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Plus one for DFAM!
Do what I did and get a second one. Why?
Complete self indulgence.
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Yeah definitely this video and this Guy !
the 4 bar loop described with solutions
Definitely a great video which describe well the main struggle and how to overcome it.
And the free ebook associated 
Practical Guide to Composition
My bigger issue with songs is trying to map them all out fully in the beginning on a time scale, it’s as if I need empty “building blocks” set up as a sketch before I populate anything!
Getting cool ideas that end up in what should be the “middle” of a track is where my struggles begin.
Endingwise- It’s vastly easier to add in a a deconstructed/glitched out or FX drenched, mic handling flaws, missed frets leaking-through raw ending to contrast the rest of a tightly coupled arrangement.
It’s the beginning that gets more difficult to visualize, even with “Insert Silence” at the start of my timeline, that can mess up expected timing, put meter changes or envelopes off… and I still feel constrained.
Anyone else have this problem?
What I likely need to do is figure out how long the track should be, create a looping area far further than I think I’ll need, and then slide the loop to the left as I populate sound and MIDI to start, that way I’m not needing to mess with envelopes or adding/subtracting anything.
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I don’t even want to mention how much gear I’ve bought since I last finished a track. including a new studio computer and audio interface. 
it hasn’t been as long as the OP. and I have finished tracks before. my process seems to be:
- finish a bunch of stuff in a relatively short period of time
- huge gap of time where I hate or am un-motivated by everything I do
- goto step one
I’ve been stuck on step two for about two years now.
I think I basically come up with a good idea/approach for writing and structuring tracks, and then eventually get bored or sick of it. I’m not entirely sure how to snap out of that… new gear? change DAWs or sequencers? take time away from my gear and do something else? sell everything and start fresh? 
What really helped me in recent times with this issue was to actually complete a task. In my case a friend of mine asked me if I know where to get some royalty free music for his interior design videos and I offered him some help. So I had someone waiting for a complete piece of music that had to be finished in a certain amount of time. This was an enormous boost to my motivation and lastly creativity. In the end I finished to “songs” within two weeks and it was a very satisfying feeling. So setting some goals is always a very good source of motivation.
I guess nobody wants to hear this but what I also noticed was, that getting away from the hardware as a main workstation and instead working in a DAW (using hardware as an additional tool when its needed) is much more effective when you really want to finish stuff.
Just my two cents
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A change of technical workflow is potentially inspiring when you’re already productive, it’ll add new roadblocks on top of the old ones!
What are your biggest frustrations when you’re in a rut?
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I hope you got compensated for your music, be it financially or in kind. Whenever the usage is going to be professional, it’s safer for the friendship to keep things on a professional level.
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Well tbh there was no money involved so I saw this as a challenge for myself and I’ve learned a lot writing those pieces. That was enough compensation for me… also the next two fancy diners are on him 
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BARS!
Oh. You opened a door here, dear.
If I look at my way of making music the way I consider my work, it’s… vertiginous!
I’ve just figured it’s time to apply my job experience to my music nonsensical way of wasting my efforts!
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Yea I think so, I recognise a lot of what you’re saying.
Bridges are hard, I normally only get them by accident, and rarely when working with hardware. There’s an art to creating contrasting changes that actually fit in a song whilst enhancing it - or maybe I just need to read up on more techniques.
Never struggle to end tracks - so many ways to handle it, and I can often confidently mix into other tracks too - but yea starting tracks can be tricky. When working with hardware I’ll often be creating a complete arrangement and then working out how to build up to it - sometimes it ends up being obvious but this can be a roadblock - especially when considering an audience that might have to endure 2 minutes of your build up before they get the payoff you designed - on a number of occasions I’ve messed that up, even with multiple recordings I sometimes listen back and realise the start ruins it - and it’s hard to correct that. I can often just stop a track dead on the beat and it works fine, but it’s rare that I can start a track that way.
This is complicated by the fact that if you’ve been listening to the track a lot then you have lots of expectation and baggage as a listerner that the real listener won’t have - they don’t know what’s coming. This is where I get into that situation of listening back to a track the next day and realising it’s terrible, even though it sounded fine when I was working on it.
It’s funny because this is like the opposite of @Pablo76 - I wonder if genre plays a part
My 2 tips.
- Organise a gig for yourself - that focusses the mind!
- Borrow an experienced partner, who can come and show you how to get your tracks over-the-line.
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Was wondering about that (genre) myself… Could be one reason. I mostly do minimalist house stuff around 120bpm.
To me it’s obvious by your description, that our workflows differ a lot. For example: I totally ignore song-structure and arrangement when writng stuff in the beginning. Most of the time I just fill a pattern with ideas and variations.
Only when I get to the point that I feel there is too much going on at the same time I start breaking things down into parts. Song mode makes this a pretty simple process for me now.
I use Audacity for recording those progressions in song-mode, and sometimes live tweak and improvise a little to practice performing. (Remeber you can always switch to pattern-looping in song-mode if you want to jam on a certain part for a bit longer.) No arrangement work in the daw at all.
I’ll just record another take when I am not happy with the parts changes, which gives me even more live-practice and is a lot of fun.
If I am stepping into too many traps/want too much/produce “errors” I’ll just sit on my hands during recording and let that song-mode arrangement play out on its own or try to automate stuff I tweaked live before.
There is a lot of reasons it sometimes becomes a struggle to finish a “song” for me. I was only mentioning one of them (creating a good ending), and how I deal with it in my first post.
Sometimes I find it hard to create a good bass-line for my chord progression, or I hate the mix, because I managed to muddy certain sonic spectrums by “overfilling” them, I could go on.
I also often feel that I could develop songs further forever and ever. Committing to a final state by recording it and calling it done is therefore hard because I never “get to show” what else I could have done with it. I sometimes revisit old stuff for this reason and make “updated versions”.
Fresh ears and listening without prejudice to my own stuff also becomes a problem (i.e. impossible) regularly when I work on something for too long. It helped in the past to bring in a friend (doesn’t have to be a musician) and show what I got so far. There is always some valuable feedback to get.
One thing I hear a lot then:
Changes come too quick, give the (first time) listener some time to grasp what’s going on, before moving on or drowning everything in modulation and fx. And I realize, that this is due to my impatience wanting to move along, because I already listened to the part a hundred times.
I took away that, one: A certain amount of repetition is good and necessary. In graphic design this is even an important principle: “Repetition works.” Has probably something to do with our brain always trying to find patterns… And giving the listener something stable to hold on to and tag along with.
Two: Keep it simple. Maybe I can discern all those layers because I created them, but the virgin listener is quickly overwhelmed if you do not give their brain some time to wrap around what’s happening. Having only 5 or 6 tracks running is oftentimes “better” than blasting a wall of sound with everything you got. But you can still work up to that, like a lot of rockbands do.
Recording what I got and listening to it somewhere else (outside the studio, in the car, at a friends place…) can also help to give me some kind of cleaner/clearer perspective on the wip-piece. Different stereo, different surrounding, mood, setting. No chance to make immediate changes also helps to let the impression settle.
Lastly: I melted my setup down to DT&ST and couldn’t be happier. Both run into a DJ-Mixer for some live shenanigans and the sum leaves through an OTO Boum for that “analog warmth and drive” which I configured as a limiter and never touched again.
Option paralysis was a real thing for me for a long time, and I found myself sound-designing for weeks without actually writing a single melody or beat. (Still have a Minitaur, MM2 and Streichfett I boxed for the moment, but also got rid of an OT, a Blackbox, a Neutron, a KP3, a Keystep, a Circuit Rythm and even a Peak.) Less is more.
Superlastly
Ask yourself/ I tell myself: What is the main idea/theme/riff I built this song on? Did I bring that across? If yes: Goal achieved (even if the execution sounds too simple for myself), stop meandering into side-branches and call it done, get some feedback.
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No we’re the same! At least when I work with hardware anyway, that’s my approach. Breaking it down to get a start I sometimes find challenging - I try to learn from the genres I’m working in - i.e. if I’m doing a progressive track I know I can warm up with a pad for a couple minutes. But otherwise I trip up a bit sometimes with how to bring everything in.
The number of times I’ve developed a track until it’s changed… into another track… multiple times.
The listening without prejudice thing I find easiest with 24 hours between listens, and listening to the track first thing in the morning, before you listen to anything else - its like a sensory attack, it will bring out all the weaknesses.
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I’m on the other path, started off with the subH and then got the “other mothers” - still an indulgence!
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Yup. I’m pairing up the SubH with the Syntakt right now!
The SubH is the most frustrating, yet rewarding synth I own.
Like, what can you do with this beat? its got a weird groove I love, but its like its own thing.
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@Fyzion
In the meantimen, maybe you’d like to participate here?
https://www.elektronauts.com/t/fragments-show-us-your-half-baked-stuff/
Your “confession” here kind of gave me the whole idea to create this thread, because I could relate strongly
Keep it as is and use it as an interlude maybe?
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Oh, cool idea.