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"writing music" will it get easier?
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orgytime
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Mar 1, 2011 10:19:32
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hi,
im just interested... it feel so hard to finish a good track and takes much time.
for me it looks like some people have "golden hands" or something similar, that everything the touch (mix) gets to gold easy.
im getting faster but it needs so much energy, and in the end im stil critical if my work is good enough. at the moment, when i finish a track, it feels like it took all my power and i have to make a break for some time to recover inspiration etc.
how the hell you get a whole album finished with not sounding all the same etc. ?
cheers
  www.soundcloud.com/orgytime |
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Nectarios
Martian Arts
Started Topics :
187
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Posted : Mar 1, 2011 11:06
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Its easy to finish an album, the hard part is to do a great job throughout. For example I would change an awful lot of things in the first two albums (which I am "fixing" when I make remixes/live set versions of the tracks of our first two albums to play out). I hear the older tunes today and cringe from my inability to listen and sort out issues both engineering wise and idea wise, but at the time it sounded good, and someone asked to release it, so instead of keeping the music on my hard drives, I gave it out.
Was it sounding all the same? Not to my ears.
Could it be a lot better? Fo shizzle.
But I'd rather finish a track, instead of working on one of two tunes for 3 years, or start a few new tracks and never get round to finishing the arrangements. I have friends with very expensive studios that have not properly finished one single track! and they started making trance tunes before we started working on our first album 3 years ago.
Its easy to get a nice 32 bar loop going on, building and stripping arrangements to complete a track is as much an art as it is to program amazing sounding patches. Just keep working on it and aim to finish tunes. If you're not 100% happy, don't sweat it, you'll never be 100% happy and if you ever feel this way, you will change your mind as you progress. You'll get better at it as you finish more tracks, but its important to finish them.
Peace out.
http://soundcloud.com/martianarts |
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shachar
Basic
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13
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402
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 11:10
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your always gets better if you just work more..
some tracks will finish in 2 days while the other will not get finish in a life time...just create more & more & more until its so easy for you and you can just do what you like & start invent new stuff |
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orgytime
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Mar 1, 2011 11:25
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nice answers, thanks.
and how is it with creativity, you never have the feeling you are doing "cheap/fast work", or not putting maximum effort into each single track?
for me, every small detail (max effort) makes the picture great. but this is, what takes so much energy at the same time.
how is your formula about this?
cheers
www.soundcloud.com/orgytime |
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Nectarios
Martian Arts
Started Topics :
187
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5292
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 11:37
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I don't have a formula, like shachar said, some tracks will simply fall into place on their own, others will be a bitch to finish.
It all depends on how much you've "prepared" to finish a track, meaning if you've build up a big enough library of well labeled samples to look up when looking for a "dark evolving Fm resonant drone", or a "motown chunky shuffle breakbeat", or how good you've become programming synths, the better you are the faster you'll get a working idea down.
Then there is the thing about bassline riffs VS one note bassline tracks. Its a lot easier to fit a synth lead over a one note bassline, as you have a lot more options, music wise, as what scale/riff you'll play....whereas if you already have a riff for a bassline, you are much more limited as to what you'll put in, as it has to go with the bassline. Both have their pros and cons.
For example, it was very easy for us to finish our remix of Sheyba's Trance Africa Express. People complained two months with only the vox/animal samples and one midi file where not enough(!). But the ideas/music we did in 3 days as there was the original's massive bassline riff and the track was telling us where it needed to go, I just allowed the music to follow its own path and was simply "clearing a path in the jungle, for the track to progress" sort of speak...
Peace out.
http://soundcloud.com/martianarts |
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orgytime
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Mar 1, 2011 11:43
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wow thanks DH for big answer! 
no questions left.
EDIT haha:
does it sometimes happen to you, that you judge a track to be failed, after you have finished it? or do you tweak until its ok?
cheers
www.soundcloud.com/orgytime |
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Nectarios
Martian Arts
Started Topics :
187
Posts :
5292
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 12:26
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On 2011-03-01 11:43, orgytime wrote:
EDIT haha:
does it sometimes happen to you, that you judge a track to be failed, after you have finished it? or do you tweak until its ok?
cheers
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I would not say fail as I did enjoy the process of making every track I've made/released, even if I did it 3 years ago and the bassline rings all over my room/or sounds too nasal, the kick is not punchy enough, there is space that is begging for more FX...etc... but at the time I couldn't think of anything to put in. In terms of working for an album, I have the time I started making the first track, until the time I finish the last track. In that period of time, I have developed my skills, so generally speaking, the last tune will sound "better" than the first track. So I use that as a reference to tweak the first track/mix.
For example we started the third album before we released our second album on Ektoplazm...although when the time came to send the final 24bit files to Colin for mastering, I went back to each 2nd album mix and tweaked some more. At the time it sounded finished, as I did mix it to the best of my ability...at the time, which was before we started playing on P.A.s and lacked some serious understanding of what a mix needs to sound like in my studio, in order to sound good on a big system.
Which is why I listen to some tunes off the second (and first) album today and think I can not even play that stuff out they way it sounds...so I went back to each tune to "remix" for the live set and bring it up to date with the sound we have today, which hopefully will make me cringe again in a year, as it would mean I would have developed further as an engineer/musician.
I think its healthy/good to cringe when listening to your old tunes, it means you have evolved your hearing and arrangement build skills.
It don't mean I will not like my music anymore, it will just make me think, "hell that was a good idea there...but them leads are too far back, or they are masking the kick and bass...etc", sort of thing, if you know what I mean.
Peace out.
http://soundcloud.com/martianarts |
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Ascension
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Mar 1, 2011 15:18
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I feel ya on this topic and I don't think there's a yes/no answer. I don't feel frustrated about this, but I notice that as my skills keep improving, I work on tracks longer- which I know is a good thing since the end result is much better.
I'm assuming I'll get to a point where things won't take as long to do because I'll know how to work faster from experience. In the end though, manually chopping long pieces of audio will always take time http://soundcloud.com/ascensionsound
www.chilluminati.org - Midwest based psytrance group |
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Trevon
Started Topics :
6
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376
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 15:58
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On 2011-03-01 10:19:32, orgytime wrote:
... it feel so hard to finish a good track and takes much time.
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you can do minimal tech. copy-paste works like a charm 
now serious, the little details and polishments can take a while.
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orgytime
IsraTrance Full Member
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120
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1703
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 16:00
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demoniac
Demoniac Insomniac
Started Topics :
85
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1281
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 16:35
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aciduss
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
112
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1490
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 17:10
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Hey DH nice comments.
Quote:
| at the time, which was before we started playing on P.A.s and lacked some serious understanding of what a mix needs to sound like in my studio, in order to sound good on a big system. |
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Can we get some insight on this? How did your mind changed, you know they way to think tracks.
Thanks. |
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Ascension
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
170
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Posted : Mar 1, 2011 17:39
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Quote:
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On 2011-03-01 17:10, aciduss wrote:
Hey DH nice comments.
Quote:
| at the time, which was before we started playing on P.A.s and lacked some serious understanding of what a mix needs to sound like in my studio, in order to sound good on a big system. |
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Can we get some insight on this? How did your mind changed, you know they way to think tracks.
Thanks.
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The times I've played my stuff out at parties I notice how much things get buried by the bass.
http://soundcloud.com/ascensionsound
www.chilluminati.org - Midwest based psytrance group |
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Nectarios
Martian Arts
Started Topics :
187
Posts :
5292
Posted : Mar 1, 2011 18:52
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Quote:
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On 2011-03-01 17:10, aciduss wrote:
Hey DH nice comments.
Quote:
| at the time, which was before we started playing on P.A.s and lacked some serious understanding of what a mix needs to sound like in my studio, in order to sound good on a big system. |
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Can we get some insight on this? How did your mind changed, you know they way to think tracks.
Thanks.
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That I have to keep things clean and not have a mess of things with lots of delays, big swooshes...I just need to be smarter and more critical about where I am going to put things, + about the way I mix, taking out low mid mud, yet maintain a tight sub that makes mixes sound really big...but most importantly not put in too much stuff, that sounds clear on my monitors, but not so clear on a PA...and on the way I mix...background effects and sounds, need to stay in the background and leads need to stay in the foreground, otherwise its one big mess.
http://soundcloud.com/martianarts |
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aciduss
IsraTrance Full Member
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112
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Posted : Mar 1, 2011 18:55
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Thanks. |
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