and i dont know what samples to delete.

Which reminds me: you DO want to get rid of stuff that you know you positively won't ever use (poor takes, redundant renders, flattened tracks, etc. — basically unnecessary audio material). This is done by deleting the corresponding audio clips from Session slots and Arrangement, and then using Live's file handling to locate and delete unused samples.

[H20nly]

i threw away a singer/guitar player i've been working with for years... and consequently scrapped about 12 unfinished songs too since i was rapping and providing the rhythm section. it felt good. still does. making no music is better than managing what that overgrown headache was becoming.

<--- i'm really smiling right now.

i dunno what to with the finished songs now, but i didn't delete anything. i'm just recycling my parts (especially lyrics) if i find a new home for them.

[msodrew]

Many thanks for the advice, everyone.

I think I should just move on from the track and revisit it later once my brain has had time to decompress on it for a while and most definitely save every .als file I make.

I never thought of the idea of juggling multiple tracks simultaneously for some reason. I guess I just assumed that's too much to handle and you'd get your ideas crossed between songs, or one just wouldn't make enough progress on each at the velocity they'd expect... but I guess that's not a bad thing. Keeping your brain fresh and interested is the goal here, it seems.

thx again!

[doghouse]

[*]Do any of you ever abandon an entire project file because of this or similar reasons?
[*]Could abandoning the work actually be a good idea if you have the intention of returning to it?

Yes and yes, all the time.

Most of my stuff hits a dead end pretty quickly, so I save it and come back to it later...sometimes months! I should mention I'm not doing this for $$$ so I don't have any deadlines to worry about


When it's fresh again to your ears is when you really figure out if it's crap or not

[jestermgee]

I think I should just move on from the track and revisit it later once my brain has had time to decompress on it for a while and most definitely save every .als file I make.

A suggestion if I may.

Keep things organized. For example (and others will do/say differently so take what you think sounds good), I have my tracks in a PROJECT folder (each within its own folder). When a track is fully completed I move this into a folder called ++COMPLETED (complex stuff here so stay with me). My root folder will have all my projects on the go and if one sits in there for a few weeks without going in any direction I move it to the ++Scrap. If I just have a nice idea for a track but nothing compiled it's just an idea:

++COMPLETED
++SCRAP
++IDEAS
Song Start 1
Song Start 2
Song Start 3

Of course my songs have the titles I come up with but you get the idea. For me this keeps everything out of the way and when opening Ableton I see just the ideas I have in progress right now but have easy access to the old ideas.

I also always do a "Collect & Save" to make sure my samples don't go missing. I am constantly doing sample database maintenance to keep things tidy and get rid of the clutter and nothing worse than deleting a crappy sample you forgot you actually used for something.

[anybody human]

Many thanks for the advice, everyone.

I think I should just move on from the track and revisit it later once my brain has had time to decompress on it for a while and most definitely save every .als file I make.

I never thought of the idea of juggling multiple tracks simultaneously for some reason. I guess I just assumed that's too much to handle and you'd get your ideas crossed between songs, or one just wouldn't make enough progress on each at the velocity they'd expect... but I guess that's not a bad thing. Keeping your brain fresh and interested is the goal here, it seems.

thx again!

Yeah I just meant move on from the song if it's not working. I never delete anything except unused audio takes (Manage Files).

[Angstrom]

If I have made a musical sketch which doesnt seem to be very fresh or exciting, I leave it and move on. Once in a while I go through these old projects and either delete them, or sometimes I can hear a valuable idea worth saving. A bit of distance between me and it can provide perspective on what is good about it. Many times it's just workaday flabby stereotypical electronic beaty music, which evokes nothing and has no real entertainment value. I enjoy deleting those.

[Tarekith]

I throw away stuff all the time if it's just not working. I used to save bits and pieces of things to reuse later, but honestly I found I never really ended up using those things anyway. I'd end up with this huge folder of ideas and it would take too much time trawling through that too. Having things laying around half finished for months stresses me out to much, like I'm slacking or neglecting them if I don't have any ideas on how to wrap them up.

Now I just pitch the entire song if I'm no longer feeling it and start over from scratch.

[[email protected]]

Ive been experiencing this lately, but what Ive learned is that every time I "restart" I use the techniques Ive learned in a different way (as well as continuing to learn different techniques). Id suggest continuing on with another project where, who knows, you may start working with a melody that really interests you. Theres a good chance you will then learn a little bit more about melodies, before you go back to nit-picky effects stuff. Point is your ALWAYS learning, and every bit of creativity should be explored. Give your ears a rest, try something new, and the learning curve will continue!

[Earwax69]

I dont delete anything. What I do is I save a WAV file of it with the BPM in the name. That way If I miss a good part in a song, I can go listen to older stuff to see if there is one part that fit in the new mix. It did help me on a couple of songs.

Sometimes song are too weak by themselves, but mixed in something else, just as a bridge or parts, month later, it can come out nicely.

[RottenToTheGore]

I do my best to never throw anything away. Even though I'm not at the point where I can even finish songs (Still really new), I've had a few times that I've come up with a small loop or idea and thought "Hey, this would go really well with that idea I had saved a few weeks ago!"

Most of my project names start as ideas anyways. So I have lots of projects like "Muddy Bass", "Boss Battle" (It just sounded like something you'd hear in a video game <_<) and so forth.

Basically, I liked what I did for some reason, so to abandon it forever sounds like a bad idea.

[crumhorn]

I have an "ideas" folder where I put unfinished stuff that is cluttering up my world. But I don't remember ever having used anything out of it. So I might as well of just trashed them really.

[tech44]

You'll quickly find that deleting an idea altogether is silly. Even though it's not working as a full composition, there may be elements in there that you can use in a different project: with Live, it's easy to drag tracks and clips from an old project into a new one — remix yourself! Mash up your ideas, and be creative. Just make sure that you give both your projects — and the tracks within the projects — sensible names, so that they're easy to identify later. Keep your projects and library organised in logical folder hierarchies, so that you know intuitively where to find your stuff (cause you will amass quite a few folders!)

Good luck!

Pretty much this for me. If you like most of the parts, save them off as clips, especially if the are midi/instruments that you can change the key. Then when working on a new track, beat, whatever, you can quickly audition the parts with your new project, and if it fits pull it in.

I'm sure most people spend a good bit of time finding sounds they like. Seems silly just to throw away all those individual sounds because they're not working together in a project.

[Klauser]

I have an "ideas" folder ...

Yea a slightly organised ideas folder FTW. I have a huuuuuuge folder with beats, basslines, synth lines, melodies, chords, glitches, patches etc... This is my favourite folder on my computer. Any catchy elements of a tune that dont quite fit the project get thrown into this folder.

So when I'm working on a new project that needs that extra shine, I can dive into this folder and throw old ideas about, renew them, play about with them until I get something going.

Learn to love your ideas. Good or bad, they're still ideas.