Hey everyone,
a challenge I often face is the overwhelming number of choices when making electronic music. I know many people set artificial constraints or deadlines to help, but even with those in place, it can still be tough to decide what direction to take. Listening to a track too many times can change your perception. You might end up making what feels natural to you, but it might not be what you actually want to listen to.
How do you all deal with this?
The simplest ways for me to eliminate choice paralysis:
I think of my synths in the format of a traditional rock band. I want drums, bass, chords/ keys, lead at minimum. I turn on enough devices to fill these roles. I generally use the same instruments for similar parts, so I kind of default to a couple specific setups. I do deviate from this, but it helps keep things somewhat standardized. Even when I deviate from this substantially, it still gives me a good foundation to build off of.
I have a couple of very specific stylistic/ genre-based musical goals. This further limits the possibility space (kind of) and plays into point one.
The one nobody likes: discipline. It takes a lot of practice and effort not to let my ideas expand in scope or to resist the urge to layer in everything I own.
In the DAW, set up templates. The tracks in Mine are labeled by what instrument is usually in that input, but you could also label the tracks by what part is being filled. I put my default effect chains on each of those tracks and have EQ and such set up in the template as well. This is especially helpful if you work with a lot of VSTs, as you can just get going without having to faff about, which should in theory both reduce choice paralysis and distractions.
Facing a difficult decision â branch your work. ( Just save a complete version. )
It works in software development, just as well.
Version Control ???
As with most creative work sometimes itâs best to just do it, make decisions, record and arrange things. Listen back to it and make notes of what you like and would you want to change. Oftentimes, youâll quickly notice youâve actually already got more than enough and just need to commit. The longer you think about whatâs still missing and find ways for problems that might not even exist, the harder it seems to ever start and finish the track/EP/album.
Also: try to be disciplined and keep doing stuff. But also be attentive to what mood youâre in. Sometimes you might be tired from work or stress and sitting down to make music will only frustrate you because you wonât be productive or creative. Time to do something else. Also try to know whether youâre in jam, production or sound design mode before you start. Helps to have realistic expectations and get things done.
Sometimes if you notice youâre not creative or productive, there might still be some busy work to do that will help you next time (like organizing samples or patterns, backing up stuff etc). Sometimes itâs also good to just donât make music at all, if you feel like youâre destroying the fun you should have in whatâs supposedly a hobby.
not a hard and fast rule by any means but getting back into production with vastly more sonic options than i had with my minimal setup 30 years ago and i tend to still think âless is more.â the track that feels like its not quite working (usually) is the one iâm trying to stuff the most ideas into, even if theyâre generally complementary to the other ideas. you can always add more back in later if itâs feeling too stripped down
I grew up in the 90s making beats on a POS rig with 2 synths and one drum machine. so have kind of grown up having much more limited options than today. I dont really experience âchoice paralysisâ as such.
If you feel overwhelmed, stick to a minimal setup and keep using it for a month. After the month is up, switch it up if you feel like it, but then stick to it for at least another month.
If you are ITB, stick to using only 8 tracks for a while. Once that starts to feel comfy, go down to using only 4 tracks.
learn how to make a choice and commit to it. If you have to drag yourself around and scold yourself loudly to do so, do it. I do it all the time, I say loudly, âthis is how itâll be and I am going to see it throughâ. It works by a large percentage.
As mentioned above, discipline is the key word.
I would also add that it is possible to learn to have a vision of something. That helps to make commitments because there is a clear-ish goal to aim for. If one can jam and tweak less, and sit back and actually make, or just simply think of a composition, that gives a goal to aim for.
Like, if you can pick a vacation destination based on cool things you look forward to see and experience, then the choice is easy to make, otherwise you will continue to look at spots indefinitely, and never go travel.
My strategy is to just do the thing.
Music is just an hobby for me, so I donât feel pressure doing it, nor I sit there with a specific goal in mind most of the times. But having experienced a similar behavior on work related stuff (video editing) taught me that just keep doing it is the most productive way to keep stuff going.
When I start a new edit from scratch I always feel overwhelmed about the almost endless possibilities to put all together, and if I sit there watching all the footage and thinking about the way to cut it Iâll never start. So instead I just start putting things in the timeline following my âin the momentâ feeling about it. Sometimes it all freely come together, other times I put everything in the trash and start over, but that all helps to have a clearer vision as you go forward.
Another thing thatâs a must for me is to just let it sit for a while. Both editing and making music can often lead to be too much into it, adjusting minute things and details or trying to make a single thing fit in a specific place, losing vision of the bigger picture, and that may result in a lot of resistance sometimes. When I sense to be fighting it, I take a break, and come back at it with a fresh mindset, and usually the point of friction reveal itself quite instantly.
Another major block for me is that I need to sift through everything I have. That is a real problem for me also on more mundane tasks: I could end up spending a ridiculous amount of time on Amazon evaluating between 30 different power strips, or choosing a lettuce at supermarket, and as well on sifting through presets on a synth or between a bunch of nearly identical clips/photos. Thatâs because I always need to be sure thatâs the âbest of the bestâ but in reality no one cares, because more often than not itâs only me seeing all those minuscule differences, so I always try to pick the first thing that seems to fit and move over.
Tl:dr
-donât overthink: grab a thing you feel itâs nice and start from that.
-keep going forward, add stuff and see if it fits or take a step back, erase it and try another one. Then Repeat
-when frustration arise or you feel that things are becoming too busy, take a break, do something else and come back to it later.
-keep in mind you donât need to evaluate everything you have at disposal, just use what you came across if you feel that is right and eventually refine/swap it later
something @ciaba said reminded me of this video from distilled noise. My breakdown:
Now weâre supposed to make choices?!??
Do you recall Potato or stick?
Make two songs from one when you come to a fork in the road.
Take a break and listen again to see which you prefer.
I do, and that was that big choice most of us had to make!
We all have hard decisions in our life but Iâm sticking with potato!
Ahh, the âfractalâ approach to songwriting. I love it
electronic music production implies overthinking and overproducing â but i grew up on rock music and still think like that.
if a track is good enough for performing it live â i consider it sort of finished.
once i can perform it, i can record it with good old take-at-once approach, and then i can import multitrack recording to a DAW for final mixing/mastering jobs.
thatâs enough, done is better than perfect.
