making beats

Out of context: Reply #1736

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  • mg332

    Looking for some advice from you guys. I've spent a lot of time off and on over the past several years recording bits and pieces of ideas, learning software, etc. and trying to fit that in with life, marriage, parenthood, other hobbies, work, etc.

    I've set a limit on creating new ideas starting this month and started going through several dozen of those ideas, bouncing them in whatever state of completion they're in, syncing to Google Drive, and having them with my anywhere to listen to, generate new ideas etc.

    I'm setting a goal of determining 4-5 tracks to focus on for the rest of the year, to refine them, re-record them, get them as perfect as I can.

    Any of you have some advice on how to make this next process enjoyable, productive, work with some constraints and deadlines to keep moving forward, etc? It's been a LONG time since I last finished off full songs; that was all in my band-playing days that ended in 2010. Been doing my own thing ever since.

    Super excited to pick the ideas i like best and just iterate on them, step away for a few days, get back at them and be productive. It's fun because there are more than a few people in my life who forgot I make music, and a ton of new people I've gotten to know since my band ended that have no idea I do this stuff. Everything I'm doing now is instrumental / ambient with guitars, synths, strings, more compositional in structure than typical song formats I used to do. I think some of what I'm making will surprise people and that's where I really get excited about it. It's been fun to design a site for my project, learn some new web stuff, get back to what was fun about being in a band as far as visual design and themes and stuff.

    Advice? Tricks? Madness to avoid?

    • Get a Soundcloud and start putting them out there. Gets harder to fit it all in. But would be great to hear what you make. :-)PhanLo
    • focus less on making whole songs.. remember some of Dilla's best tracks are like a minute long.autoflavour
    • that said, the method to my madness is never stop working on something until you feel you can come back to it and be satisfied or could happily delete itautoflavour
    • Not everything will be a diamond in the rough, sometimes they are just rocks. knowing when to pull the pin is the trickautoflavour
    • not to mix too many metaphorsautoflavour

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