Dubstepforum.com

You get frustrated working on a tune cause you think it sounds shit.
You listen to it later and it actually sounds pretty good.

It makes sense when it happens the other way round, but this is just weird.

Ive had that.

guess youve gotta be in the right mood etc..

wired though

yeah man, get that a lot. if i'm not getting somewhere with a tune i usually leave it for a few hours and then when i come back i hear it with a fresh pair of ears.

I always end up deleting 10-15 hours worth of work (a whole project) because I pull an allnighter and when it gets around 6am everything sound shite.

Yeah... it's happened to me a few times. Originally I thought the tracks were shit, but listening to them months later I realized that they wen't as bad as I thought.

all the time, often within the same minute

i dont ever delete anything though... who knows what might come in handy later on.

what ive found to really help with this is to give myself a maximum of 5-10 minutes with each sound im trying to introduce into the tune. If it doesnt fit into the arrangement or if im not feeling it after that time i'll remove it and try something else. this has saved me heaps of wasted hours fiddling with a superfluous sound that will never fit in context with the rest of the tune...

bassbeyondreason wrote:You get frustrated working on a tune cause you think it sounds shit.
You listen to it later and it actually sounds pretty good.

It makes sense when it happens the other way round, but this is just weird.

Yup, all the time


I usually give it 30mins - if I can't make any significant changes to make it sound 'not shit' in my head, then I bounce the whole project, chop it into samples & archive, and move onto something else.

Rendr wrote:I always end up deleting 10-15 hours worth of work (a whole project) because I pull an allnighter and when it gets around 6am everything sound shite.

That shit happenes to me alot...

all the time, i have tracks that i 2/3 finished a year or more ago then ditched, that i have come back to recently and realised they are really worth keeping.

Hahaha - I have been going through my FL7 project files (use FL8/Cubase4 now) and the ideas are amazing - now just putting them into context of what I know now.. I got like 8 tunes just waiting to be sent around what're some of the best ive ever made- I thought they was shit back in the day cause I was always tryna get a certain sound. now I know what I wanna do an I know how I work , wouldn't say i have a style but I like how I work unlike before..

I remember one time, where I made a tune, which I don't think I'm finished with yet, but I tried to achieve a special sound and atmosphere, but I just couldn't. I tried everything, saw tutorials, read a lot of blogs and articles, but no success. I decided to save the tune for awhile and get on with some new stuff instead. A few days ago I put back on the tune and get a hole new bunch of ideas that made the tune even more sick, so sometimes it's good to make a lot of different things and have a lot of unfinished tunes on hold/standby, if you think you can't get the ideas from your head to the software, or if you can't think of anything to improve the tune.

Sometimes I also get too inspirred. I sit listening to some artist all day long and I decide to make something like the artist and I end up getting frustrated because I can't make the same stuff as a professional highly skilled producer.

That's one little thing I hate with electronic music, you can't practise like a guitarist or a drummer, you can sure try things out etc, but practise is more exploration of a synth, sampler, sequencer or whatever.

Or how do you "practise"? Any comments on that?

Azair wrote:Or how do you "practise"? Any comments on
that?

Yeah pretty much like you said, learning the synths you use and such - I am currently really digging deep into EQing and filter envelopes - so much you can do with them if you're willing to experiment..

I think the best practice to get go 'out to the field' so to say... Just sit down with your favourite synth, samples and effects and just try to make something unique with them

I get frustrated but I don't know if it actually sounded good cos I delete my projects when i get frustrated

I get frustrated but I don't know if it actually sounded good cos I delete my projects when i get frustrated

See that's what I think destroys the creative process. Some people expect to finish a tune shortly after they begun making it. They get it fast quick and if they're unable to achieve a wanted sound or if your chords just ain't rolling that day, you shouldn't delete it. Right now I have a tune called "Dubstep #1", and I've spent a long time trying to make some real nasty Burial 2-step drum patterns with no success, but the saved project does still have all the drum patterns I see as a failure. Then you'll listen to the crap once more and you suddenly get a new idea to use the snare or hihat in another or your crappy drum patterns and from there create a whole new rhythm. That's the creative process.

3RDEYE wrote: what ive found to really help with this is to give myself a maximum of 5-10 minutes with each sound im trying to introduce into the tune. If it doesnt fit into the arrangement or if im not feeling it after that time i'll remove it and try something else. this has saved me heaps of wasted hours fiddling with a superfluous sound that will never fit in context with the rest of the tune...

That sounds like a well good idea actually

Azair wrote: That's one little thing I hate with electronic music, you can't practise like a guitarist or a drummer, you can sure try things out etc, but practise is more exploration of a synth, sampler, sequencer or whatever.

Hm. Never thought about that. Quite interesting observation.

Stapleface wrote:I get frustrated but I don't know if it actually sounded good cos I delete my projects when i get frustrated

I'm the King of "All or Nothing".

I destroy anything that does not please me--months of work, DELETE. Entire folders, TRASH. CD-Rs, thrown out of moving car windows (yes, I've actually done this lol). It's always despressing in hindsight, and I always wish I hadn't, but in the moment of frustration I compulsively and uncontrolably MUST get rid of it. I feel like I can not just "move on" as long as these files / garbage tunes exist. Yet, purging in this way has over the years led me to hights untold in quality. I probably am and have been for a while, at a sign-able level, but due to my own inward "never good enough" feeling, no one ever hears.

Obsessive perfectionism is my curse, as well as my blessing.

Obsessive perfectionism is my curse, as well as my blessing.

amen brother, i delete so much work because i don't like how it ends up sounding. Although i am getting better at finishing things now...

Hm. Never thought about that. Quite interesting observation.

As a producer and electronic musician you don't think that way either. Sometimes I think of being a better piano player than spending hours finding the perfect sound for a tune. Using the same sound for a synth in many different songs shouldn't be underestimated. I hate the fact that

Obsessive perfectionism is my curse, as well as my blessing.

Definitely, well said. I'm also a perfectionist, but I try to defy it by having a bit of a mess sometimes, but it annoys me.