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I'm surprised to get such a lot of responses on the other thread regarding musicianship and lifestyle, nice to see a lot of quality input that will help me a lot (as well as hopefully help out many others on this board) Now there is another thing preying on my mind atm, I've lost the ability to finish a song!

I used to be able to get an idea down get a rough song together and have something finished in a matter of weeks.

It seems now I tend to over-engineer, spending hours thinking about the way elements gel together as opposed to just writing a song. I find it hard to be able to switch things up in track's, achieving little more than an overproduced, hyper polished 16 bar loop. I've stopped writing music, i've become a glorified sound engineer!!!!

If anybody is in my position or better yet have managed to push through to the point where they can write music again please post some of your much needed advice as this is actually killing me atm.

There's nothing wrong with polishing something for ages, hell I've been waiting for Dr. Dre's new album for almost a decade, he cooks his beats for years. But if you're taking so long tone chasing that you forget the inspiration in the first place you're doing yourself injustice. Try finishing a song in 2 stages. 1) get down as much of the notation/beats/structure down as nessisary to finish without touching your fx tracks. Hell, don't even bother making the synths, drop some presets in that sound close to what you have in your mind and get it out. 2) Go back and replace your samples/instruments with what you want them to really soundlike and tone chase for as long as you want, at least now you're tone chasing a whole song instead of a 16 bar loop.

Just my 2 cents

lowpass wrote:I'm surprised to get such a lot of responses on the other thread regarding musicianship and lifestyle, nice to see a lot of quality input that will help me a lot (as well as hopefully help out many others on this board) Now there is another thing preying on my mind atm, I've lost the ability to finish a song!

I used to be able to get an idea down get a rough song together and have something finished in a matter of weeks.

It seems now I tend to over-engineer, spending hours thinking about the way elements gel together as opposed to just writing a song. I find it hard to be able to switch things up in track's, achieving little more than an overproduced, hyper polished 16 bar loop. I've stopped writing music, i've become a glorified sound engineer!!!!

If anybody is in my position or better yet have managed to push through to the point where they can write music again please post some of your much needed advice as this is actually killing me atm.

iv fell into this trap as well mate i have wayyy too many 50% - 80% complete stuff however i do have some projects that are nearlyyy finished though, i think the only way you can pull through is to force yourself to go back to one of your old projects that sounds good and finish it, if you havent added enough white noise or ambiance/atmosphere, raises + falls in the back then do it! add drum fills or little melody fills at the end of your 4th bar in the main part of the track.. also just try your best to spend time fixing little parts that could sound better with a slight tweak BUT at the same time do not spend forever tweaking just running around on parts and try to make the sounds flow together better so the song feels more complete. do all this and your songs will sound more complete. my problem is some my tracks sound pretty much finished but im such a perfectionist i dont feel ready to put it out because i just feel that i can improve further

Triphosphate wrote:There's nothing wrong with polishing something for ages, hell I've been waiting for Dr. Dre's new album for almost a decade, he cooks his beats for years. But if you're taking so long tone chasing that you forget the inspiration in the first place you're doing yourself injustice. Try finishing a song in 2 stages. 1) get down as much of the notation/beats/structure down as nessisary to finish without touching your fx tracks. Hell, don't even bother making the synths, drop some presets in that sound close to what you have in your mind and get it out. 2) Go back and replace your samples/instruments with what you want them to really soundlike and tone chase for as long as you want, at least now you're tone chasing a whole song instead of a 16 bar loop.

Just my 2 cents

even though i was giving advice a second ago i guess i needed some too.. and that was a really good tip! although im mostly tone chasing whole songs il definitely think about this with my next projects just to speed up a bit

Triphosphate wrote:There's nothing wrong with polishing something for ages, hell I've been waiting for Dr. Dre's new album for almost a decade, he cooks his beats for years. But if you're taking so long tone chasing that you forget the inspiration in the first place you're doing yourself injustice. Try finishing a song in 2 stages. 1) get down as much of the notation/beats/structure down as nessisary to finish without touching your fx tracks. Hell, don't even bother making the synths, drop some presets in that sound close to what you have in your mind and get it out. 2) Go back and replace your samples/instruments with what you want them to really soundlike and tone chase for as long as you want, at least now you're tone chasing a whole song instead of a 16 bar loop.

Just my 2 cents

This.First of all make good progression,including intro and drop,then you can start polishing things after that you can make second part of the tune with some small variations.Thats the way i do things.Try looking from a different direction,time ago i had same problem.Now i do everything pretty exactly like Triphosphate sayd,and results are much better.4 hours + 4 hours next day,and the main idea of a tune is allmoast done.Then i can polish it,and mix it for week,but it sounds cool and doesnt sound repetetive,and you feel like you want to finish it.

Iv never finished a proper tune and iv been trying for nearly 2 years
i don't think i ever will...

I often find I start something and change different elements so many times I totally lose direction and end up with 32 bars of weird intro that never gets developed. Either that or I cant push myself past the intro at all. After working so long on the first 32 - odd bars (I like to have a very clear, if not complete picture of the intro before I continue), Loading up a whole new set of synths and fiddling with more parameters is more than i can think about, so the tune just ends up forgotten.

The one in my sig is the first ive got completed in about a month, simply through 7hours of straight work nonstop, a full 20pack, and loadsa coffee. Its the only way I seem to be able to get anything done =p

fuck dem 20bags man.Main enemy of a succesfull production imo Unless when doing mixdown haha! Dont start tunes high,unless you have skills and dont have problms finishing it.I used to be a big stoner,and it was diffucult to write stuff when i quit smokin,it was like listening with oner ear,but week or two later everything was fine,and i was making tunes,not just tweaking few parameters for 2 hours )

donpablo wrote:fuck dem 20bags man.Main enemy of a succesfull production imo Unless when doing mixdown haha! Dont start tunes high,unless you have skills and dont have problms finishing it.I used to be a big stoner,and it was diffucult to write stuff when i quit smokin,it was like listening with oner ear,but week or two later everything was fine,and i was making tunes,not just tweaking few parameters for 2 hours )

for each his own bro

yep,sorry.forgot to mention.This is my experience

I have had this problem for the last couple of months. One way i think of it is if you cant finish a track maybe your not expressing yourself enough in the music, if you have to force it, it will never sound good. Try experimenting by starting a track from a different point eg second drop. If over engineering is your problem, load up the main drum hits you want for your track, before considering eq compression distortion etc try to get the original samples close to what you want, then only add the proccessing now if your drums need it to sound right otherwise add it later. Imo you should always try to get an idea down while its fresh in your mind, if you have to write it down To remember then so be it. Also, take breaks when making tunes to recalibrate your thoughts on what needs to be done next. Hope this helps !

join the 48 hour competition! you wont be happy with the end product but working to a deadline helps me

hutyluty wrote:join the 48 hour competition! you wont be happy with the end product but working to a deadline helps me

48 hour competition? please do elaborate

lowpass wrote:

hutyluty wrote:join the 48 hour competition! you wont be happy with the end product but working to a deadline helps me

48 hour competition? please do elaborate

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=220002

it started an hour and a half ago but feel free to enter!

hutyluty wrote:

lowpass wrote:

hutyluty wrote:join the 48 hour competition! you wont be happy with the end product but working to a deadline helps me

48 hour competition? please do elaborate

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=220002

it started an hour and a half ago but feel free to enter!

o yeah crap i wanted to take part in this again, i better start now! the whole reason i take part in these is to try to produce a lot faster

I'm convinced, gonna be working with deadlines from now on.