It’s easy for people to come across as super-dismissive on the forums. I am certainly guilty of this from time to time.
I appreciate that you included your own story, though you waited for others to respond to the thread-starter, first. Sometimes I feel (right or wrong) that when someone starts a thread by asking everyone else to be forthright, rather than first exposing their own vulnerability, others may not take the topic seriously or be willing to expose their own vulnerability.
yeah I get you. just didnt really want to open with a big block of text about what led me to ask the question, id have thought that would get ignored. lately im just thinking of why I got into this in the first place, not in a doubting manner, more just getting back on track and actually getting some work done because there is an aspect of this which is undoubtedly work no matter how you split it. otherwise everyone would be churning out albums round the clock. think im trying to take some cues from those who are getting it done. ‘as long as it takes’ is the default mode for me and clearly thats not getting me far. wide but not far
drums only: in realtime – i’m a drummer.
drums + bass: a few second more – to program a single note bass line first.
30 seconds. A good beat… up to six months.
I’ll let you know if I ever finish anything!
The most helpful thing for me, in terms of getting it done is knowing that I’m producing practice tracks for students. They don’t have to be the great, just useful. Most other people on this forum, I assume, have to live with the mental baggage of expecting things to be good.
This is true, I treat everything like a sketch and I only try to finish stuff either when it shows promise or I’m up against a deadline. That said, I’ve come back to ancient sketches that seemed like garbage, made a couple tweaks, and fallen in love with them. I often have to grind, try a few layers, and kill some darlings before I hit the good stuff.
Another way to ask the question is, how long before you toss a beat cause you know it’s going nowhere?
Maybe nowhere is a place where no one has ever been. And maybe somewhere is a place you and everyone else has been. The path of least resistance typically takes us to a predictable destination.