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how many hours do you typically spend on a track?
do you give yourself a time budget and stick to it, or do you just take as long as it takes?
i usually bang out the main ideas in the first day or two, then spend a week to a month finishing a track up.
there should be no set times on a track, It infringes on the quality control, unless you just toss loops together hoping they fit.
part three of the question: do you finish everything you start, or do you start a lot of tracks, and only finish a few?
I personally have a couple (2, maybe 3) on the burner and then take forever finnishing them all. From my personal experience I'd find it easier if I finnished each track on a one by one basis, no more of the old "I got a wicked idea for a track, but I gotta finnish the other ones which I'm pretty bored of by now and am only working on them for the sake of finnishing them". i dunno, maybe its me but the magic of a track gets lost after a while coz if I leave a track too long I go back n change it to much coz I've forgotton what sounds gave me that buzz earlier.Quote:
part three of the question: do you finish everything you start, or do you start a lot of tracks, and only finish a few
But then thats discipline for you I suppose :neutral:
Back to Q1&2, like you said Mr. G, I just take as long as it takes (usally about a couple of weeks) but I suppose I'll get quicker the more I get used to bleating out tracks
Hmm. I'd say I spend about 20-30 minutes each on my tracks. I just pirate sample CD's off of the internet and use Acid Pro to jam them all together until they work. Sure, they all sound the same, but since I sell every track for a lot, and am totally rolling in cash as a result, it doesn't really matter to me if they sound plastic and trite... ;)
heh. on the raaaaaare occasions that I actually "finish" a "track", it takes me somewhere in the range of 40-80 hours. I'm working on getting that down to less time, but I just keep getting these live-pa gigs, and sink all my time into making tracks as "live performance ready". OTOH, I'm now on my fifth or sixth complete rewrite of my hour-long live set, and finally have some music that I think is worthy of putting on vinyl, so we'll see...
anything from 3 hours to 3 weeks!
hey thats what i was gonna say mark :eh:
hehehehe and don't those 3 week ones just DO YOUR BLOODY HEAD IN!!!?!!?!
ever find yourself walking down the street, and realize that the song playing in your head is one you've been working on, but it's an old version that you've changed a bunch since?
sometimes my tracks go weeks going unfinished, i have a bad habit of starting new tracks all the time, but i always go back and work on them
yes, exactly :!:Quote:
Originally Posted by MARK EG
Here's a nice little routine which I use to build tracks:
(Build time - 1 day to 2 years)
1. Have a cool idea kicking around in your head
2. Fire up your sequencer
3. Mess about for about 30 mins playing with melodies
4. Go off on a completley different tangentr for about 4 hours
5. Realise you have achieved absolutley jack and have completley lost trail of the original task at hand.
6. Wonder aimlessly about the house/flat/local area wondering why you ever started this 'bloody production thing' to start with.
7. Make coffee
8. Have another crack
9. Coffee cold. Reboil kettle.
10. Repeat steps 2 to 9 to suite taste
11. At the most inapropriate time Boom! wicked idea! Remember the melody... remember the melody... sod it, its gone
12. At around 4.a.m, something strange will happen. While going through the motions with your sequencer in a mindless stupour, you will snap out of it to realise you have created something quite remarkable.
13. Got to sleep. Lie in bed for a further 2 hours with the progress of your tune looping on and on...
14. Wake up fresh. Finish tune.
15. About 2 weeks later, load up tune. Change a few bits and bobs. Repeat steps 4 and 5. If the tune has changed beyind recognition in a bad way, repeat steps 2 to 14. Do not attempt 15 at this stage.
Now I no what your thinking, but please, this is a highly refined process which is constantly being improved :lol: Any suggestions feel free to drop me a line.
Now If only I could just skip to step 12 :doh:
brilliant! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by John Ferraris
Oh yes, i have been doing the track im working on for a monthQuote:
Originally Posted by MARK EG
Time from start to finish is often about 6 months unless there's some kind of deadline (yuck) ... but that's probably only about 2-3 weeks work in total. And half of that time is probably change things to experiment then changing it back again to how it was before trying something else.
absolutely classic :lol: PMSLQuote:
Originally Posted by John Ferraris
can i add a step 13.5 after you realise you've created something remarkable and been to sleep?
wake up and realise it's a complete load of shite. Go back to step 2.
hehehe :lol: ;)
Good to see we're refining the process :lol:Quote:
can i add a step 13.5 after you realise you've created something remarkable and been to sleep?
wake up and realise it's a complete load of shite. Go back to step 2.
You could probably fit a 14.5: Wake up. Play melody. Feel a sense of well being and self worth. Mate comes round, "Hey, that sounds just like..." :twisted:
*laughs* yeah, funny thing don't know about you but for me it seems to totally define how i perceve my worth in the world ... do a good track and i'm happy and content and go around smiling for a couple of days, work on a difficult one for a week and i'm depressed. and then a week later, ten minutes extra work on the depressing one and i'm happy again. god help me when i hear them in clubs though, i always find a good thing to critisise in them...
Spot on mate ;)Quote:
yeah, funny thing don't know about you but for me it seems to totally define how i perceve my worth in the world ... do a good track and i'm happy and content and go around smiling for a couple of days, work on a difficult one for a week and i'm depressed. and then a week later, ten minutes extra work on the depressing one and i'm happy again.
we know our sh*t (literally) lol! ;)
Z
Quote:
Originally Posted by MARK EG
yeah, sometimes everything just works an you can make a tune in a night, however sometimes you can spend days looking for that right sound, which can do your head in!
Most things i do fall by the wayside if i havent got the bulk of it down sharpish, this may be due to short attention span.
If a tune has been saved on my computer for more than 5 days, it aint gonna get finished, especially as the rate at which you learn things about production is so fast.