How long did it take you to make your first track?

[TheBrownie]

YAYYY! You guys make me feel sooo good, well some of you do. I thought I was bad at making music because I haven't really liked anything I've made yet and I've been producing about a month. I've made like 3 tracks (All bad sadly :/ ) and countless WIP's. I'm hoping that through practice I'll make something good one day, anyone else feel that way?

And Reason is hard to get used to too :/
Maybe it's because I've never produced ANYTHING before, well produced anything musical on my computer.

[Susceptor]

If you put it this way...
Now (after 5 years) I'm starting to barely like some of my tracks...
(lots of WIPs and redos also)

[TheBrownie]

If you put it this way...
Now (after 5 years) I'm starting to barely like some of my tracks...
(lots of WIPs and redos also)

Yeah, well the person who makes the track is almost always too critical about it even though it may sound really good to people who don't produce. When "normal" people listen to music, a lot of them don't really notice every single detail of it or how a tiny change affected the song. Let some friends listen to your WIP and they'll tell you whether or not it's good.

*Sigh* I wish I had friends Tough life being a dessert though...

[jrisreal]

about 30 mins

[JFK]

It took about 2 weeks. And it reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllyyyyyyyyyyy sucked.

The only person who liked it was my mum........ she STILL has it on CD.

[paravrais]

People seem to do one of two things. Either you start out spending aaaages on your first track and then over time slowly become faster at writing OR you start off making tracks in one or two hours and slowly spend more and more time on them till you are making quality.

Neither path seems to be 'better' than the other as they both eventually meet in the middle anyway.

[elendarsilvermoon]

There was a time when I would pump out a couple (very crappy) songs a day. Nowadays I'm lucky if I get anything finished in a month. I've got lots of bits and pieces of songs that I've started, but nothing really finished.

[s3f]

benn producing 4 months haven't really "finished" anything... somehow I can't really force myself to go trhough with ideas because I always think it's not worth it. What's your take on this DSF? Does one learn faster by finishing crap songs or starting loads and loads of ideas and just leaving them as WIPs if the motivation goes away? I seem to think neither...

[Susceptor]

Finish crap songs. You won't realise it's crap, but after 1 year you'll realise that they were crap. Either rinse everything and start from scratch, this time you have experience so you know what NOT to do, or try and fix the old songs (maybe you had a great melody with awful sound design, maybe you had a nice patch, but everything else sucked, who knows). Anyway, never delete old projects, keep them for posterity.

[DJ Crackle]

Man. Fuck you guys for making me think of my first track :p
I have no idea how long it took. Was so long ago and such shit I've forgotten already

[jrisreal]

haha my first track wasnt really that bad, it was my second track that really sucked.

[metzz]

LOL about 30 seconds i got fruity and went crazy. i used to make about 5 shit grime beats a day now its about 1 alright dubstep tune every month

[zawmbee]

I'll report back when I'm done (:

[Basic A]

Shit Ive had 3 releases and I dont think Ive finished my first one really...

Im a DJ, fiddlin a DAW, making beats for in my mixes, frankly, I think its weird you lot listen to 'em.

I am finally working on a real EP, got asked to make something specific and its got me motivated... been at those for about a month now, allllmost have the first tune done... I keep getting sidetracked making DJ tools though.

[Squillion]

My first track took me three months, every day, long hours. I had Logic 3 and a PC with a whopping 64 Meg of Ram, ha ha ha. Other tracks have taken even longer at times. These days it still takes between 2 - 5 weeks from first idea to burning the final disk. I like the fresh naievity with which I did things then, it was all just for fun.

Peace, Dylan

[lloydy]

Took me 10 years to finish a track i actually really liked.I find it easier now to make stuff i want to listen to which is a strange thing to say.All of my friends that see me progress kept saying you should really start finishing shit but my heart wasn't in it because i wasn't 100 percent happy with what i'm making.I think my goal is to get an album done by me that i can't put down like albums from other artists that don't leave my car for about 3 years and believe me there's been a few lol

[thekuku]

Started a year ago and made like 4 hours worth of loops but never finished a tune. Should I call a dubstep doctor?

[Gurnumsbug]

was a remix.. & took about a week! Fun times when I didn't know what I was doing

[Lucifa]

3 years 7 months. 1,001 project files, 0 finished tracks.

i always overhype a 16 bar loop, close FL contented, then completely lose all enthuasiam for it when I next load it up with the intention of fleshing it out.

[leaflet]

Depends what you mean by finishing a track? Learning to know when a track is done, or rather knowing when it is at a good stage ( demo stage / release stage / Etc ) is one of the greatest skills when producing and can literally take years to learn.