I was driving home today listening to music and I started thinking about production. I've never really had any success with production and I go through stints of pretending and giving it up. I think the biggest thing that holds me back is I feel overwhelmed by it. So many things to learn and to master and I end up focusing on all the minutia and losing the music.

I'm sure a lot of people have had similar experiences. what i got to think though was maybe the solution is to place some basic limitations on your process as a means of giving yourself direction.

for example, in any given song you could place endless elements, but when you listen to music aren't there really only a limited number of things to consider in song writing? There is a main melody, perhaps a supporting melody, a bassline, some drum elements, etc. Would it be helpful to think about producing in this way? Should you decide at the beginning of your song which elements you need and then write and build them together? Aren't the catchiest melodies the simplest ones?

What if you literally started a project saying to yourself "I'm going to make the best song I can with a melody, a supporting melody, a bassline, a maximum of 4 drum elements, and a maximum of 3 fx sounds". Wouldn't that force you to focus on the song writing and the sound design for each element?

I know it's probably a dangerous suggestion to "restrict" creativity, but maybe that's the key for beginners. Only after you've learned the basics can you move on to a more free form style of producing. I've heard people talk about similar concepts when it comes to completing songs i.e. setting timeframes for yourself etc.

I dunno, just really some food for thought. Anyone have any similar thoughts about organizing or forcing your workflow?

Last edited by Floorfiller on Feb-15-2013 at 03:29

It's not dangerous, it's essential. Limitations are the best facilitators of creativity that I know. They are what allows you to compare your output to your expectations and derive joy from your success of meeting or exceeding them. Genre conventions are limitations, for example. You set out to make a trance track, then that's a limitation you set yourself: the track needs to be perceived by you as falling into the trance genre. But that's just one limitation that most of us use, and usually not even consciously (as in doing it deliberately and explicitly to channel our creativity). Another is remixing/bootlegging/covering - working within the limitations of an original track.

Here are some ideas for other limitations:

• Only one synth for a whole track (as many instances as you want), no samples
  
• you get just two hours to finish a whole track
  
• you work from a set of samples/synth patches someone else provides and add only a single element of your own
  

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Funnily enough I treid just this on my most recent track but it didn't turn out great because I still made bad decisions, for example the worng bassline!

It's like I'm walking through a verdant forest but all too often picking the wrong fuits......

It's having the wrong taste and style too many times.

naw makes a lot of sense.. once i started to take it seriously i went and bought a simple drum machine (drumtraks) and a simple analog synth (alpha junp)


of course with only those two instruments you are going to have an extremely limited palette, but i figured if i could write with those, the rest would come


i was correct

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Its import to restrict in some sense.. It has been discussed before here: http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...s=#.UR537olhic0

I dont see a point to restrict your creativy process and writing musical elements in any way.. Many times these problems resolve on their own - too much musical stuff sounds bad if not in perfect harmony like in orchestral pieces.

And in electronic music as you mix your own stuff and cut freqs, theres now point to put more and more stuff in your track, as you soon notice theres just not enough space in the mix. If it doesnt make a big difference, remove it.

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thanks for the responses guys.

i think i'm maybe going to give myself a project to work on and set some clear objectives and rules to it and see if it's something that i can complete. if anyone else tries something similar feel free to post about it, would be interested to hear how it goes.

the simplest tunes are usually always the best ones, so id have to agree with having less elements in tracks

Funnily enough i think thats where you have to be MORE creative - if your working with less then you have to do something more interesting

its just easier for us to add more shit into a track to make it more interesting - then it ends up getting muddy and having too much going on

my 2c

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I agree with all the sentiments in this thread; The projects that have just been endless different ideas have often frustrated me the most.

In some ways the simpler you keep it, the more you achieve and it's not about dumbing anything down or "limiting" yourself as such, just keeping the options to a manageable platform.

The upside of this is you really learn what you;re good at and what you;re not, and it also teaches you to learn the tools you have inside out.

It amazes me when I see a vid of some guy, just using one piece of kit like an Electribe, or Lemur, or MPC, or RS700 etc, that they have truly mastered and make a full song from it. It's truly about both knowing the limits and fulls scope of what tools you have.

If you need inspiration musically, listen to some Pryda - usually only 8 or 9 elements in a given track but done so well to create a full track. When you listen to music like that it makes you forget about the pressure of making something complex.

to get a workflow going, you might just want to re-make a track you really like as closely to the original as you can (I redid the pulser remix of en motion - truth). Then you'd have a small arsenal of synths and effects that you developed a good familiarity with in order to accomplish that remake, and the beginnings of a workflow for using them.

With that basic skeleton in place, you can then branch out into creativity, and new tools if need be.

My restrictions tend to be:
-dont surf for new samples all the damn time
-zynaddsubfx for synthesis unless it truly can't make the sound I'm after
-stop reading stuff all the damn time

Also, cheating, you might try some things.
use the freebie mucoder plugin "chordspace" to toy with chords and create a chord progression
use the freebie software impro-visor to plot out a melody within that progression
If you have the note in your head and cant figure out how to plot it out into your sequencer, try an audio to midi converter plugin, and sing in the melody to get the notes out.

There is no shame in cheating to get your ideas into the computer.

There is a really helpful pdf that one of the famous ableton tutorial guys made about creative processes that I found very helpful, ugh ill find it tomorrow ish.

If you have a budget, a hex layout keyboard like the type C-thru music sell works wonders.

yeah gotta be careful with gear... I've noticed that synths tend to attract other synths, weather it's hardware or software.

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quote:

Originally posted by Teezdalien yeah gotta be careful with gear... I've noticed that synths tend to attract other synths, weather it's hardware or software.

i agree - it can become more about collecting gear and having the perfect setup than it is making tunes and learning your process/skills etc

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quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN If you need inspiration musically, listen to some Pryda - usually only 8 or 9 elements in a given track but done so well to create a full track. When you listen to music like that it makes you forget about the pressure of making something complex.

There are tracks that are much simpler than Pryda's. Daft Punk's old stuff is even more simple.

Pryda has a lot of automation to keep it interesting, but you don't even need that to have a good dance song.

If you think about it, a good tune can be pretty simple, but the structure has to be flawless and the changes absolutely surgical.

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