It's been over two months since I've even touched my sequencer. Sure, I've always started stuff that I never ended up finishing, but now I can't even begin a project. My pool of ideas is completely blank. I can't even compose a basic 4 bar melody.. and for some reason all my synths sound like crap. Did I just lose it?

Im just coming off a 3-4 month break myself. Everytime I would go to touch my stuff, i didnt get much or just didnt feel like doing it. Just give it time. One day you'll want to start up again. At least thats how it works for me.

i'm the same..i end up working a track..and then when i get to the breakdown..i sorta give up lol. oh and im limited by this shitty ass 2.5 ghz celeron =(

Yeah, happens all the time... mostly because stress/general tiredness from work and whatnot. The absolute worst thing you could possibly do is forcing yourself to produce something.

If it doesn't work out, just give it a rest. Do other stuff, don't sweat it. It'll come to you sooner or later.

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Latest releases:
Endless Cycles [Capital Heaven]
The Charlatan [Morphosis]

I heavily reccomend heading out to the music store, buy a new record, and get inspiration, it always works mate

Then again, I do get creative breaks from time to time, but once you get started again you usually end up with a great track

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E-Mortal/Fredrik Johansson www.emortal.se
www.myspace.com/fredrikemortal
Upcoming/Latest releases:
Jan Johnston - Let the world fall apart (E:mortal remix) - Metallic Recordings
Headstrong ft. Tiff Lacey - The Truth (E:mortal remix) - SOLA
E:mortal - Lost Planet - Ministry of Sound & BTR, E:mortal ft. Tiff Lacey - Tell me - SOLA
E:mortal ft. Tiff Lacey - Footprints - SOLA, E:mortal ft. Tiff Lacey - Coming Home - SOLA
E:mortal ft. Vicky Fee - Say What You Feel - SOLA, E:mortal - Days On End - BTR
Headstrong ft. Kirsty Hawkshaw - In in Your Eyes (E:mortal remix)- SOLA

I just started back up again after a lil over a yr sucks but i think what got to me was reading soo many thread, tutorials and all that bs instead of just having fun with it like when i started it made me become to picky about everything.

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Phunktronix Mixes

quote:

Originally posted by Aquarian It's been over two months since I've even touched my sequencer. Sure, I've always started stuff that I never ended up finishing, but now I can't even begin a project. My pool of ideas is completely blank. I can't even compose a basic 4 bar melody.. and for some reason all my synths sound like crap. Did I just lose it?

No not really. Its just your ears telling you whats wrong with your old mixes. It looks bad but its really a good thing, since now you have raised the bar - its time to junk all the old stuff and try a different approach. I get mental blocks every couple of weeks and if I were honest about it, most of my productions are shite except for the odd few that turned out ok. In a couple of weeks time, I will think those are shite too and will start redesigning some of the better ones that last the two week test. The crap ones I just abandon.

In my humble opinion its good to have several projects on the go at once. Im still working on a breaks track from november of last year. The first time round I liked it for about two weeks, then I played it in the middle of a playlist consisting of Hybrid, Lost Tribe and Fluke tunes. Well, that spoilt the party because they all made my tune sound wrong.

I abandoned it for a few months then kind of 'remixed' it over the course of a few days. Then kind of abandoned it again until 3 weeks ago. Did a few overhauls on some of the instruments and reseated a couple of elements in the mix when I had fresh ears. Theres still stuff wrong with it but everytime I put it on the backburner and work on something else, then come back to it, I make improvements. So far its probably my best track and I have spent about 10 days total on it. Just that its been spread out over the course of about 6 months.

Try doing the same. I have like 4 tracks on the go at once and a bajillion sound design tests. It helps if you are listening to alot of tunes and also getting ideas from stuff outside of music and production, just to keep a fresh perspective on things.

If I find myself staring blankly at a screen and all I can write are stupid cheese trance riffs, I just load up a sound design project and start working on that instead. As long as you are always working on something you will be improving in some way.

The worst thing you can do is to effectively take 3 months off doing any sort of production and just totally mong out. You will come back with fresh ears alright (which is a good thing) but at the same time you could have made so much progress in that time, but will more than likely have spent it doing something that is a complete waste of time, like playing Oblivion or something...

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative The worst thing you can do is to effectively take 3 months off doing any sort of production and just totally mong out. You will come back with fresh ears alright (which is a good thing) but at the same time you could have made so much progress in that time, but will more than likely have spent it doing something that is a complete waste of time, like playing Oblivion or something...

Is that really such a bad thing? I took a couple of months of just playing games, watching movies.. making music can be very taxing, and it's like doing a diet, of you just do the diet you get tired of it, but if you do small rewards like getting some candy one day, then you can do the diet longer..

Same thing with music I think. Too much of it and you'll get tired doing it.

___________________
E-Mortal/Fredrik Johansson www.emortal.se
www.myspace.com/fredrikemortal
Upcoming/Latest releases:
Jan Johnston - Let the world fall apart (E:mortal remix) - Metallic Recordings
Headstrong ft. Tiff Lacey - The Truth (E:mortal remix) - SOLA
E:mortal - Lost Planet - Ministry of Sound & BTR, E:mortal ft. Tiff Lacey - Tell me - SOLA
E:mortal ft. Tiff Lacey - Footprints - SOLA, E:mortal ft. Tiff Lacey - Coming Home - SOLA
E:mortal ft. Vicky Fee - Say What You Feel - SOLA, E:mortal - Days On End - BTR
Headstrong ft. Kirsty Hawkshaw - In in Your Eyes (E:mortal remix)- SOLA

Eh depends. I love producing so its not an issue for me.

However, it is important to get ideas and experiences outside of music production. If all you do is produce music and study other people's music you will never bring anything other than iterations to your work. Which is probably a bad thing. Its a good thing to go travelling, go clubbing, have some time off and try out new things.

But take months off to play videogames?! hell no! Take days off here and there? Sure thing. If you want to make some kind of career out of it, I think it pays off to not pull too many 'sick days' or even 'sick months' as the case may be.

Take too much time off and you get slack. At least, I definitely get slack if I take too much time off. I look at the number of releases Hybrid have put out since 1999 and all the gigs they have done and it really does look like they havent stopped working on tunes for the past 7 years. To be really good at something, I think you need to be slightly obsessed about it like that. At least, I would definitely like to get my music up to standard where it is comparible to Hybrids. Long way off but keep your head down. Work hard. Play hard. But dont play too hard. If you want it badly enough you will get there sooner or later. At least I would bloody well hope so.

ihave mental writers block too at times ,what i do is take breaks
cause the more you force anything the worse it sounds

i recommend trying a different genre ,or a tune you have not programmed in a while then youll get the feel for the other genre you were stuck with.


i only make one genre at time so if im stuck on that track i take a break but i always go back and finish that track first ,if i go to a new track the one im working on will never get done.

but in your case i think trying a new genre may help like trip hop,break beats,chillout ,pscy etc

Well, i had i break from my production from allmost a year , and i had produced alot, but i almost stopped listening to records, cus my ears and my music senses got numb i the end, and i just got tierd of it.

But after about a year break, i had saved some money, and one day i went in to a music-store to check out some new synths and other gears, and it ended in that i bought my self a couple af new vst´s and a new sequencer.

And that was that, i was up and running again :P and now eight months after that i have 3 signed traks coming up(before i had non). So a break can be verry good for your creativity. I have come to the fact that you can not force that out fo your self.

/C

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Download my tracks at AJ-tunes!
ajtunes.com/onova

Latest tune:Dj Eco - Paradise now (Onova remix) [Lunatique records]

I totally agree with both substorm and Derivative on this subject. For myself, listening to more music and then taking a little break (few days) always rejuvenates my creativity. Also, during that "little break," reading up a little bit on areas that you trouble on really helps. I remember it took me forever to come up with a stupid 4-8 bar melody, but that for me was because I just didn't know much music theory. I was basing all my knowledge from band back in elementary to high school. I read a little bit and now I can actually create minor melodic/harmonic/natural melodies with ease. It's a lot easier once you actually KNOW what you're doing instead of just attempting something that you think sounds right. It pays off in the end especially when you know which notes fit well together so you can create those epic pad lines or really dirty sounding melodies that just get the people moving on the dance floor. My little tip is to just read a little bit more on what you don't know. Of course it's not going to hurt you, so why not do it? I've definitely had more inspiration to create more music now just because it's so much easier to create "nicer" sounding melodies and add more effects and automations to the tracks. Get creative...learn more!