What do you do when you run out of ideas?

[3za]

force myself

Never force. You can't make creativity happen. It's an organic process, just chill out and take time away for a bit.

Your just falling into the musician stereotype of being lazy. Being proactive is the only way to succeed in anything imo.

When your playing your xbox, im sweating at my DAW, getting better with every hour.

[wub]

force myself

Never force. You can't make creativity happen. It's an organic process, just chill out and take time away for a bit.

Your just falling into the musician stereotype of being lazy. Being proactive is the only way to succeed in anything imo.

When your playing your xbox, im sweating at my DAW, getting better with every hour.

Not at all, it's just that I've hung around me long enough to know when to preserver and when to take a break.

[synthless]

I just read up on the reason manual.... Made myself a little book that i copy from the help viewer into writting.... Even tho atm its mostly studying instead of making the music. Im really getting into synthesis, So im having a problem atm where im not writting enough tunes cos im doing other things involved in music production, Learning how to produce music.

[rubiconguava]

if your stuck on a tune youve already got reasonably far along with e.g youve got some basic ideas down that you like but dont know where to take it next then just... go for a walk.. or have a cuppa... or a riffa... just get away from your computer and sing the tune to yourself in your head, and i can guarantee the moment you do ideas will start flooding into your head, then its just trying to remember them all for when you get back to your DAW.

[Dystinkt]

take some time out, sometimes you work yourself too hard without realising, the more fulfilled you are outside of music the more fulfilling your music will be.

[3za]

take some time out, sometimes you work yourself too hard without realising, the more fulfilled you are outside of music the more fulfilling your music will be.

I work the other way to that, the better things are going for me the less I fell the need to make music, when things ain't going so well I resort to my happy music making bubble, where nothing else matters.

[Dystinkt]

take some time out, sometimes you work yourself too hard without realising, the more fulfilled you are outside of music the more fulfilling your music will be.

I work the other way to that, the better things are going for me the less I fell the need to make music, when things ain't going so well I resort to my happy music making bubble, where nothing else matters.

Meh each to their own I guess. I find it interesting how different people's approach to production in this respect can be. Some people make their best tunes when they feel like shit and others are at their highest when everuything is great for them.

[nowaysj]

the better things are going for me the less I fell the need to make music, when things ain't going so well I resort to my happy music making bubble, where nothing else matters.

Got this tattooed on my cock.

[mrwest]

smoke some weed

[mta7388]

force myself

Never force. You can't make creativity happen. It's an organic process, just chill out and take time away for a bit.

i'm not trying to force creativity. When I sit down to make tunes and don't have a specific idea in mind I find that it helps to limit yourself in your options and focus yourself on one source. So in the example I mentioned i would think "let's take these 3 records and work off a sample or two from them" giving me somewhere to start if don't have an idea to begin with.

[erratech]

Make some tunes

Make some patches, listen to random music or open random unfinished projects and see if any ideas are worth salvaging (or just wonder what the fuck you were thinking ). Maybe read some tehnical/technique stuff (or watch youtubes I guess, I find them untrustworthy and timeconsuming tho). Ill often rewrite a song thats half finished, change the tempo/sounds/melodic content/drums, although thats a bit of a judgement call - sometimes I do all the above many times before it is "right", but if your stuck its better than dragging out some mediocre shit.

Consume and appreciate some other form of art. TAKE A BREAK, if youre not getting any progress do something else that you enjoy, or shit you put off and hate. Visit some mates, or go for a walk, go to a cafe/look at trinkets, ring your mum you slack tnuc . Try and write something with a different vibe/genre to what youre comfortable with. Take a sound and make it Perfect, make a rediculously convoluted fx chain where the elements are so subtle noone will really know theyre there except you, needle drop random terrible terrible opshop records while youve got it recording till you cant take it anymore, then cut them into samples. Make a piano/organ piece- start with a few chords and just build layers till it is nonsense and strip it back down to something that works. Chop some vox, download acapellas that you have never heard of or that are rediculously shit - I can practically guarantee there will be a useable word or line in there somewhere. Try and understand a sound. Take a sound and randomly effect and resample until it is the most useless sound in existance, then repeat a few times.

If youre still out of ideas after youve tried all that then I dont know what the fuck to tell you, maybe stop writing and force yourself to stay stopped till the urge to write is literally a compulsion you cannot control anymore lol. That turned into a fucking essay, be glad youre around youre music making gear. Good luck.