I’ve finished maybe 5 extremely amateurish tracks in 20 years. It’s just a bit of fun for me and I mess around with the toys for it’s own enjoyment.
I suspect we are a silent majority!
4 Likes
I’m in the same situation and I’ve thought a few times over the years about posting a thread like this. I’m happy just messing around with music most of the time, but I also have the desire to actually finish a track that I’d want somebody else to hear.
I have the issues that I’m sure many of us here have: limited free time, getting stuck in sound design, getting stuck in loops, fetishizing the gear more than the music, etc. But on top of that, I’m also always feeling pulled in different directions by my too numerous other hobbies and interests.
Lately I’ve been thinking I could actually complete something if I write out the list of steps in advance and only focus on completing one at a time:
- Pick a genre – in my case, chiptune/fakebit. Not only am I very fond of it, but it also gives me hard limits on sound design and musical complexity.
- Listen to tracks I like, find one and break down the structure of the arrangement, and use that to build a song structure template in the DAW.
- Pick out a few basic instruments that sound good together: a bass, a lead, an arp, and a few drum hits.
- Pick a key and a BPM.
- Start filling in the pieces from the template.
I suspect that for me personally, the trick will be structuring the process in such a way that I don’t get completely bogged down in any one step. I’ll report back if I actually get anywhere with this ¯_(ツ)_/¯
9 Likes
I agree with this.
While song mode and pattern chaining is great, the Maschine is the only controller I would arrange on.
Outside of that, it’s all in the DAW.
Even if your muscle memory is on point, the extra steps it takes to make variations add up to a bunch of time. If you are stuck at a screen all day at work, I can see being DAWless, but ultimately working in the box knocks out the tracks way better.
I will play the tracks in gear and mute parts to get sections in the DAW, but once in tracks, there is too much value to rearrange and add effects and fades and automation.
Thank you @DrOrthogonal. You do great work, and it’s doesn’t seem like you are new at all. The tracks sound great.
And he brings up a great point. The Mission Briefs are a great way to get you to finish tracks. The Biweekly Extravaganza by @natehorn and @aarb420 is great because there is no voting, or the hip hop challenge, associated with @Yabba is great because it not only holds you to finishing on deadline, but also has others in the”competition” to directly contrast your work with.
And don’t be turned off by the word “battle”. Though a clear winner is announced, it’s really just a trick to bring us together to produce, and put some pressure on us to do it well.
To be honest, my last track was trash, but I just wanted to put in a showing to have a good turnout. Even, no especially, if you hate the provided brief or sample, it’s good exercise to try to make something in the framework. Everyone is supportive of the process and respects the effort.
Then you can also post them here after the end of the brief to show others your progress.
For the Mission Briefs…
All are welcome.
Edit.
I should say. This is also what @sleepside already mentioned. So it seems like it a good tactic.
Also, it’s just one way to get to arranging.
Another way, if battles aren’t yo’ thang, is to just make two loops and ping pong between them a couple times.
Add an extra kick or snare hit. Maybe mute some hi hats to make it different and fade out in the end.
Boom.
Bobs your uncle.
7 Likes
I knew I wasn’t the only one 
Here’s my current path that I must get off:
- Find an hour for music production (2 young kids, not easy)
- Mess about and get a nice loop going.
- Decide it’s not very good and realise it’s time for bed.
- Repeat 2 days later.
Somehow got to interrupt #3
9 Likes
New step 3.5: Realize you can sample yourself. I wrote a bassline for a beat, thought it was corny, then chopped it up and liked it much better
5 Likes
I love doing this. I have tons of half-finished songs. Once in a while I go through and pick the best bits and pieces of these and then mash them all up in a fresh Ableton file - in Session View. It’s interesting to discover how some of these bits randomly mesh together quite nicely. And pretty soon you’ve got a complete song instead of things languishing on your hard drive.
I mean, sure, it’s the obvious joy of sampling, but you’re just sampling yourself instead of other’s records. It’s fun.
I like your “Scaffolding” idea too. I do this in Ableton Arrangement View using those little timeline marker thingies ( I forget what they’re called).
3 Likes
-
You already know what to do. You have been listening to finished songs your whole life.
-
What is stopping you from just doing it? Probably the suspicion that when you arrange the track you will not be satisfied with it. Some part of you is hoping that a deus ex machina will appear and give you hidden knowledge, and that hidden knowledge will let you turn the fragments you have into something magical.
-
You know that won’t actually happen.
-
Rid yourself of any notion that genius is deliberate. Take your bits and pieces and smash them together. Observe the results. It sounds OK, or it doesn’t. Don’t ‘save’ them for a day that will never come.
-
When performing these experiments, trust your instincts. If you do something bizarre and it sounds good to you, roll with it. Tremelo over a whole mix? Sure, why not. Don’t be bound by genre conventions, satisfy yourself. The question of whether anyone else likes or understands it can wait.
-
Pretend someone’s paying you to finish a track today. They don’t really care what it sounds like, but it has to be finished or no payday for you. Go.
8 Likes
I have about five years worth of material and I’m just now finishing it up. Put out two EPs in the last few months and have three more in the chamber. I literally thought it would never happen, but something clicked and I more or less “cracked the code”.
This is what worked for me: Take a “loop” and build it up to maximum capacity, adding as many layers as you want. Multi track record the finished product in to your DAW for five minutes and then edit the arrangement so it slowly builds up to that conclusion (IE: make it so the synth lead only comes in halfway through, drop the kick drum for a bar or two, save certain bits for the end etc). After you do that maybe add a filter or delay in key sections to signify transitions, and record an overdub if needed. If you really want to get fancy make a b-section with slightly different chords, or the same melodic motif but on a different synth patch.
It takes time, but you’ll at least end up with something. The alternative is take a loop and just play a synth or guitar live over top for a few minutes. Jamming is magic.
Edit: This is extremely rout and basic info so I realize I’m not really dropping knowledge here, but for some reason it alluded me that it really was this simple.
6 Likes
This is my process on the Mpc, make a mega sequence, then copy to other sequences, delete as needed, add automations.
I could do it on Ableton too, I just can’t be bothered.
1 Like
just so happens this was posted today and has some good insights on the topic
2 Likes
Why not make a workflow to a project where you don’t need to finish any track? I just mix my loops and slowly add components to the groove. No need to dive in my computer, no need to create tracks, or go any unnatural road for me.
Just make loops, mix them and slowly add a brick a day, to slowly build a house.
2 Likes
This ^
If you have loops, you have songs. Introduce your elements every eight bars, open a filter or two at the climax, remove the drums and some other elements, wait for a few bars, bring it all back in and slowly fade out or do whatever you like at the end.
It won’t be perfect but it will you give you an idea how to make it a song. If your first song is 1:30 that’s totally fine and approriate.
And the most important thing: Kill your babies.
If you have a good idea but don’t know how to make a perfect track with it, make an imperfect track and move on, you will learn so much along the way!
3 Likes
Techno Formula
- Make loop
- Mute drums
- Snare role
- Unmute drums
- Repeat
4 Likes
Come on man it’s way more than that…you forgot add stabs.
5 Likes
This is me as well. Not a single thing. Lots of great sketches but nothing complete. I’ve been focused on live performance for the last 3 years. COVID screwed my first show and haven’t had anything since. It will change though.
There is a commitment to release something this year thread:
I signed up last year but didn’t get anything. This year’s the year though. It can be yours as well!!
1 Like
I’ve never finished a hardware track either. Been making music for 15+ years myself. I have written many songs on guitar and in a DAW, which is most comfortable for me, but can’t seem to finish anything pattern based. I love sequencing and coming up with ideas with Elektron gear but it’s always quick ideas, unless I get them into Ableton, they always stay a single pattern or two. So I get where you are coming from completely!
1 Like
You know what gang, this is actually a support group. I say get back in there, wrap up the first song you come across, and post it here, even if it’s a loop. Then another. We’ll push each other and celebrate each other’s accomplishments.
I posted this elsewhere, but reading this thread made me push myself to wrap this up. Its from 2020, and I have no idea how I got the synthetic sounds, nor why I labeled it Anniversary, but it’s done. 1 down, 432 to go.
6 Likes
Primal Scream sampled themselves and ended up with one of the biggest hits of the 90s 
2 Likes
I’m a serial track starter with tons of 30-60 second snippets. I seem to enjoy that mode of
operation, but it brings no end product.
I don’t have much interest (or free time) to polish things and end up with a track that anyone wants to hear. I’m ok with that, but have always wanted to make some sort of mixtape comprised of bits and pieces of my snippets.
Maybe that will happen.
Maybe not….
1 Like
…one of my FINISHED songs is called “looptrap”…
but it’s not about loops in music at all…it’s about loops in life…
while stuck and lost in a music loop can be as awful as stuck and lost in a loop in life…
at least sometimes, i guess and can imagine…
but hey, in that specific example, i wrote the chorus line also ten years before it finally ended up in a song… 
so, there’s still hope and all good, if u, even after all those lost years, still feel the lust for finally finding a way out of the looptrap…
focussing on one gadget is a good first step for a turnaround…
be aware of the SONG EDITOR in ur mpc…
that’s the place to go if u want to see ur loops finally crossing some finishline, finally start making sense in some bigger picture…
aaaaaaand if it’s still not happening, even after another year, start to consider, all this might be not for u…and move on in life…
1 Like