Keeping focus

I guess its over time and experience that you see a vision and literally get it layed down musically without any clashing ideas and with slightly more ease than a beginner in production.

I have so many ideas in my head but im holding back because obviously putting all that down would make a big mess. Ive just been telling myself 'use your ears' . It seems to be working, ive taken out bits that dont work etc etc
I guess getting ppl to constructively analyse your work helps you improve.

How do you peeps keep a good focus of what you want to achieve and not end up with a blur of ideas.

try keeping it minimal, often less is more..
asa an excercise try making some tracks with only say 8 sounds so you learn to keep it concise and to the point

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Originally Posted by Jimfish

try keeping it minimal, often less is more..
asa an excercise try making some tracks with only say 8 sounds so you learn to keep it concise and to the point

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Good advice mate. Its always better to have fewer sounds creating an overall full sound, then lots of different elements contributing to it. This way you will find that you will get better "hooks" from your sounds, and stop the mix sounding cluttered.

interesting sounds and attention to detail should be your watch words. Thoughtful NOT full... :)

Well ive heard people say 'you compose with an eraser'

Il remember that. Thanks peeps

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Originally Posted by Jimfish

try keeping it minimal, often less is more..
asa an excercise try making some tracks with only say 8 sounds so you learn to keep it concise and to the point

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my thoughts exactly jim

"achieving maximum effect, with minimum ingrediants"

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Originally Posted by miss bass

Well ive heard people say 'you compose with an eraser'

Il remember that. Thanks peeps

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That reminds me the way Richie Hawtin does his productions.
In the beginning he throws in a lot of tracks. And after that he just erases the bad ones and bits, and the result will be a minimal representation.


;)

At the end of the day, when you got all the right gear, know how to do every stage of production....

.....there is still one thing that remains ellusive. FOCUS.

I have all sorts of fun with this one. Just recently I was going out of my head trying to stay focussed on just one idea!! arrrgghhhh!! My g/f was going to strangle me if i didn't get my head straight. hehehehe

So I worked out a way now that helps me.

I just find one sample or type of sound (ie: synth or percussion) that catches my ear. Then I build a track around it to show-case it as such.

It pays to have your own library of really cool loops and samples too. (the concept of having a sound you could listen to for hours on its own). When I am not in the mood for writing a full track or even when i wanna break from this head-space, I just sit down and make loops or samples and dump them in my library. This can be done with some friends around get drunk and have a laugh really :)
I did this recently with my drummer. we sat there most of a rainy day, smokin and drinkin, and cut up some recordings of him drumming into samples that i will use use later. Ended up being a very big day in the office ;)

I also use hardware as my primary source of sounds, so I can make loops and samples and keep them later for insertion into a track.

Then i focus on listening for a sound that really catches me at that time. Go hunting for a type of sound you really like or a feeling you wanna convey.

EG: recently i came across a really cool sound that was a real freaky analoge squelch. So I put that into the PC sequencer and started playing with it.

Several hours later I had passsed it into the sampler and found some percussion from my drum-machine that suited it and then found some synth lines that complemented it......BAM!! Done.

All the while just focussing on showcasing that one sound somehow that was complimentary.

hope that helps?

Focus.
My brain is constantly under a barage of ideas, some work, some don`t.
I tend to try all of them, make a lot of sketches, and pick the best ones, and go back and focus on them.
There is no method, sometimes minimal works, sometimes huge layers of sound can work.
I can`t really think of any advice in terms of focus, as we are all so different.
Believe in yourself, and suck up knowledge like a sponge.
That`s all I can say.

Focus is the one thing I seem not to have a problem with. I'll have an idea, and sit down, work it until I have what I heard in my head, or better.

Lack of money, that's my problem.

aarrrghhh!!....don't get me started on the money thing. puts me off my game more often than i like.

but i have come to realise that doesn't matter about what you dont got - as long as you are using what you have got the best you can, for now, until such time as you come across some more gear etc.

when you do get better gear you'll at least be able to put it to work straight away. and watch the big difference then!!

I hear that. Doing some great stuff at the moment with what I have, would just be nice to have some of those tools to make the job easier and the result better.

All in time I guess.

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Originally Posted by Craig McW

I hear that. Doing some great stuff at the moment with what I have, would just be nice to have some of those tools to make the job easier and the result better.

All in time I guess.

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like a Urei 1176LN perhaps ;)

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Originally Posted by miss bass

How do you peeps keep a good focus of what you want to achieve and not end up with a blur of ideas.

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Have no idea of what you want to achieve. You can't fail then!

You've just gotta learn to listen critically and even if a parts bloody brilliant you've got to make a decision as to whether it's really helping the track...

Definitely with Jimfish, don't just keep adding things, that's fatal!

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Originally Posted by sash

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Originally Posted by Craig McW

I hear that. Doing some great stuff at the moment with what I have, would just be nice to have some of those tools to make the job easier and the result better.

All in time I guess.

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like a Urei 1176LN perhaps ;)

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I so want one, even better maybe the 1178 or whatever the stereo one is ... but mostly a lot of kit just means you can do the job faster rather than better ... maybe except reverbs ... but then sometimes cheap reverbs sound cool.

When I started out I was full of ideas but had no kit to get it all down, make the sounds I wanted, no knowledge of computers, etc.

Now I have all the toys and no inspiration :shock:

Basically I'd suggest you bang all your ideas down as quickly as you have them. You can then seperate them out into seperate projects/tracks as required.

When I'm writing a track I tend to work on it a bit at a time (bassline, etc.) usually sat in a 1, 2, 4 or 8 bar loop. When I get a bit I'm happy with I copy it across out of the looping area then mess with it some more and make more variations on it.

Keeping focus is one of my biggest problems.
trying to keep ideas separate is so hard the method I have is to work on 3 or 4 ideas at a time but this is probably a bad idea cause i never seem to get anything finished.
The way an idea proggresses and changes as you go is all part of the creative process and is somthing that seems to happen in all forms of art you start with one idea or mood and the longer you spend on it the more you want it to evolve in to somthing new(a bit like a set would if you like)

But I allways seem to loose the original idea/mood I was trying to get accross and end up with somthing compleatly different :rambo:

Its all part of the fun I guess.
Its good to know im not the onely one who has this problem or maybe its not realy a problem and realy its a blessing.