Did you go through this as a producer?

[soundinmotiondj]

I have been producing music for a little more than a year now. Though in this time i have only managed to produce 21 songs.

That's actually better than me. In the first 12 months of producing, I managed to turn out about 100 minutes of content...but nothing was a "finished" song. This was all bits & pieces and odds & ends.

I am currently able to produce the best "5 minute elevator music loop" you can imagine in just a long weekend.

Whenever i sit to produce i don't know what to start with. Everytime i have to start a new song i literally am scared and i have no clue why..i have all the time in the world.

The tyranny of the blank page.

If the blank page is too hard, then provide yourself some constraint, any constraint. Inspiration comes from many sources.

Take a music class. Build something around the weekly assignments or lesson examples.

Record yourself doing anything with a rhythm (messing with a piano keyboard, playing a shaker, actual finger drumming, typing on a computer keyboard, etc). That will set a timbre, rhythm, and tempo. Build something around that.

Go to the discount bin at a used music store. Buy the first three discs you find with the letter "N" in the title. Do something with the music between minute 11 and 12 on each disc.

The "tappers and listeners" experiment is fun to play around with. Record someone else tapping out (actual finger drumming) a song. Do NOT let them tell you what song they are tapping. Build something around that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge

And on, and on, and on.

If you don't like the results...blame the "arbitrary" constraint....and pick another constraint for the next song.

[ImNotDedYet]

@ImNotDedYet

Thanks for you tips!
Yeah now to hear the song with all your tips i do too feel the claps and the hats were kindoff distant…they could definitely have been a bit more upfront. Well, i dint know there was too much low end guess its my untreated room causing this low end and mid high's issue. will have to start checking on some monitor headphones :/

Ahh well at least you liked it musically. Im glad. Thanks for the help!

It's not necessarily that there's too much low end to me, so much as it is there isn't enough high end - presence EQ bands showing through. Give my sweeping from 2K - 8 or 9K on some of the instruments and then overall and A/Bing what you currently have to the added presence and see what a difference it makes. Once you've found the place it sounds best, play with the Q and increase in db level to find what really fits the sound, then fine tune for the overall mix.

[teknik1200]

set limits before you start.

limits inspire creativity. In the computer world there's too many options! When I was putting tracks out I had an all analog studio, moving to the computer seemed like a godsend until I realized the overload that happens.

[teknik1200]

It's not necessarily that there's too much low end to me, so much as it is there isn't enough high end - presence EQ bands showing through. Give my sweeping from 2K - 8 or 9K on some of the instruments and then overall and A/Bing what you currently have to the added presence and see what a difference it makes. Once you've found the place it sounds best, play with the Q and increase in db level to find what really fits the sound, then fine tune for the overall mix.

it's amazing how much you can dial a mix in with the hi/band/low pass filters on the synths themselves. I rarely add EQ to tracks unless I want to add artifacts from it. If you put each sound in it's place it's a lot easier to get a clean mix.

[JZed]

set limits before you start.

limits inspire creativity. In the computer world there's too many options! When I was putting tracks out I had an all analog studio, moving to the computer seemed like a godsend until I realized the overload that happens.

It's why less is more.
Anytime I feel the desire to just start buying a bunch of crap, I remember how dudes in the late 80s and 90s we're busting out tracks on almost nothing. If they could do it, so can I. It also inspires a producer to be more creative and that's obviously very important.

[ImNotDedYet]

it's amazing how much you can dial a mix in with the hi/band/low pass filters on the synths themselves. I rarely add EQ to tracks unless I want to add artifacts from it. If you put each sound in it's place it's a lot easier to get a clean mix.

Very true, and arrangement plays a big part in that as well.

[SupaSandeep]

look up Mike Monday, he helps a LOT with these types of issues

[Tw1x]

i think, you cannot force your brain and yourself to get good ideas for sitting down longer and longer...
for example: i play piano and very often i take the chords from a song (e.g. river flows in you with: F#m, D, A, E) and play some melodies along these chords, and if there is one which sounds nice, i try to improve this with tiny bits and pieces like chords in stead of single tones or just multiple tones instead of the single tone...
i hope you understand what i mean but the only thing i wanted to say is: don't force yourself to get ideas, just let the ideas come from themselfes