Hyperproductivity, Undue hesitancy, A Middle Way?

The Lounge General Discussion
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Wind back 10 years or more and when it came to producing and recording tracks, I was churning them out, recording them and often uploading to Sound-cloud or otherwise. I was also playing live regularly. Something tells me there was a certain youthful (useful?) drive for showcasing what I was making, without being overly concerned about getting things “just right”.

Fast-forward to the last 5 years, and things seem rather different.
The music I actually record has reduced greatly, and my uploads even moreso (a handful each year). I still sit down to twiddle and produce regularly, but more often than not, I put together a few patterns, and if I haven’t finished them or recorded anything after a period of time, I end up deleting what I’ve done. Something akin to screwing up a sketch on paper and throwing it in the bin.

I could theorise about why this is, different drives, less time on my hands etc, but something tells me there could be a way to get more productive as far as recording things, which doesn’t mean trying to recapture a time of just churning things out in an undiscerning fashion, but also doesn’t mean being overly hesitant to hit record and offer something up to soundcloud a bit more often.

I’m curious as to how others may have experienced changing tides / flows in music production, and how you might have found different ways to push yourself to get stuff done.

I think part of my posting this is that I experience a sort of internal judgement that somehow recording something is better than pushing buttons, twiddling knobs and enjoying the process of creation. At the same time, I think there is a value to putting something out, so to speak, either through recording, uploading or performing live in some way. Perhaps relating to committing to something and leaving the comfort zone of private noodling.

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I was in a not dissimilar position recently. Hit a bit of a rut where I was either not producing much or was producing tracks that I wasn’t that bothered about.
Two things fixed it for me.
Firstly, I changed my workflow quite a bit, moving the focus away from making loops and more towards performance and improvisation. Learning to use instruments as instruments rather than seeing everything as part of a groovebox mindset.
Secondly, I reached out on the local classified ads and formed a band. This has helped me massively, as I’m now making music for someone other than myself in a style that is definitely out of my comfort zone.

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Yes, nice reminder about the joys of collaborating. I get together with music pals in my hometown once a year and the collective thing really brings out something immediate for me. I also did an improvised live show with a friend once and it was pretty thrilling.

I quite like the idea of recording improvised sessions (or just hitting record whenever I hit play on the boxes) and extracting juicy bits as tracks. Similar (I think) to what Autechre were doing around the Untilted/Quaristice era.

Something I did do, which went quite well, was set myself a challenge and recorded a mini-track a day for a month, generally only about 1 minute in length (a musical vignette). I uploaded the results daily, whatever my perception of the quality.

So perhaps, as you say, it’s about finding more creative ways to let the music shine, rather than treading well worn paths or trying to revive or relive old patterns of creativity that had their day.

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Sounds to me like you need more of an end goal to focus on, a project, an end result or chapter of some kind.

Your approach sounds like it lacks a bit of purpose.

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Depends on your goal. Ive been making music since about 1995, played in a few bands, made the odd record, played some cool shows. I got into electronic music seriously around 2009.
From 2012 to 2016 I did quite a few gigs, got some releases on labels, and had more lined up. However, the more I got into that scene, the more I disliked it. So I withdrew.

My workflow has changed completely, I no longer work in software. I no longer chase gigs and releases. I guess after a while I realised its the process I enjoy more than anything else, its the playing instruments bit I like, and creating something that excites me.
Although I do enjoy playing gigs, I dont seem to want to chase them anymore. Ive never been inundated with bookings anyway.

I would say my productivity (yuk, horrible term) has actually increased since i started pleasing my self, and not giving a rats about “will this get picked up? Will a crowd go for this?” Etc.

My flow goes up and down sure, but then thats to be expected, all elements of life change. I dont make a living out of making music, never will, and I dont care. So long as I’m enjoying it, I will keep doing it. Whether people listen or not.

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When I first got my live rig gear, I kept up a workflow that could produce a track in an hour or two. But, that also meant that I didn’t value a lot of the tracks until later. I would delete the premasters just out of frustration and haste. I lost a lot of stuff I want now!

Now I’m not necessarily slower at building a track, but now far slower at polishing it (mostly because of a more flexible sampling workflow and a far more complex/flexible drum machine). I don’t mind this - I’m getting far closer to the sounds and feelings I want.

Not doing shows recently (after a few years of a show every other month), has also really let me just enjoy the process again and not feel stress about getting it all done ASAP.

I feel like I just enjoy the slow pace. When I come accross a problem, I can actually dig into it and learn something instead of just deleting, watering it down, or making something easier.

Best of luck! :+1:

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yes indeed, committing to something (a project, or a challenge) has proven to be the most useful as far as producing end results in more recent times.

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Sounds cheesy, but I’d recommend to just go with the flow. There are times to take in and there are times to give out. I’ve never understood why so many people are concerned with workflow and productivity. In many cases, that just leads to heaps of mostly boring music. I have nothing against just jamming for the fun of it and not releasing anything. These jams are often the spark to some great ideas. But as we have only a very limited amount of time to create or listen to music (in a lifetime), what’s the point of uploading half-assed sketches or loops to soundcloud? I hope I don’t offend anyone, as I’m only speaking for myself. Nowadays, whenever I choose to put something out, it’s gotta be something special, with a lot of time and thought put into it.

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I definitely think its age, or wisdom, growth, acceptance, depending on how you look at it.

Youth is bound up in things like wanting to impress people, you’re still figuring out the world, and you’re a part of social scenes with humans that are full of energy. Not to say all old people have less energy (but they do, generally), but also the energy that exists in young people is amazing. Looking back on it now, I can see how active I was also, up late bouncing tracks etc.

I think there’s a certain social kind’ve imperative that you want to impress people when you are young, you must make it, you can make this your career, anything is possible, you can be whoever you want to be. Everyone is behind you, the grants, the shows, the support. Likewise it’s the melting pot of being involved in scenes and communities, it all feeds off each other. You’re also learning - everything is an adventure or new, so when you’re older, you kinda look at things with a different lens, as someone who’s ‘been there’, rather than someone who’s tasting it for the first time.

I’ve watched my entire youthful scene collapse or break apart over the years. It’s not anyones intention, but individuals naturally move on, develop other interests, start families or relocate etc.

Also, your expectations change over what you’ll accept as a comfortable life as you get older. You might have crashed on your hombre’s couches as you did your national tour when you were young, probably even on the floor at various points. Now you’re probably not willing to accept that. Likewise you have your health and finances to worry about.

It’s interesting to look back in life, and see the moments where you potentially had opportunities to break forward, to really give things a shot, and maybe where things waned, or various opportunities were missed. It’s hard not to feel you are on the fade out in life, but i think there are other ways of looking at things.

Just like the whole beginning of your life set you up for that phase, which was ultimately probably supported by your parents, your peers and school friends etc, I think there comes a point where you set up the conditions for the back half of your life.

I don’t know whether that involves doing shows, or releasing things, or saving for a slice of land where you can build a private studio, or perhaps its about saving a bunch of cash so you can go back on the road and tour, or travel.

Fact is, when you drop your new shit on your social media, your old friends probably dont care as much anymore. The days of nurturing you and supporting you and congratulating you for ‘killing it’ are probably over, the truth is your an adult now, and you must carve your own way. And this probably means being active in more adult scenes, rather than youthful ones, or at least being involved in scenes where elders are encouraged and involved as much as the kids. You always need to keep finding your people.

But again your approach may be determined, at least it is for me, on what I want to come back to. A part of me thinks about saving as much money as I can, to give it all another shot at having one of those burst creative periods. But then again, what is the end goal?

It’s a great time at the moment with lockdowns and all to reassess ones direction in life and what might be the real focus or purpose.

In the end, one perspective is that all an artist ever really does is present gifts, just make some gifts to share with the world, be they large or small, it’s all you can ever really do. Where it goes from there is anyones guess.

also i saw taxi driver again recently and this scene kinda spoke to me:

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I’ve wished upon a star that I could one day find a counterpart, not much unlike Pig and Dan, where one person churns out the clips and the other arranges. I always thought that would be perfect for me. I can churn out clips and loops quickly but when it comes to arrangement I just loose all interest and move on to a new project. I’ve been practicing discipline recently, and trying to be less spastic, but that first part of production is just so much fun. In addition, by the time it gets to arrangement, Ive become desensitized to the clips after listening g to them on repeat over and over and save the project and tell myself I’ll come back to it later with new ears. Well as it is, I’ve got 100s of projects started and a handfull actually completed. I think my perfectionalism tends to get in the way, and I kind of dread the whole arranging process.
I’ll have to try live jamming more and toss the perfectionalism to the side. If anyone knows someone who loves arranging and dreads the clip, loop creation, let me know. Alas I think most of us are all in the same boat.

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Well, you can become proactive, upload your bits and pieces to a sharing site and publish some collaboration requests on various boards (like here). You never know what may happen …

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I can relate to where you’re coming from. For me it was a matter of finding back to what it was that made me get into music in the first place. Slowly things seemed to drift to a place where I wasn’t connecting to the output in the same way, so I had to reconnect in a different pace.

Life gets busier, and I have more duties and fields of interest. I can’t stay up all night “for free” anymore, like in my twenties. Now I have to close the tab right away, and one stolen night equals one ruined day.
For me it came down to owning up to that I can’t cram as much into one day as I used to, and to learn to operate under these conditions. Production wise it became very important to me to get all the bits just right as well - making them mean something, for me that meant playing as much as possible live, getting connected to all the parts of the song and playing stretches so it all evolves more naturally and fluently.

I’m not producing as much as before, but I enjoy the process of carefully making music without self induced stress, and frankly I also think a lot of music doesn’t need to be released at all.

Music as a live event and momentary art somehow makes it more precious. The fact that it’s gone and never comes back the same way gives it more value.

On the other hand, you could try making dogmas. Say any song gets 2 sessions for instance. One for creating, one for refining. Then maybe one mixing session in the end. Could help you finish tracks. You will end up with a lot of songs, some good, some bad, but you won’t spend a lot of time trying to make a bad song sound good. And you’ll get a lot of experience.

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I saw someone post this graph on photography the other day that can be translated to a load of hobbies

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See at the bottom where it says “one exposure per motive”? That’s probably where you’re at. You know more and know that churning out a ton of content isn’t actually neccesarily productive. If you were making something revolutionary you’d certainly press record. You made the sketch analogy, great artists throw away millions and millions of sketches. Your work is surely consistently better than ever but now you’re more comfortable throwing something away which is probably miles better than what you made all those years ago. Don’t worry about it mate

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This is wonderful. The gearfaggotry stage really made me chuckle

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Much appreciated perspectives and sagely reflections.
There’s a certain coherence that emerges from a chance to hear it out from others in this way.

To be clear, it’s not so much that I firmly believe there’s something wrong, but I have noticed myself unhelpfully buying into that idea and I was curious if similar “dissonances” had arisen for others, what their perspectives were, and ways found to work through what sound like inevitable transitions in the creative life.

Thanks all for the considered responses thus far :+1:

Edit: I like the dogma idea. It would actually make for an interesting thread, to compile a bunch of dogmatic approaches, for people to pick up and run with (not specific to any machine).
I think this sort of used to happen on the old forum, but was related specifically to a machine i.e. make a track using only the MD snare etc

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Judging by the timelines you posted I have one bit of advice that actually comes from my creative writing course I did as a yoot. One of my lecturers was saying we need to be reading all the time. To quote: ‘You breathe in books and you breathe out writing’.

Same applies to music. I’ll bet my bottom dollar you listen to a lot less new music than when you were younger. So, get excited about new stuff again. Try new genres, see what’s up with them and why people are flocking to them. Or go through the back catalogues of the greats! Just listen, listen, listen. Ideas will come. You’ll want to try new things. You’ll get excited about producing again :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yeah, I try and do that now and again.
Get on Boomkat and see what’s down with da yoot and I might just try out something completely new, it’s nice to get caught out thinking I’ve heard it all before and then someone does something I completely don’t expect (this happened with Raime’s last E.P. I picked up)

I do buy lots of new music but it’s kind of nestled into similar ambient, experimental territory, with a bit of dub-techno thrown in now and then. Hard to keep up with totally new stuff (especially when you’re an old-fart who still insists on downloading music and resisting spotify!) but I agree it can be an inspiring thrill to even catch a glimmer of what’s happening on the cutting edge!

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I hear this. I’ve been mucking around with music for about 20 years and never really finished a song, barring a few very incomplete demos and quite a few songs from 2002-2010ish that only exist in guitar pro… I’m not hugely bothered by this.

A friend of mine once somewhat dismissively said “anyone can write loops/4 bar pattern” or something to that effect. It stuck with me for years because he is right, with a smidge of know how it’s really not that hard to make a loop that sounds good, musically if not the production. What he meant was that writing the whole song, let alone the final arrangement is hard.

Obvious of course, but the conclusion I’ve taken away from the comment is that as fun as short loops and patterns are to make, and as much as I can go back and thoroughly enjoy listening to ones I made years ago, basically no one consumes music in that way so ultimately no one gives a crap. If I write a pattern I’m completely immersed in its emotion and genre as though it is a part of something bigger and I’ll have images or scenes in my head that give it poignancy… but to anyone else, it might tick the genre boxes for something they like, but that’s it.

I was quite struck in recent years by how Brian Fallon (Gaslight Anthem) when doing solo shows really changes the way he performs his songs… the tempo and even the vocal melody and phrasing is often quite different. To me, that says the song exists completely independently of its recording, and to me that’s why I can never turn a loop into a song. There’s no story in a loop, just a glimpse of what a story might feel like. Whereas a song can sound, feel and be felt in many different ways and its core is still there.

The best thing helping me break out of the box lately is using a portable recorder like a tape multitrack. It really reinforces a ‘fix it later’ mentallity. I still approach it like starting with a blank pattern in Maschine but there’s something about sequencing a bass line over 2 minutes of the same drum pattern that makes me write in more variation at the beginning. I didn’t notice or think about it at the time but one I did the other day I tweaked filter and eq on the drum pattern when I was recording it, which then led me to play the chord pattern and leads completely differently in those sections to match the feel. The other thing I did was miscount the number of empty bars before recording started (because of recording click precount vs jamming over playback) which meant this silly little synth twiddle supposed to be hidden in the mix is now starkly on its own, defines the mood of the track and I actually love it and would never have thought to do it deliberately.

I’m rambling on about this because each of these things have given me arrangement ideas to try out in a more deliberate way the next time round, and that I never would have stumbled on within the confines of a looping pattern and the process of duplicating patterns to create automation variations etc.

Or, if nothing else I’m now building a collection of 2-4 minute jams instead of 15-30 sec loops for what’s essentially the same amount of time and effort… Haha… :roll_eyes: …

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That’s interesting you say this about arrangement and composition as opposed to loops. Much of the material I recorded relatively recently came out of the OP-1 (with the parts laid down in real-time) or else from my Octatrack, where I had arranged different tracks across 4 or 5 patterns in something of a start / middle / end fashion.

Having said that, when I listen to (imo) quality loop-heavy material, say folks like Rod Modell, Sleeparchive or Basic Channel, I’m always bowled over by the artist’s ability to do what sounds like very little in such an engaging way. These tracks draw me in and spit me out, the product of some sonic wizardry, doing a lot with a little. Then I try my hand at it and I unavoidably fashion another musical story with a beginning, middle and end. :smile:

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I guess this would be obvious to others, but this insight really struck me. I often battle with the same thing.

I think it also depends very much on the style of music. Some genres are all about repetition with slow variations in timbre etc. I doubt it could be said of a lot of techno, for instance, that the song exists independently of the recording. But as much as I can enjoy techno, for my own music I feel like you; that a loop is not a song.

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