I am a long time Traktor Dj and recently started to try and get to grips with ableton for production. The problem I have is I will start a new track, maybe lay down a few drum loops or patterns and fire up a nice bass line and I will save it and come back to it. When I come back to it I always end up changing the original content or think “hell I dont like that I am staring again”. I end up getting half way thorugh a track and then get an idea for something else and start a new trrack. I have about 20 tracks all about half written and I can never seem to finish one.
Any tips for knuckling down and finishing one or is it quite common when you are learning production to keep chopping and changing and starting new tracks without finishing any
The longer you’re working on one track the less happy you feel with it. This is at least my experience. So the basic melody and song structuring stuff should be done as quick as possible (and not be interrupted by anything like e.g. sleeping) and then you can start tweaking and fine tuning. As I have stated a hundred times in this forum I fear^^, I love my Maschine for working out the basic song elements as it really enhances my workflow and I will be around with a new song basically in about 30 minutes. After that, the fine tuning part (the less creative and often less funny part) begins and this can take ages until the song is finished (up to one week).
As far as I’ve found out, a break during the song composing stage is really fatal as you will probably end up with changing a lot and being quite unhappy with what you’ve done when continuing your work.
That being said, it is quite common to have far more concepts than finished songs. My ratio probably is about 30:1 as I love jamming around
I am sure in time I will get better at it and I think I need to be stronger with myself and make sure before I save I have all of the main elements in place before chopping and changing anything. Eventually I hope to find a workflow I am happy with which I can then use on all future productions.
Tarekith’s production guides are kind of a goldmine IMHO. That one seems to be a lot of what you’re dealing with.
And I second RC’s comments about Maschine. Not only is it easy to sketch things, but it’s really easy to save patterns with the groups that created them. So, aimlessly jamming can become something that you come back to. And because you’re just storing MIDI patterns and settings, the files aren’t that big. Navigation can be weird, but…whatever.
…also I find after you think you got your mix down with all the panning, eq, effects make sure to set it a side and listen to it the next day as you may have a completely different perspectively. Try not to get to attached to the song so you dont have bias (which is quite hard to do).
Oh … tricky. I have 21 tracks at the almost finshed stage right now. All MUST be finished by the end of next month… deadlines as they have to be set of to the labels to be released, then its start all over again with fresh new e.ps and fill in time with a couple of quick remixes I have pencilled in.
i finish all my tracks by rendering out the audio… the end result tends to be nice
lol on a serious note when i am done with a track i decide, does it go online publicly or is it a super secret until X release is done… for freebies and public tracks i tend to do my own mastering using t-racks 3. for my releases i send them out to the label and master the tracks for me…
now ableton is amazing… i would reccomend grouping all of your song parts (drums, leads, pads etc…) and trying out various patterns and ideas hell you have a spreadsheet of sound to work with always remember to take a day off any new track and come back to it later.
