Analog-X64 wrote:Razmo wrote:Analog-X64 wrote:
Funny thing about what you WANT to make, and what you actually end up with when you make music... I often want to make this dark and new-age like music, but I always end up with some unzy rhythms... sort of like the opposite of what you wrote about your own "problem".. I've decided not to listen so much to what I WANT to do, but let it all go and do what i FEEL like doing... I find that the best result comes when I make what I feel for right at the moment... even if I had other thoughts when I began a project.
I've worked on stuff for 12 hours straight, and all of a sudden just pull the plug on it, Poof gone. My wife or my mom depending who's around at the time, would say "hey what did you do that for, it sounded nice". I've do that sometimes, I have something that is just not going anywhere and it sound bad, so I just pull the plug on it.
Once I get the new headphones, sound module and the laptop up and running, I'm going to attempt something in the style of dubstep, which should be interesting or really Sh*tty depending on what direction it goes. I do dark stuff to begin with.
I know that "routine" to death ANX... I've pulled the plug on more projects than I can count, and I've come to the conclusion that it's because of two things:
1. I work too long on a project at a time, and make too many detailed editings... result is that it does NOT sound good, but rather it sounds complicated.
2. I get bored with it... when you listen to the same track for longer periods.
I found that one of the reasons I have so many small riffs that are abandoned stuff is because of the way I feel good about making music. When I think about it, the fun is not the end product to be honest, it's the creative phase, playing the keyboard... jamming along... when I've done a short riff, and have reached climax at jamming, the rest of the arrangement usually is just tiresome work... it gives me no real pleasure to continue... then I get bored with the project, and simply just "pull the plug"... luckily I've gotten used to record even the short phrases I do, so that if I find later that I want to work on them again, I can hear how they were done.
Recently I've learned, that the reason for the problem is, that the creative phase and the arrangement phase is spilt in two sections... I've begun to work in a different maner, that hopefuly will make my compositions longer... I now try to work this way:
1. I simply play something on the keyboard until I find a sequence and a preset on a synth that I feel is sounding good... then I record that tine sequence, and loop it to the FULL LENGTH of a project (3-5 minutes).
2. Now I mess with live/programmed continous controllers of the recorded track... changing filter cutoffs, Filter EG's etc. so that I find that the track sounds varied an interresting... just still that one track.
3. Now I simply jam along to the first track, browsing for presets on other synths... I then automatically play something that fit's in with the head-track, not just loop upon loop again... in other words; the arrangement dynamics comes naturally, and through the jamming process.
4. As no. 3, just other instruments.
One other important thing I've noticed about MY playing is, that I should NOT dwell too long upon something I play... if it sounds good the first time i jam it, then that is usualy what sounds best... too much nit-picking the notes only makes the tune more complicated, and thus harder for people who has not heard it to predict the "outcome" of the melody... I've got an idear, that most good music is that which a listener can quickly grasp, and if they can almost find the melody ahead of tinme, the better... makes tunes more "catchy".
I admit that I've been using YEARS to try and grasp what the reason was for my many unfinished projects and it took long before I realised, that the most important aspect of it was, that I simply like CREATING music... not programming it... it's actually rather weird to realise, that you really do not care about the end product, but rather the creation of the product
That's why I said, that for me, it's usualy better to do what I FEEL like, rather than what I WANT.... It's a bit like if you were asked to paint something realistic... you'd be limited to what you have in skills, but if you draw something that does not exist, then no-one can say it's not a "look alike"... What I record these days are usualy what comes "from my fingers" playing, and not what I have in my head, mainly because my brain can cook up stuff I cannot physically do or have the patience to do.
I know this is a little hard when doing remix'es, because you constantly are thinking about what people may want to hear... but I've given up on that way of working now... I do my creations just the way they "spill out", and frantically don't give a damn about if others like them or not... someone usualy does anyways
The whole secret for you may simply be, that like in my case, some parts of the phase of creating is not giving you anything, or you are trying to do something you're not good at... work the way YOU like, and not the way you THINK other feel you SHOULD work... if it takes 2 years for an album, then take those 2 years... it's better than making 100 tunes in a month that are crap and don't mean much to you.
Making music should be fun, no matter how it is done.
... cleaning follows tommorow... 2 cartridges comming in for it as well that need new batteries.
... I could have gotten that PG200 as well but did not have the money for it, so I guess it's gone when I DO have the money 
... but hey... they still show up relatively often on the used market here in Denmark, so maybe later.
Like those fat booming MOOG Modular bass sequences... really good to relax to and dreaming away... a bit like Tangerine dream (Craut Rock), just darker.