I'm about too....

M

modern

Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
Cry.

This is what I've come too. That's an exaggeration, but; I started on a new track and the drop was nice, I'd never made anything like it before, but fuck I'm struggling with an intro. I had one and it started sounding nice, but it just didn't flow or build up with enough tension or energy. Sum srs writers block if na mean.

What do you normally do to relieve yourself from this? Where do you find your happy place to really break through these moments? o_O

Edit: Liquid drum and bass is supposed to be chill, but it can be stressful to make lol
 
modern said:
Cry.

This is what I've come too. That's an exaggeration, but; I started on a new track and the drop was nice, I'd never made anything like it before, but fuck I'm struggling with an intro. I had one and it started sounding nice, but it just didn't flow or build up with enough tension or energy. Sum srs writers block if na mean.

What do you normally do to relieve yourself from this? Where do you find your happy place to really break through these moments? o_O

Edit: Liquid drum and bass is supposed to be chill, but it can be stressful to make lol
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Firstly, I know exactly how you feel. I sometimes find that I have an intro and a main section that sound really good on their own but not together. I normally split them to make 2 different tunes. Unfortunately, the only advice I can give you is to keep trying different things. Tweak notes and play arund with fills until you find that things mesh together in the right way. Taking a break and coming back to it sometimes helps but ultimately, there's no substitute for working on it.

Secondly, I think you meant "to" not "too".
 
smoke a fat zoot? Tends to help with me, failing that hum in your head how you want it to sound, and try to recreate that
 
^^^ that.

or just bounce everything down and play with the audio. stretch everything and pitch it back to normal so you got a nice long pad. reverse piano hits so you got risers etc...
 
can you make an outro? if so just reverse that. mash it up a bit.
i sometimes find it easier to make an ending than a beginning. so you can make a beginning from an ending. if u c what i mean
 
dont rush a track. if your not getting any ideas now go back to it in a few days,weeks,months. there is no rush...................
 
ok so first thing i would suggest is may be put a splashy snare behind that dominant one. to give it a nice slap. that piano u have on the drop. may be tease a few notes on the intro aswell
 
it may help you to think of the intro as a little summary of what is going to happen after the drop

in other words, someone listening to the intro should have a pretty good idea of what its going to sound like when it drops (that could be in regards to rhythm or a melody etc. obv leave some surprises)

and writing intros is a skill in and of itself. find a good tune similar to the one you're making with a good intro and fucking study that shit, break down where the individual elements get introduced, where things get mixed in/out etc

lots of detail and it will come together.

edit: also something i like to do is to have a rhythm (4/4 is fine) start at the very beginning (usually just hats going tik tik tik tik). the reason being is that it gives the listener an idea of the tempo. the same reason why films usually start with a shot of the location of the first scene - lets the viewer know wassup
 
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modern said:
Cry.

This is what I've come too. That's an exaggeration, but; I started on a new track and the drop was nice, I'd never made anything like it before, but fuck I'm struggling with an intro. I had one and it started sounding nice, but it just didn't flow or build up with enough tension or energy. Sum srs writers block if na mean.

What do you normally do to relieve yourself from this? Where do you find your happy place to really break through these moments? o_O

Edit: Liquid drum and bass is supposed to be chill, but it can be stressful to make lol
Click to expand...

I feel your pain Modern, def. I can't count how many times I've fleshed out a nice sounding track, and then I begin to get frustrated with it and everything begins to sound forced.

I find that just walking away from the tune for a bit helps. What I mean by that is not working on it and not listening to it at all, let your ears take a nice vacation from it. Try starting another tune, and if you start to get frustrated again, take a break from your DAW and check out some tutorials or some back issues of Computer Music–either for inspiration or knowledge gaining.

Cheers man. Hope this helps a bit.
 
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take a break find the idea in another genre / inspiration elsewhere etc.
 
lostnthesound said:
I feel your pain Modern, def. I can't count how many times I've fleshed out a nice sounding track, and then I begin to get frustrated with it and everything begins to sound forced.

I find that just walking away from the tune for a bit helps. What I mean by that is not working on it and not listening to it at all, let your ears take a nice vacation from it. Try starting another tune, and if you start to get frustrated again, take a break from your DAW and check out some tutorials or some back issues of Computer Music–either for inspiration or knowledge gaining.

Cheers man. Hope this helps a bit.
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But be careful not to have 20 unfinished tunes because you keep doing this. I am guilty of this behaviour so I stopped starting other tunes when I get stuck on a particular one.
 
Don't be careful, the more projects you have the better, always come back to them and see what they need, when you develop you get more experience and sounds, try coming back to old projects and give them some of your new stuff, get inspired by your old compositions, that's my advice.

Now that we can all cry here, I can complain about my obsession. I have become very picky about my stuff as well as music I listen. Seems like it takes years before any of my tunes will be 'finished'. That's why I suck at giving feedback recently, everything sounds like shit and underproduced.
 
Elzerk said:
Don't be careful, the more projects you have the better, always come back to them and see what they need, when you develop you get more experience and sounds, try coming back to old projects and give them some of your new stuff, get inspired by your old compositions, that's my advice.
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yeah i agree with this as well. you always hear about producers returning to (and subsequently releasing) tracks they started years before...

as an example Logistics once said he only finishes a fraction of the tunes he starts

save everything
 
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