One thing I can recommend for that is to, at a certain point make a habit of doing things to polish the song immediately. I mean, when you have enough ideas for a whole track recorded, you can switch to the mode of being critical and ditching what's not worth keeping, and mercilessly redoing turds that need too much polish.
I find I can get caught up in just listening and forget to do things I think to do unless I immediately stop the song and do them right then. Once I made that habit, the refining process became a lot faster. Too much listening makes it hard to hear what sucks too, cos you just get used to hearing it.
Procrastination there is pretty easy to overcome; you just have to be a bit brutal and usually it helps to put the song a side a while to regain your objectivity. That's sort of a time test too, to see if the idea was good enough to even keep me interested in finishing it at a later date, when I'm less attached.
So is that a second extension of your original deadline to finish less than you started out to? Well, baby steps are the way to mastery, eh? I might eventually have to get around to failing you at some point tho...
Its a different track, but stuck at the same point. I always know what needs doing/trying with every track, down the minutest detail, but its the getting round to anything thats a nightmare. Baby steps I'm very happy with. All advice gratefully received, except the fly in the ointment is...
Hey Zeekat are you doing those vids in Reaper too?
Nope, Reaper looks very arcane with all the videprocessors and stuff, I'm keeping with idiot-tier Vegas simplicity. There's like forty minutes vid about how to make such video grid in Reaper with a lot of numbers and stuff, looks scary and I don't need this in my life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by foxAsteria
Mix-wise the synths in are kinda conflicting with the bass tho I think, making them both a bit hard to discern.
Impressed and a little jealous how much you're able to remember in order to play all those tracks live like that.
Weird thing with the synths, thought the sore spot would be the rhythm guitar, never occured to me synths may clash with bass (altough granted, didn't bother with highpassing the synths at all, though the patches are bright enough). Parts itself are sort of repetitive and with help of bullshitting way out of leads with some improvisation but yeah, takes a while to agree with myself how I'm gonna to play it end to end. But it needs to be a time killer and it's a proper wholesale temporal murder this way.
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AM bient, rund funk and heavy meteo
my bandcamp+youtubings
Just checked. Four new tracks since starting to post in this thread. I call that a decent baby step in the right direction towards the drinks cabinet. I might be an adult by the time I get there
Its a different track, but stuck at the same point. I always know what needs doing/trying with every track, down the minutest detail, but its the getting round to anything thats a nightmare. Baby steps I'm very happy with. All advice gratefully received, except the fly in the ointment is...
A lot of that sounds pretty familiar. I fairly certain if I stopped avoiding my problems long enough to make a doctor's appt, I'd be diagnosed with some kind of avoidant disorder.
Have you had any luck with medication? I'm starting to open up to the idea, but it's depressing to think about figuring out insurance and finding the right therapist, drugs, etc, etc.
Meanwhile, music makes me happy, so I just try to focus on that.
Btw, I wasn't trying to be cheeky about baby steps. I read it in a book called Mastery(?). It stuck with me because I'm always trying to change too much at once and it's harder to overcome gigantic failures than to derive motivation from tiny successes.
A lot of that sounds pretty familiar. I fairly certain if I stopped avoiding my problems long enough to make a doctor's appt, I'd be diagnosed with some kind of avoidant disorder.
Have you had any luck with medication? I'm starting to open up to the idea, but it's depressing to think about figuring out insurance and finding the right therapist, drugs, etc, etc.
Meanwhile, music makes me happy, so I just try to focus on that.
Btw, I wasn't trying to be cheeky about baby steps. I read it in a book called Mastery(?). It stuck with me because I'm always trying to change too much at once and it's harder to overcome gigantic failures than to derive motivation from tiny successes.
Oh yeah, no snark intended in anything I was saying. Baby steps is a concept I'm happy with Especially with reference to What About Bob? As I said before, I getting other stuff done, even if its procrastination from what I want to do. Im fooling my brain still into doing stuff, win win
Meds, yes, nothing but success. I was resistant to the idea for 20 years plus, but its what I need after I'd tried everything else and only ever got so far... Because of all the other work I'd done tho, they were easily able to assess, diagnose and hit the right medication and dose immediately.
It hasnt 'cured' everything (see this thread ), thats not how it works in my case, but I'm not wanting to kill myself from the deafening noise in my head for the first sustained length of time (about 5 years plus now, after about 20 years of starting the path to figuring all his out and being staunchly against meds).
Whatever you do, get referred to an experienced specialist instead of dealing with whatever your GP might throw at you Brains are very particular things!
EDIT: Lets not derail the thread tho Exhibit A:
EDIT2: Now thats done, @fox, where's the files so I can remix you
Procrastination levels for the stuff I want to be doing are still off the charts, but, strangely, the occasional jam is getting thru before the procrastination has a chance to properly kick in.
This track took 48 hours from jam to video upload. No prep. All thanks to having bought a Moog Subharmonicon which it turns out I can play really nicely without so many bum notes, unlike the guitar or actual keyboard/synth
The more I can brush up on the automation and quality of jam (more fruit!), the less chance there is of procrastination slowing things down. Just a quick edit for flow and there's a 'finished' track.
Of course, now I'm procrastinating about even doing any jamming...
Oh dang I seem to be procrastinating those stems, eh? Ok I'll print them by Sunday...
Nice jams, maxdembo. Reminds me a little of Silver Apples. I stopped recording mine long ago because I was finding that a 2 hr jam could easily take 2 whole days to edit into something resembling a song. Also, the fact of recording always influences the way I play and jam sessions feel less "free" if I know I'm recording them.
Anymore I jam over shorter loops if I'm working on a song but a lot of the time I just improvise for hours without recording anything.
My brother and I tripped and recorded an epic 5 hour continuous jam a couple years ago and I'm sure there's some tasty fruit in there, but I just can't begin to go through it all...
It's funny cos when I started my workflow-vision-quest, it was mainly to have an easier time of going through jam sessions and distilling their essence, but by the time I'd worked out a good way of doing that (after many years), I'd lost interest in recording jams in the first place...
Oh dang I seem to be procrastinating those stems, eh? Ok I'll print them by Sunday...
Nice jams, maxdembo. Reminds me a little of Silver Apples. I stopped recording mine long ago because I was finding that a 2 hr jam could easily take 2 whole days to edit into something resembling a song. Also, the fact of recording always influences the way I play and jam sessions feel less "free" if I know I'm recording them.
Anymore I jam over shorter loops if I'm working on a song but a lot of the time I just improvise for hours without recording anything.
My brother and I tripped and recorded an epic 5 hour continuous jam a couple years ago and I'm sure there's some tasty fruit in there, but I just can't begin to go through it all...
It's funny cos when I started my workflow-vision-quest, it was mainly to have an easier time of going through jam sessions and distilling their essence, but by the time I'd worked out a good way of doing that (after many years), I'd lost interest in recording jams in the first place...
Ha! Yeah I have a 2hr jam that I still havent edited down, its too much of a task.
I think this track, the subharmonicon one, was 12 minutes, edited down to 4 (I think). The next step is adding BFD back into the mix, and taking an output from one the Subharmonicon's sequencers and use the cv of that to drive a bass vsti's midi. The more elements there are tho, the longer the edit takes and I'm down to two days for most simple remixes, so I need to be careful!
I know I'm far from the only one who has trouble finishing things and I think part of the reason for it is that writing solo, I'm not accountable to anyone else to ever even finish my tracks.
Anyways, the premise here is that anyone who wants to face their fear of finishing declares their intent to be done with a musical track or project by a certain date. Why not post WIP here and maybe get some feedback along the way?
But what's done is done.
Start any day.
Is it today?
Maybe tomorrow?
Rules:
1. Declare your intent to finish a song & set a date...
2. Link your finished track by your deadline...
3. It can be something new or something in progress; one song or a comprehensive box set of your life's work...
4. But you must complete it or else! Shame! Shame! Shame...
Who's in?
I was excited when I saw the thread title but disappointed when I saw you were going to hold people’s feet to the fire! B)
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“Where words fail, music speaks”
I was excited when I saw the thread title but disappointed when I saw you were going to hold people’s feet to the fire! B)
meh, i haven't been keeping up on that and it didn't really help anyway...I just thought it would to have some more public accountability...don't be discouraged; set a deadline you can meet!
Nope, Reaper looks very arcane with all the videprocessors and stuff, I'm keeping with idiot-tier Vegas simplicity. There's like forty minutes vid about how to make such video grid in Reaper with a lot of numbers and stuff, looks scary and I don't need this in my life.
Agreed. I havent even bothered looking into it as it seems like a nightmare.
Im just splitting the videos and deleting chunks, rather than doing anything worthy of video editing. Im usually taking audio samples from public domain films so it makes sense using the films im taking audio from.
Im just removing all other dialogue scenes and making fairly random selections and choices, churning it out as quick as I can before the procrastination and the rot of lofty goals and aims start to creep in and slow everything to a crawl. Most of the films are fairly randomly chosen out of my 'films to sample' folder
This post is pure procrastination instead of doing 'work' btw
This post is pure procrastination instead of doing 'work' btw
Yes, I have no problem thinking about things in depth, making lists and being organized.
What it boils down to for me [*Warning: long post]:
I’ve been sick for the last 10 years (CIDP) so there’s less time and energy available to draw from...
I’m happy with my musical abilities and get a lot of joy / peace / release out of playing and being creative. But, I haven’t accomplished much (musically) in my life up to this point and have a lot of music built up inside me that needs to come out (record...). Which adds pressure to the mix...
Recording involves much more focus and energy and I’m trying to capture a little spontaneous magic and that can be daunting...
Especially now in this new reality. Trying to be creative / artistic without other musicians. I love to come up with simple ideas and see what happens when players interact while recording.
My lack of talent for inspired bass lines and drum parts is also part of the issue. The foundation is one dimensional / lifeless so it’s hard for me to be inspired and get in that same creative headspace. Also, building that one dimensional foundation can feel like a chore...
On top of that I’m almost a perfectionist... I don’t want my playing / music to be artificially perfect but I do have a high bar set for myself.
So, I basically want to capture my ideas. Even in little bits and pieces. It shouldn’t be that difficult. But...
Thanks again for this thread!
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“Where words fail, music speaks”
Agreed. I havent even bothered looking into it as it seems like a nightmare.
Im just splitting the videos and deleting chunks, rather than doing anything worthy of video editing.
It's really not though. If you know how to edit media items, you know how to edit video. The video fx all come from the same plugin, so it's pretty much just like doing audio. Different presets are the different fx and they can be stacked. Transitions are just regular crossfades, etc.
I've never used another video editor tho, so by comparison maybe it's a PITA. For me, it just fit right into my workflow, but I also haven't done any video stuff with it that could even be called "intermediate."
I’m almost a perfectionist... I don’t want my playing / music to be artificially perfect but I do have a high bar set for myself.
So, I basically want to capture my ideas. Even in little bits and pieces. It shouldn’t be that difficult. But...
Well I'm definitely a perfectionist; never satisfied with anything I do except maybe while I'm doing it.
My advice for capturing ideas and mojo in the absence of other musicians is to just enjoy the process. Keep an open mind and follow where it leads. You might surprise yourself!
Often, to get a good groove between e.g. drums and bass, I will re-record each in turn, multiple times. It's not the same as real-time adaptation, but as I get each part more established and learn to play it better, there is a feedback loop that happens between the two that just isn't there if I simply record one and then the other.
To save time initially, I also just copy/paste sections to flesh out the arrangement and then record full takes after all the main parts are all in. That way you don't have to stress about quality when you start recording, because over time, you'll see what's good and what's not and you just redo the stuff that's not. Sometimes first takes can't be topped and that's cool too!
Ready to give yourself a deadline? Maybe just post a few sketches and folks can help you decide where to go with them or which are most promising? Up to you...
Well I'm definitely a perfectionist; never satisfied with anything I do except maybe while I'm doing it.
My advice for capturing ideas and mojo in the absence of other musicians is to just enjoy the process. Keep an open mind and follow where it leads. You might surprise yourself!
Often, to get a good groove between e.g. drums and bass, I will re-record each in turn, multiple times. It's not the same as real-time adaptation, but as I get each part more established and learn to play it better, there is a feedback loop that happens between the two that just isn't there if I simply record one and then the other.
To save time initially, I also just copy/paste sections to flesh out the arrangement and then record full takes after all the main parts are all in. That way you don't have to stress about quality when you start recording, because over time, you'll see what's good and what's not and you just redo the stuff that's not. Sometimes first takes can't be topped and that's cool too!
Ready to give yourself a deadline? Maybe just post a few sketches and folks can help you decide where to go with them or which are most promising? Up to you...
Thank you for your thoughts and advice! I will ponder a bit more (procrastinate?) and try to come up with a process that works for me and try not to dwell on what isn’t possible at this time...
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“Where words fail, music speaks”
BTW... I've started working my way through this thread and sampling the music as well.
Lots of talented members of P.A.I.N. (Procrastinators Anonymous International Network?)!
And who says procrastinators aren't productive?
What about P.A.I.N.T. (Procrastinators Anonymous International Network of Tomorrow)?
Or I.N.A.P. (International Network of Anonymous Procrastinators?
Or P.L.A.N.S. (Procrastinating Ladies And Nonladies Society)?
Oh wait, there was something I was supposed to be doing...
What about P.A.I.N.T. (Procrastinators Anonymous International Network of Tomorrow)?
Or I.N.A.P. (International Network of Anonymous Procrastinators?
Or P.L.A.N.S. (Procrastinating Ladies And Nonladies Society)?
Oh wait, there was something I was supposed to be doing...
Good stuff! You have a real talent for this. Productive indeed...
Quote:
Originally Posted by foxAsteria
P.A.I.N.T. (Procrastinators Anonymous International Network of Tomorrow)
A futurist / forward-looking association looking to make tomorrow a kinder / more inclusive place for each and every procrastinator. Subsequent generations of ‘PAINT’ members will have the opportunity to ‘look forward’ and help the next-gen of procrastinators who have yet to be born!
Quote:
Originally Posted by foxAsteria
I.N.A.P. (International Network of Anonymous Procrastinators)
This has potential!
Include with membership — iNAP. A hip / sleekly designed Apple App with many customization options to make the member feel truly at home.
*This is important work.
We should bump this to the top of our ‘TO DO’ list and start polling, focus groups and pie charts... We must have pie charts! B)
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“Where words fail, music speaks”
Don't get bogged down on any big projects and try to gain some momentum and confidence.
My new slogan(s): "It might not be much but it's better than nothing" / "Better late than never"
Gaining confidence with achievable goals is key. Big fails can destroy momentum.
Have you checked out the "Why do your recordings sound like ass" thread? Lots of great advice in there such as "finished is better than perfect." I must admit I'm still after perfection, but it's wise advice nonetheless...
Gaining confidence with achievable goals is key. Big fails can destroy momentum.
Have you checked out the "Why do your recordings sound like ass" thread? Lots of great advice in there such as "finished is better than perfect." I must admit I'm still after perfection, but it's wise advice nonetheless...
Thanks for all of your thoughtful advice!
I’ve been playing for a loooong time and recording for 20+ years!
I remember going into a studio with my band... Quickly setting up, mics placed and recording. It looked so simple and sounded so good! I thought to myself, I can do that! B)
Fast forward... It’s taken me many years to get a basic handle on recording, developing my ears and figuring out what I like, how I want to sound and how to get that sound.
Dealing with weak computers, buggy software, bad ears and plain old ignorance.
I finally realized that I’m not an engineer and simplified my approach and everything instantly improved.
Sound quality and mix issues ruined many songs in the past and was a key part of my procrastinating and getting bogged down in minutiae. But, thankfully that really hasn’t been a major stumbling block in the past few years.
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“Where words fail, music speaks”
Have you checked out the "Why do your recordings sound like ass" thread? Lots of great advice in there such as "finished is better than perfect." I must admit I'm still after perfection, but it's wise advice nonetheless...
Thanks for the recommendation! Looks like a grrrrrreat read...
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“Where words fail, music speaks”
I've just woke up, its 9.30pm. Missed nearly all of sunday.
I will jam later tho! Its going to happen.
Determined.
I got two proper acrylic hard cases for my little pocket operator drum machines and its actually made them into usable instruments, so a little jam using those needs to happen!
I've also this week got my first rack gear, a Lexicon effects unit, the MX200, which needs patching into the mixer. Things are getting serious round here!
I’ve been playing for a loooong time . It’s taken me many years to get a basic handle on recording,
Dealing with weak computers, buggy software, bad ears and plain old ignorance.
I finally realized that I’m not an engineer and simplified my approach and everything instantly improved.
Sound quality and mix issues ruined many songs in the past
find other people to help you overcome your weaknesses
music was ment to be a team sport
trying to do it all at once is a recipie for disaster
I finished two things I worked on, so that lefts me with about round 100 projects in progress.
Maybe it's time to complete that bit with dnb beat I started in 2008, or that 2010 one with gated strings that's 20 seconds long. Also congrats for MaxDembo, I see the gods of algorithm sent some lost souls towards you on youtube, heh.
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AM bient, rund funk and heavy meteo
my bandcamp+youtubings
I'm saying I got bored and went apeshit mental with drugs and sex and a chainsaw and got into search engine optimisation and bought some google ads bucks