Ableton Forum

do you stand up and walk out on me?

sorry about.

um... so i am making this song and i am generally pretty happy about it. it's coming together nicely and i want to keep working on it. but as i am playing it and playing while i fix something here, or change something there, i'm getting a bit bored/frustrated/sick of it.

so do you normally plug away anyway to break through it, take a break and come back to it, or start a new song whilst you still have the creative feeling, so that you can get 2 things on the go with the same zest?

Take a break and/or start something else. That's what I do.

You've got to let the idea "bake" for a while before coming back to it. Seperate the creative session and the mix session with enough time and you shouldn't be sick of it.

silverlulu wrote:do you stand up and walk out on me?

sorry about.

um... so i am making this song and i am generally pretty happy about it. it's coming together nicely and i want to keep working on it. but as i am playing it and playing while i fix something here, or change something there, i'm getting a bit bored/frustrated/sick of it.

so do you normally plug away anyway to break through it, take a break and come back to it, or start a new song whilst you still have the creative feeling, so that you can get 2 things on the go with the same zest?

try and not play it so much

think of what u gotta do, stop then do it.. then have a quick listen to that snippet and if its right, move on..

It always sounds better when your drink/other.... Just don't think cool your and blow out your ear drums over it, nothings that good to do that with. trying ti listen to everything at once!

+ one for baking it too

I'm really at the point were I don't save anything now unless its really got something. I Still can't sit down and say to myself yeah I'm going to make such and such, right!? My shit still sucks. Friends are like yeah ...nice track cough, cough ..well I gotta go now ..were you going ..away! Why you don't like the track?, no no its really something cough, really a peace of work....
/but I don't care, like just coming up with weird shit that all...

I think it's quite a valuable skill to stay interested in the tune for a long time. Pretty much essential I'd say.

These days I can keep interested in a tune for a looooong time, about 4 years, perhaps more.
When I first started out with music I used to have a limit of about a day, that was a big problem. Once you lose the love for a tune and begin to tinker .. you are adrift in an ocean of sound, you have slipped your thematic anchor. You've got to try and keep a grip of that, got to train yourself to mentally handle it a certain way.

Think about theatre actors - they do roles on stage for years at a time, twice a day, 5 days a week. The trick is to stay interested, that's the skill.
With music, if you lose the love and it all turns sour on you .. I find it can take years to be able to approach the song as fresh and when you do it may as well be a new song.

I could go into depth about how to separate and lock up that part of your mind that says "I'm bored" while you are creating ... but I guess it's a different way for everyone. Suffice to say - I put myself into a "perpetual now"
if you can do that, then I recommend it.

Angstrom wrote:I think it's quite a valuable skill to stay interested in the tune for a long time. Pretty much essential I'd say.

These days I can keep interested in a tune for a looooong time, about 4 years, perhaps more.
When I first started out with music I used to have a limit of about a day, that was a big problem. Once you lose the love for a tune and begin to tinker .. you are adrift in an ocean of sound, you have slipped your thematic anchor. You've got to try and keep a grip of that, got to train yourself to mentally handle it a certain way.

Think about theatre actors - they do roles on stage for years at a time, twice a day, 5 days a week. The trick is to stay interested, that's the skill.
With music, if you lose the love and it all turns sour on you .. I find it can take years to be able to approach the song as fresh and when you do it may as well be a new song.

I could go into depth about how to separate and lock up that part of your mind that says "I'm bored" while you are creating ... but I guess it's a different way for everyone. Suffice to say - I put myself into a "perpetual now"
if you can do that, then I recommend it.

Wow. + 1.

Finishing is a skill in itself (figuratively).

Music is for life.

I've got so sick of a joint that I can't bare to listen to it anymore, its recognising that cut off point where its no longer productive to go on. Its soul destroying to think of the time and effort I have put into stuff that sits on my hard drive unloved, unfinished and unheard

in that case - collaborate with someone.
send your unfinished works to them and get theirs to you.

If you find you are too precious to send them off then you obviously have enough spirit left in you to finish the damn things.


you will find that if you even brought someone into the studio for an afternoon you would finish a track.
Having someone sat there - even if they have no technical or musical expertise other than they are into the certain style/genre of music. Having another head in the room can make you weirdly and magically focus on what is essential and what isn't.

Often the crucial cuts can take just 30 minutes.

the final 'mix' may take longer, but once you have decided what needs doing - just do that, and no more. Treat it like a job when you get to the final mix stage , all the creative work/decisions should be done and dusted by then.

I have spent 2 months getting just the right bass sound after deciding what a track needed. That decision session took just 10 minutes. It didn't phase me that the bass took 2 months more, because I was working to a plan I believed in. I spent 2 months zeroing in on something I had already fixed as a target. I knew where I was going.

2bad wrote:I've got so sick of a joint that I can't bare to listen to it anymore, its recognising that cut off point where its no longer productive to go on. Its soul destroying to think of the time and effort I have put into stuff that sits on my hard drive unloved, unfinished and unheard

Or maybe post them on this forum under "lets make some nonsense and post it here" thread ..Just a idea anyway. We are like mind people around here. At least I would like to think so. anyway..

some of my earliest tunes i rarely listen to. some i still listen to almost everyday. a tune i recently worked on with another forum member, i listen to twice, sometimes thrice a day, for a couple of months now, and i have nothing else to offer it, so, for me, it is done. and i like it. a lot. i gives a shit if anyone else does, works for me this is "listening to." so the songs that make the cut get the same treatment as other peoples music that i like, it goes in cycles, when i listen to something too often, i stop, and eventually i will cycle back around to it. having a fairly large collection helps.



writing/mixing is different. you have to hear the same thing, repeatedly. i don't consider that "listening to." if i grow bored during this stage, i shut it down, and revisit later, some times a day, some times a month, and some i haven't looked at again. but i really enjoy the process. i always know the tracks i enjoy working on, because there will be multiple copies of the project- that is, if there is not a suitable name yet. i can "hear" the tune many, many times. if it really grows stagnant in my mind, i fall asleep... then i go to bed, look at the forum, or start something else.

if it ain't fun, what is the point?

I just finish stuff quickly. Round it up.

Just like it takes a certain someone to let a track simmer for 4 years it takes guts to kill your darlings, or guts to say "done", when you could have kept on tweaking.

I have a system of Speed Production, that really helps me unearth creative ideas.

Angstrom wrote: I have spent 2 months getting just the right bass sound after deciding what a track needed.

Now THAT is art.



Or Madness.



Probably both.



That better be one motherfucking amazing bass sound.



Let's hope it's not just another of the 456,968 Justice bass clones......







...

I usually go outside and smoke. Getting fresh air (ironic eh?) and away from a computer usually clears my mind.

I end up getting great ideas in my head at those times.

Too bad I'm trying not to smoke. Going for a walk just not the same but should be.

landrvr1 wrote:

Angstrom wrote: I have spent 2 months getting just the right bass sound after deciding what a track needed.

Now THAT is art.
Or Madness.
Probably both.
That better be one motherfucking amazing bass sound.
Let's hope it's not just another of the 456,968 Justice bass clones......

..

heh,
OK, so it was over a two month period, not 8 hours a day for 2 months
It's not that the bass sound is amazing - it's just that the sound I had for the first section didn't work at all on smaller speakers - which made the track a non-song on a poxy iPod stereo setup or similar, for me that's a fail.

So I had to find a bass that sounded 'sub' on larger speakers, but cut through OK on a small speaker without having so much top end that it interfered with everything else and make it sound shite and fizzy on a large system , even worse : it needed to work for the second section of the song which is totally different kind of bassline ... .I tried a few strategies and lots failed.

simpler to play the track really:
http://www.last.fm/music/Angstrom/_/Mak ... ?autostart

all that work and it sounds like nothing spectacular at all !
but it's exactly the way I wanted it.