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But cant put any other sounds to it?
im really stuck here

I usually just move on, save it though cuz you might have a sudden bit of inspiration. I find it's a losing battle trying to force a tune.

just had this same issue on the last tune i made. made a couple drum loops in my mpc and when i dumped it into ableton i couldnt get any synths to stick. now i go exactly opposite of j-one, i never move on,i bang my fucking head against the monitor until i come up with something. took me over a week to arrange the tune, which usually only takes a few hours. i find the more frustrating a tune is to make the more satisfied with it i am in the end though. weird approach but it works for me. check the results, "Diamond" is posted on my soundcloud and myspace.

Could try merging it with another loop you've been working on, sometimes I find this gets some interesting results

move on and progress with something else. Then usually what will happen is you will hear something else and it will trigger your imagination for the beat and youll be off.

Just be patient cos the beat wont run away somewhere...

add sub bass and some background ambience and call it a tune

seriously, it works half the time.

LOL happens to me a lot... Happy I'm not alone

hurlingdervish wrote:add sub bass and some background ambience and call it a tune

seriously, it works half the time.

haha, love that move. 60% of the time, it works every time. actually huriing i heard a tune on your soundcloud thats real sparse and subby and it sounded dope. i copped a copy, good looks all the way around.

pass it onto a friend to finish it up

My solution to this is to 'break' the beat a little - by which I mean make it wonkier, take out some hats and percussion, disrupt it's flow a bit. By doing that rhythmic space is created for a bassline or whatever. (Obviously, you can always 'fix' the beat later on in the process if it's sounding too off-kilter.)

jsills wrote:

hurlingdervish wrote:add sub bass and some background ambience and call it a tune

seriously, it works half the time.

haha, love that move. 60% of the time, it works every time. actually huriing i heard a tune on your soundcloud thats real sparse and subby and it sounded dope. i copped a copy, good looks all the way around.

thanks man!
Fission im guessing?

im doing a new mixdown of it with some new elements cause people liked it so much (i thought it was shit, goes to show not to overthink yr tunes)
ill post it in my sig.

Keep it minimal and add some basic FX and delays.

don't be afraid to KILL YOUR BABIES.

i have at least 400 of those same types of tunes on my hard drive.
all labeled some ridiculous shit that i'll never remember.

I have a lot of those as well

I used to name tunes funny "working" titles, but now I just name the project whatever date I start it on

1) Setup a scrap beats archive folder
2) Take a "snapshot" sample of the beat
3) Name the sample so you can reference it with the original project
4) Use the archive for inspiration at a later date or
4a) Chop the hell out of the sample/s to make something entirely new from it/them

This way you can have a single audio index of great ideas. Who knows maybe 2-3 ideas that wouldn't finish originally will open up something insane when revisited after a month or two. I do something similar on my sampler and have just recently discovered that 2 really minimal beats combine into joyousness when chopped and arranged together into something new.

ehcsztein wrote:1) Setup a scrap beats archive folder
2) Take a "snapshot" sample of the beat
3) Name the sample so you can reference it with the original project
4) Use the archive for inspiration at a later date or
4a) Chop the hell out of the sample/s to make something entirely new from it/them

This way you can have a single audio index of great ideas. Who knows maybe 2-3 ideas that wouldn't finish originally will open up something insane when revisited after a month or two. I do something similar on my sampler and have just recently discovered that 2 really minimal beats combine into joyousness when chopped and arranged together into something new.

is the best bit of advice ive heard in ages. i need to do that.

otherwise, yeah just let it be sparse.

I am happy I really don't have much of a problem with this anymore. I usually have maybe one scrapped tune for every 2 finished tunes and usually the file gets scrapped because I didn't get far enough with it for it to be anything. I think a good thing to do is not to get too deep into any one part of your tune until you get other stuff going. In otherword, I will throw in a kick, snare, hh and then start throwing in a subline then jump back and add some to the beat etc. Just build the whole tune as a until if you follow me.

ehcsztein wrote: 2) Take a "snapshot" sample of the beat

4a) Chop the hell out of the sample/s to make something entirely new from it/them

Who knows maybe 2-3 ideas that wouldn't finish originally will open up something insane when revisited after a month or two ... combine into joyousness when chopped and arranged together into something new.

Thats an extremely interesting idea. Going to explore this...

hurlingdervish wrote: Fission im guessing?

thats the one, holla when you finish it that bass is knocking.

Original Face wrote:My solution to this is to 'break' the beat a little - by which I mean make it wonkier, take out some hats and percussion, disrupt it's flow a bit. By doing that rhythmic space is created for a bassline or whatever. (Obviously, you can always 'fix' the beat later on in the process if it's sounding too off-kilter.)

thats a good damn good idea. a good beat is going to be full sonically so your perception doesnt sense a void that needs to be filled with something else. i like to start tracks with just a hat loop or just a kik and snare and then finish the percussion and fills once i have a good bit of bass and synth work done. sometimes it doesnt go that way though.

Basically I don't go too deep into any single part until I have fleshed out most the track already. Otherwise I get stuck in a rut, and everything new I make doesn't sound right. It also helps to sometimes try starting with a couple of chords or other sounds instead of the drums. Tracks sound good when all the sounds feed off each other, and if you go too deep to quickly in on direction I think this could make it much harder to do.

and

eshscramble wrote:don't be afraid to KILL YOUR BABIES.

i.

if it isn't working, save it and start something new. often I'm trying too hard with a track that I think should be good but it just isn't working. So I save it and start something new, and before you know it I have something great! and then later I'm really glad that I didn't hack away at it...