I’m all for a finished product, and it’s fun to accomplish something you set your mind to. But something that comes to mind for me a lot lately is, why are we electronic musicians expected to record and produce “product”, when no such expectation exists for people who play acoustic instruments? When someone plays the guitar or cello, it’s perfectly acceptable to simply play for the love of it, and put the instrument away when you’re done with nothing to “show” for it. Why such pressure on ourselves and from others, when it comes to playing electronic instruments? Just curious.
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That’s also a valid question and one that has never crossed my mind.
I had been working like this, trying to compose to fit a certain concept (title, cover, etc) and after a while it ended up being a creativity killer for me. Now I’m working on just making what I feel like and having fun with it. You can always come back to those concepts once you get something on the board and rebuild your confidence. I bet it’s going to be great 
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I love this idea.
I think one of my problems definitely is that I’m an engineer by heart. And I don’t mean a sound engineer but a dude who plans everything meticulously and loves when things slot perfectly into a grid. For me sequencing is more like programming a computer than any kind of artistic endeavour.
I should shake myself loose from the grid and from the need to control everything with 100% accuracy. I think I would benefit from recording ”demos” the 80s way on a 4-track cassette machine or on an OP-1 maybe. Luckily I have a Fostex 4-track stuffed away in the closet.
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I’d second this although my experience is a little different. I find I really enjoy planning an album or EP concept, coming up with themes and titles and thinking about the mood of it and what instruments I’d use. This all happens in a rush of creativity. Unfortunately something about that process, and imagining the finished product almost in itself makes me feel ‘done’ with the idea, and it loses its shine.
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Sometimes I feel paralyzed and what’s causing it is that I’m afraid to find out my limitations.
Then I just keep dancing around the damn thing unable to make myself try my very best.
It’s some kind of an unconscious fear of not measuring up to those unrealistic standards I’ve set up for myself by comparing myself to others.
I know you’re a music lover and that you know many genres inside out.
Could this be something that is keeping you from really giving it your best shot?
edit: In short, perfectionism. 
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Yeah, playing in a band is a different thing. Sometimes we we’re jamming around and a song would develop in a few minutes. And yes, it helps a lot to have that one person that takes care of recording while the other people just jam. That’s how our best pieces were created.
Nowadays i’m jamming around with two friends on our electronic machines and play a cool live session. And the next day i’m trying to do similar stuff at home and it never comes close to the sound we were creating together. It’s pretty frustrating sometimes. I would like to be 3 or more people at once.
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I have the same problem. One thing that was actually successful for me was just recording one piece of gear into the daw and then going to town cutting up little transitions and moments. At first it felt aimless but it quickly felt purposeful as I started to see the shape of a piece. Then it was the opposite problem - I had a hard time putting the work down. That track didnt turn out that great but i look back on it as a good milestone for getting over a rut. You can record now and “commit” to it, but you can also do new takes later once youve spent some time chopping it up in the DAW and you start to re-compose it.
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As @cooptrol stated, just record your stereo mix into the daw and you have something there that now exists outside of the looper. If you need more fleshed out song ideas, more complex than traditional jams, perhaps you can utilize available song modes on your gear. Some mutes here and there and A / B section, that’s it!
It has been said many times that finishing tracks is just as important a skill to learn as starting them. Though this also depends on what you’re wanting to get out of this whole musical experience. If making an EP is an end goal, finishing tracks is key. Good luck to you! You have tons of support from Elektronauts.
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Commitment issues is a complex thing. It’s “what I need to do” “what I am obligated to do” “what makes me happy”….
A few weeks ago I started a normal 9to5, drive to work every day kind of job, after a few decades of contract “work when needed” situation. I didn’t need to change the way I worked or what I was doing, I just wanted to do something that was important to other people and actually made a difference.
Also, I thought being 9to5 would make me regain focus on completing songs in the time I have available, but fuck it I’d rather sleep. Also, buying a syntakt kind of stuffed it all up because it’s just wasting my time (and I don’t need it anyway) which is a negative feedback on making music. Also, too damn hard to wind down and get in the zone.
What a GAS killer.
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Oops!
Back to work now 
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Another thing you could try (and this maybe isn’t much different) if you want to take only a small step away from your jam approach is to record 3 or 4 minutes of a looped melody or whatever with some subtle filter sweeps and other bits of movement, playing with attack and release. Then loop that part and jam the next instrument part to fit. I find the small shifts from the first part get emphasised over time and creates some de facto song structure.
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I’m knee deep in this exact moment.
The last “proper album” i’ve made is about seven years old (if i don’t coun’t the OST for an animation short i’ve made) I have about three full albums of Indie/Jazzy stuff that don’t exceed 70% of completion.
There is the also this last big thing i’ve worked on before buying the Model:Samples and entering Elektron and Synthesis Realms.
It’s in hiatus because reasons but it’s the most “important” thing i have to finish.
If i ever finish and release it, this would be one of my greatest achievement (…i guess)
Right now i’m in the last moments of closing my “Digitone only fictional OST project.”
There are 22 tracks “ready” to go to mix or to add last tiny elements.
Well not really…
A part of me wants to work more on it because i find it a bit light on certain tracks.
Another part loves it as it is and is eager to release it.
And there is also this need to put it behind me because i want to get rid of it before i think it’s crap in the end.
Plus, i’m supposed to release a Jazz/Hip-Hop album (actually 54% completed) as i told in the “Commitment to release something in 2022” Thread.
But i can’t help myself to post in the Current Sound thread.
So, yeah…issues.
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Well you don’t really. If tweaking and arranging and editing for hours and hours is not your thing then you should look for a simpler way to achieve what you want.
Otherwise you always have the feeling that you need to do all of this to have a proper song and feel guilty about the fact that your are not doing it -> failure.
How self sabotaging works in a nutshell
As an engineer you could try to find a way to have quick good results with lesser effort. Good mixer presets, DAW templates, less parts in your music so mixing is easier.
Or accept the fact that song finishing is not your thing and find someone to collaborate with maybe?
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One the one hand, there’s literally nothing wrong with this. Fully fledged writers always have down moments where they don’t complete anything, or they might be between writing things and so they don’t complete anything. If this is enjoyment for you then don’t worry if it’s not what others would describe as commitment. Personally, I’ve not written a guitar tune for years, but playing around on the acoustic is still fun. But my mindset has shifted from writing on that instrument, to using it for pretyt much relaxation.
So you have a target. What it sounds you might benefit from is a creative restraint that helps you get there. For example, you create a 4 bar loop that you like. What next? Without any structure or direction, there is no reason to change what you’re doing. You’ll have to make this up yourself, but they can be really helpful. For example you could say that a structure could be to write for 1 hour only, and then move into arrangement mode immediatley after. Or spend one session writing, and the other arranging. This won’t do the job on its own, but you’re just creating an arbritrary reason to take a step forward. Then once you’ve done it, move on to the next session, the next loop and rinse and repeat. That becomes muscle memory and the rest is history etc etc…
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This.
Definitely this.
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It sounds like OP has workflow issues is all. Fix workflow to make the desired result as easy and fun as possible.
I’ve been playing my loops through an SP404mk2, practicing a few times, then hitting REC on the SP and performing the track with mutes and SP effects.
Save the recorded stereo track out to computer, run it through Ozone to limit it, upload to cloud service of choice. It is really simple and low effort. But I can call the idea done and move on.
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I totally get you, as I have similar experiences… If you are using Ableton maybe try using Ross From Friends’ free Thresho device. It basically records everything you do (over a user specific dB) into Ableton and timestamps it, then imports into your user library. That way you can automatically and conveniently get your loops into Ableton ready to work on away from your usual workflow. It might get you thinking differently.
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I think it was Luke Vibert back in the day in an interview, basically everything he finishes just goes in a folder and it’s only later he curated the tracks into a release or album.
You can also use painting as an analogy. Jamming is just like mixing paint. Coming up with hues.
But you can take this further - go all the way in you hue mixing and just accept what is done is done. Or, these become things saved away for later that you later compose into an arrangement/painting.
Two very different approaches, the second more like film editing or something.
Something I do is, during that paint mixing phase, you’re making patterns, things are humming along, you have a nice mix. Then I go away and come back later and have a second session there.
Lately I video record that second session. And that has this effect: I’m performing for an audience (even though technically I’m not). Even if u don’t have a video recorder going, it’s a nice mindset I think - pretending there is an audience there. It makes you not want to fuck up, make more considered decisions, and be performative in a way that you might not if just mucking around.
It’s an approach that can help build a story arc through a piece or something like that, and who knows at the end it might be shareable. I often find with this approach I inevitably do make a couple of mistakes. But if you’re happy to wear them (or edit them out) the output can stack up pretty quickly.
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Adding to this, a lot of painters will paint the same portrait or landscape multiple times before they have a finished version. Is this more compositional or about the execution?
I don’t really think of a band doing multiple takes of a song being analogous to that.
Does anyone do anything like this in their electronic music? Like reprogramming sequences and building up a track from scratch multiple times?
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