Knowing when to stop/ over playing your own project.

[AlexAnderson]

Just found this video on polyrhythms on youtube. Interesting stuff.

Guy is a serious drummer!!

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

using triplets in a 4/4 tune is a basic polyrhythm right?

[peaka]

I sound like a broken record, but I would say this happens to pretty much everyone. Just a bi-product of listening to the same loop over and over again and knowing every inch of the track. The novelty and excitement of a new idea loses it charm pretty fast when you spend a lot of time on it.

The truth be told, and I'm sure a lot of people feel this way, I never really feel like a track is completely DONE. I may run out of ideas for the moment to give off the illusion that it's done, but so many times I've listened to a track months later and thought wow I could of done this or I could have done that. Sometimes when you stare at something so close for so long, you lose track of what the big picture suppose to be. You just have to take a few steps back and try to look at the whole picture.

For some reason, the best results for me is when I hear something that inspires me and I plow through the track and worry about the small things like where a hi hat should hit, transitions, making a sound perfect, etc afterwards. I just try to get the idea while I still have it in the context of the larger goal instead of being bogged down by trying to make a snare sound perfect. Getting stuck on a EQ, minute sound details, you know small things, stifles my workflow and creativity. The end results of getting sidetracked, for me, usually ends in hours wasted and trashing the songs anyway.

When I don't feel create I sometime simply try to mimic a song I really like. This way, I don't get sidetracked and I always learn something new by breaking my typical structure of how I make tracks.

At the end of the day, you are you're owe worse critic, so when things make you cringe months later, it's a sign of progression. You're just getting better and your standards have just increased

[VirtualMark]

using triplets in a 4/4 tune is a basic polyrhythm right?

If there's another beat, like a 4/4 kick then yeah. There has to be at least 2 different rhythms. They're used a lot in Drum & Bass to good effect.

A couple of audio demos here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyrhythm

[Hircine]

4/4 is a time signature, like 3/4, 7/8 or 9/8, it doesn't means 4x4

[VirtualMark]

4/4 is a time signature, like 3/4, 7/8 or 9/8, it doesn't means 4x4

I don't know what you mean by 4x4?

I meant kick on 1, 2, 3 and 4 of each bar.

[sunny_b_uk]

been at this for 10 years and theres only about 4 tunes iv made that iv ever liked in all that time.
a couple are going on a new EP im working on but yeah it's very hard to satisfy yourself since most of us will compare to similar better produced songs.

[drooka]

first of all i've been producing for 4 years now,
i was making ambient/downtemp at first but then i discovered the ambient side of dubstep which was really beautiful thing to me so i decided go that way anyway let's get to the point..
so i finish a tune that i really like and just feel like aigh im ready to post it. and i do so and i get good respond from people saying it is beutiful but after awhile i feel like this tune is just bad and feel 'ashamed' of it
so every once in a while i delete all my tunes on soundcloud and keep producing on a low profile till i get that im ready feeling again and after awhile i realise i'm not

anyone else feels that way?

hey brotha, think part of this is your progression as a producer. you make a tune that sounds top at the time to your ears, then a few months down the road have learned some things that could have taken the tune to an even higher level. without this constant forward motion, you'd stagnate as a producer, so look at it as growth instead of something discouraging. always helps to a/b your newer tunes against older ones to put the growth in perspective as well

[erratech]

As everyone has said you often get to that point with tunes. Its good to sometimes take it as a learning experience (when youve got some time). If you dont like something then fix it, and just go through fixing things until you cant pin down what you dont like anymore. There is no rush to get your music 'out there', just make it as good as you can and when things start jumping out after the honeymoon is over fix them. Although if you are right at the beginning of the curve just concentrate on churning out stuff till you learn what you actually like and the basics of music.

[AlexAnderson]

I find the key to still liking a track once you've finished it is to get to the end as quickly as possible. It's the loop 'monging' and the eq'ing a sound for 5 hours that kills it.

[kaili]

ye i think every1 gets this
youre basically listening to it the whole time ur producing and its almost like when u overplay a tune or an album

[Mark-Creda]

Regular breaks and fresh ears are defiantly the way forward.
I don't know of ANY producer who doesn't get sick of tracks they just finished or even still working on.

Switching to different projects throughout the day helps as well.
It's all part of the work we love to do.

[Dj Rephlex]

Switching to different projects throughout the day helps as well.
It's all part of the work we love to do.

[Crazy Dubb 7]

I was thinking of starting this exact thread 2 days ago. My workflow is still quite slow and I end up listening to loops of my own stuff until i'm sick of it. When you reach that point you need to just take a brake from production for at least a day or two. Then play what you have to people you trust for their opinion and get back to work with a fresh outlook.

Its good to draw inspiration from the big names out there but rather than comparing your tracks to theirs just do your best even if its not great its your "personal best", compare your past and present work and then aim to beat that on the next production. The more you work at it, the better you get. Its a simple and beautiful truth. I have a long way to go until i'm happy with my own work I nearly deleted my sig track due to frustration but decided to try finish it and use it as my next benchmark.

.
Yeah I totally agree. I just want to thanks everyone for their input and feedback on this. It makes a lot of sense and the funny this is, when I listen to some great songs from some of my favorate artists or Il listen to a podcast or like a never say die mix. A lot of the song dont sound all that that complex. Its only when I get in that I one a make a revoultionary track kind of mode is when I get in trouble When I hear songs I study and it seems like the producers eventually have to get to the point where their cool with it just like we do weather they really love their own tracks we probably won't know. It would be interesting to to see which artists like which one of their own songs the most. Sometimes I also get in a bad mindset where I feel I have to rush our my tracks because I am afraid of someone else producing a track that sounds very much the same. which is probably crazy to think like this. I need to realize how many variables are in making a song and that there is probably WAY more and more to come as far as what we all have heard and loved so far.

[didi]

A good thing to do is have two projects going on

This 100%.

I used to get bored easily and just start new stuff over and over, I'm now finally managing to continously work on the same few tracks to make them better and better - and one good thing is that personally I'm taking bits from one track and using them in another, it's helping to make the tracks more cohesive (in terms of being on the same EP).

I agree. I have about 8 or 9 tracks that I'm working on. In one session, I might easily do something on 4 or 5.


I also agree with the stop looping, although sometimes looping tracks can be quite useful. If you feel that you're overplaying your music, though, you're looping too much.


Don't feel compelled to produce. Produce only when you want to. At one point I didn't do one bit of producing for about 3 months, because I simply didn't feel like it. Also, don't be afraid of throwing tunes away. If you look back critically, and think, that track is a bit gash then move on, don't try and rescue it.


Sorry, that descended into a general ramble about production.

[LogiSpark]

Only sometimes this type of stuff happens to me. All I got to say is, you need to play your song at the right time and not go all crazy with hearing it bit by bit. Play some patterns by themselves so you wont have to hear everything over and over.

[Ldizzy]

aim for rock solid. op.

if you cant listen to a tune for hours and still feel its good... its not as good as the tunes i aim for.

not being a d. just being honest.

know that the wow factor (i.e. drops that get their energy thru loudness rather then a cleaver build up) will make ur tunes listenable a couple times only... grooves tho... get their appeal thru repetition / redundancy. aim for a GOOD groove and ur problem will be sorted.

and it could be any song really.

im not necessarily talking about a blawan or a j dilla beat... i think datsik's swagga has a pretty much infinite-loopable groove

[antman]

I am notorious for this, I eventually tire out my ears and delete the track because it just ruins the whole thing for me.

Terrible.

[MrBaxter]

Op is spot on. This is my big problem as well. Now whenever I get into loop mode, I stop for 10 minutes and then come back to the project. It disrupts the creative flow like a bitch, but I feel getting over the tendency of over listening is more important at this stage.

[nameless133]

I stop when I'm getting bored and starting hate my new song.