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There has been a couple of threads talking about the whole dynamic of when to stop on a track, over analyzing, and over hearing your own music to the point where you second guess or can't stand it anymore. Would you assume that most artist's get to that point with each of their own track? I mean I still enjoy hearing my final and mastered down version of a song but I always wonder if each artist practically listens to their song to death or parts of it during the mix down and by the time its done and released they really are not feeling it, But to the fans its fresh. I have a bad habit of when I feel like something needs to be adjusted i will over listen to the point where I don't like it at all. I usually just take few days break on the single song and its okay but Im trying to learn to not get so obsessive about it. I know all artist's go through it. Some painters claim they have to hide their paintings from their self so they won't over analyze it.

Over analysis is a curse of the less developed creative mind. It's important to know when to step back from the canvas altogether.

wub wrote:Over analysis is a curse of the less developed creative mind. It's important to know when to step back from the canvas altogether.

Would you say that the more you develop your creative mind, the less you'd tend to over analyse your tracks?

Bass Jacka wrote:

wub wrote:Over analysis is a curse of the less developed creative mind. It's important to know when to step back from the canvas altogether.

Would you say that the more you develop your creative mind, the less you'd tend to over analyse your tracks?

I'd say the more creative you get, the more you want to start something new rather than obsess over something you've already done down to the nᵗʰ detail.

wub wrote: I'd say the more creative you get, the more you want to start something new rather than obsess over something you've already done down to the nᵗʰ detail.

Does that mean an over developed creative mind never finishes anything?

swerver wrote:

wub wrote: I'd say the more creative you get, the more you want to start something new rather than obsess over something you've already done down to the nᵗʰ detail.

Does that mean an over developed creative mind never finishes anything?

Not at all. They just have different perceptions of when to step away and start something new.

wub wrote:

Bass Jacka wrote:

wub wrote:Over analysis is a curse of the less developed creative mind. It's important to know when to step back from the canvas altogether.

Would you say that the more you develop your creative mind, the less you'd tend to over analyse your tracks?

I'd say the more creative you get, the more you want to start something new rather than obsess over something you've already done down to the nᵗʰ detail.

I disagree with this to be honest, I'm the complete opposite.

As a beginner I was definitely creative but lacked discipline in the details, I consistently made new songs over a multitude of genres, but never finished a single decent track. All I did was put them on SoundCloud as WIPs and that's where I left it becase I'd move onto something new.

Recently I've been over analysing my stuff, reworking bits, remixing bits, adding extra synths etc. and that discipline focused into a single track has allowed me to create a single finished track (although I'm still tweaking the outro ). Just because I spent so long analysing and editing things doesn't mean (imo) I've been less creative - I've just been focused into ploughing all my ideas into a single track rather than spreading them over multiple half-arsed tracks that I'll never complete. I reached the stage of hating the track about a week ago but continued working on it and "came out the other side" where I now really like it again because I finally managed to achieve something close to my original vision.

Yeah I don't like it when people try to tell others what it means to be creative. They're just saying how they found their creativity work for them.

Ideas are creative, a tune can be made by a single idea or countless of ideas. And you can feel inspired to do something different by analyzing your tune and turn that into something, or you do by just shutting your mind off and just doing it. If everyone got inspired the same way, we'd have a lot more artistically successfull musicians out there because what works for one person will work for everyone else

Genevieve wrote:Yeah I don't like it when people try to tell others what it means to be creative. They're just saying how they found their creativity work for them.

Ideas are creative, a tune can be made by a single idea or countless of ideas. And you can feel inspired to do something different by analyzing your tune and turn that into something, or you do by just shutting your mind off and just doing it. If everyone got inspired the same way, we'd have a lot more artistically successfull musicians out there because what works for one person will work for everyone else

Anything about creativity is subjective in the purest sense of the world.

I agree with mthrfnk, I've been doing the same lately. Concentrating on one track and trying not to start new ones. It takes work to push through until you get the next burst of inspiration. But I'm finding the experience I get is really valuable. I find it easy to start new ideas but difficult to refine them. Any idea really. It's like when you're like "hey let's do this!" it takes a different type of creativity to then answer all the questions, how will this work, how will this problem be solved, what about these hurdles, what are we gonna do about this aspect, etc. Musically, it's difficult to take various ideas and link them together into a larger cohesive creation. That macro arranging takes a kind of meta creativity.

I agree with wub though, there's a certain degree of sophistication required to be able to say "This is done." You can definitely go too far and mangle something good. It takes perspective to recognize when something's been developed to its peak. I think the more you progress something, the more intellectual it becomes and the less visceral it is. Once you pass a certain threshold you're just getting diminishing returns and losing sight of the initial spark. That threshold depends a lot on your view as an artist.

"Art is never finished, only abandoned." - Da Vinci

I think if you're going to go for the long haul and try to refine something a lot, you need to maintain perspective. After a long session with this track I'm working on now I can become numb to it. But if I render out a wav and listen to it the next day on my ipod when I'm outside walking, it gives me goosebumps. I'm always jotting down notes on what needs to change. Those are the most valuable insights as well since I'm assessing it from a listener's perspective. I try to go by feel and keep it evolving without getting unnecessarily convoluted. I consider it progress as long as I'm not adding complexity for complexity's sake.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Da Vinci

also,

"Sunklo is a badman and has a huge cock." - Da Vinci

SunkLo wrote: I'm always jotting down notes on what needs to change.

This, I found this invaluable recently, listening to the track in different locations and making notes. Many specifically just minor tweaks no-one but me will ever notice

This is too much information for me overall. D:
I think that you should know when to stop tweaking shit.
Try listening to your track and not looking at your DAW, if you actually hear that something is wrong then go and fix that. <- *listen again*

I'm with wub on this one. This is the reason i try to do the "songwriting" first, and fiddle with the mixdowns and even (more generic) sound design later, and i try to do so as swiftly as possible to prevent myself from getting sick of it. I even made rules for myself. Bouncing/freezing/flattening is a great way to stop yourself from endlessly tweaking stuff.

I feel the current state of producing electronic music, just the overall culture right now or "scene" puts pressure on a lot of producers and makes them feel this way. It's so difficult to not subconsciously compare your own, to what others music is. Leading to this sound that is very overproduced sort of, and its been made a standard. I think I've fallen for this a little bit, where I make a track and my creativity is limited by the trends and standards of the music right now, years ago I'd imagine it was much easier to naturally find a sound that isn't so over produced. The over producing is what a lot strive for an it takes a lot of time unless you're a long time producer, so one might tend to not finish things (like myself), as it doesn't match up to whats desired.

tl;dr

The "game" right now has so much focus and scrutiny on the skill/technical side of production, that it in turn inhibits creativity.

Being obsessive can be toxic if no time is taken to step back and get perspective. Reference tracks are a good way to keep in context with the technical aspect of production and I stand by Ill Gates 20 hour rule.

Reference tracks, fair enough...it's always worth having something to A/B against.


But as per the comments above on songwriting, I think that working overtime getting the 200hz snare to snap just right derails the creative flow completely. I'd rather get a rough and ready sketch with some actual feeling and content down first before I worry about mixing it down.