I've been thinking about this a lot lately, like I've REALLY been trying to visualize and remember what my technique use to be as a newbie and how things have changes so drastically over the years.

My life as a newbie:
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When I was a newbie, my MO was literally NOTHING. I would sit down and not give a fvck about whether I was breaking this rule or that rule. I never went to forums and I could care less whether my music sounded good or not because I WAS A NEWBIE, as long as I liked it, who really gives a fuck?

The extent of my melodies were always to just pick a preset, then start hitting keys, 15 mins later I had my melody. And it felt like mine too, even if I was just using presets. Now, I feel like a theif if I use presets.

Then I'd do whatever I felt like doing next, maybe a bassline. I wouldn't sit there for hours trying to get a perfect groove or swing, I'd just punch in the notes and go right to my next element.

My ENTIRE technique was just punch and go, just punch in notes, do a bit of finagling and go to my next element. I actually finished tracks and it was exciting, I felt productive. EVEN IF I had 10 people telling me "it sounds like shit" I still most likely would have felt great and accomplished for the day. It was a new hobby, I loved it, everything was soooo SIMPLE. I didn't have a single expectation. I was a free spirit, and music was how I communicated that to the world.

My life as an amateur:
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"Ok what am I working on today?...lets try to do a new bassline better then yesterday.
I sit down, then do a handful of different versions of the bass melody. May take an hour or so. Then wait.. I have to do another bass now. This bass still isn't driving right, lets get a sub in there. And it persists the same, tweak knobs endlessly left and right, going back and forth, up and down, trying everything and anything looking for some magical sweet spot that I never find.
Then I open fxs, try a million different ways of dirtying up the bassline, 4 hours have passed, and I have accomplished nothing.

All I'm REALLY doing is feeding my production OCD at this point. Cut this on the equal, sweep this in a filter, compress this, route this to another bus, label this, color that, organize organize organize. Save save save, we need lots of versions, we need to try them all. BLAH BLAH BLAH.

6 hours have passed I don't even have a fuckn bass I like, are you serious? scrap the project for the night, new day comes, repeat, almost never getting past the kick/bassline.
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In reflection, what the fuck happened?

I've been thinking about this and my answer is "you started posting on forums". I had been producing for about 3 years before I ever even realized there were online tutorials and what not.
Then all a sudden tutorials turned it into competition.
That was the first time I really started looking at other peoples work and getting envious.
"WOW, how is their percussion so clear and loud? how does thier kick sound so tight and punchy?
Now I HAVE TO be doing something wrong, I know it and I need to correct it, but it never gets corrected, because the mistake only became a mistake when I listened to someone elses music. If their music didn't exist, my music wouldn't really be a "mistake" in the first place.
I'm not trying to fix anything, I'm trying to be somebody else.

My point is this. With everything I've managed to learn, I've actually really only learned how to be less and less productive. I was ALWAYS more productive as a newbie, my goals weren't to make a bass or a melody it was to make a song, to make music.

I kind of think of it like this. When I was young and first got interested in girls, a few years passed and I realized I needed to start asking other people for advice if I wanted success in my own life. And I started following their advice blindly.
"Buy flowers" "Open the door for them" "Pay the bill, never make them pay" blah blah. And then it took about ANOTHER 5-10 years before I realized how counterproductive all that advice was.

Once I finally got "good" with women, I NEVER bought them shit, never opened doors for them, would actually treat them rudely a lot of the time and joke around with them like a little sister. They HATED it, but paradoxically, they loved me for it. I had to essentially unlearn everything I was taught, use my own instincts, then try something radically different.
I'm thinking now I may be at that point musically in my life.
I began focusing so deeply on detail, I lost vision of the entire picture.
This was what really sprang this topic today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIo-INxDNR4

Some newbies mix of Lethal Industry. At first I heard it and hated it. The melody is rigid, the sounds weren't cleaned up right, theres tons of tiny little errors I see in the whole track, to the point where I left a nasty comment for the remixer.(the last one you see)

Then I felt like an ass and go reading through all the comments and see "omg, about 99% of the people who heard this crap seem to think this retard is some musical prodigy" but it kinda hit me all at once right then. THIS IS HOW I USE TO PRODUCE. Just like this newbie.

Right now, realistically, I have the ABILITY to make really good music. It is my obsessive rituals that are stopping that. There is no fucking need to work on bass everyday for 4 hours till it sounds "perfect" cause it NEVER sounds perfect.

All I know is for now on when I sit down, I'm going back to my newbie days. I will actually tell myself now (this is really fucked up) that a sound CAN NOT possibly be "good" if it only took 15 mins for me to make.
For some reason I think I need to put endless hours into it for the sound to have value, how messed up is that? think about it. This is some sort of disease I've seem to caught from the purists on tranceaddict (maybe I'm just blaming people again). I'm sure maybe some people can relate, but I'm going to sit down right now and I'm not starting with bass like I always do. I'm doing w/e the hell feels natural at the moment and following that feeling to the end. 16 months this dry spell has lasted and not 1 single completed track. Something HAS to be wrong with the goals I have for myself or the standards I've set. I do genuinely love producing more then anything, but its just become so tainted with envy and obsession that rather then do something because I want to, I'm doing it because I almost feel compulsed or forced to do it. I'm doing it because I feel inferior really. Who else really sits down day after day and just works on kick/bass? Wheres my tutorial? I can't even finish that lmao.
All I know is today this shit has got to stop. I'm not using a single fx unless I know ahead of time WHY I'm opening that fx in the first place. No more playing around like my mouse is some slot machine and I'm just waiting to tweak a parameter to accidental perfection. I'm going back to the basics, I'm not being productive and I'm not getting better because I genuinely am overly obsessed with things that don't matter as much as I think they do.
This thread was made more or less just to organize my own thoughts, but feel free to add anything you think may help if you understand what my problem is.

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Sequencers: FL Studio 9XXL & Reason 3.
Main Synth Bass GTs - Pro-53, V-Station, Sytrus, Subtractor, Trilian, Blue, Sylenth & Z3ta.
Main Synth Lead/Pad GTs - Z3ta, Sytrus, Sylenth, Vangard, Albino & Nexus.
Main FXs GTs - Waves Plugins, Soundtoys, Volcano, FL Native FX.
Hardware - Truths, Echo Audiofire, Virus Snow, & Novation Xio Midi-Synth.