Is it me or do some people like to work out of one sample pack? I have tons of packs going back a long time. I do Splice and Loopmasters too. But for whatever reason I like to just stay in one pack.
I’m not trying to work out of Raw Loops, Toolroom, and Waveform…just one pack. Maybe I’m getting old 
I make house and techno and the Raw Loops stuff is just amazing imo.
We all need that!
I’ve been tracing songs and making “ghost” tracks. Its been mentioned on here by a bunch of Elektronauts…
Just drag a song you want to emulate, and drag into your daw, then set up the same tempo. Then make markers where you break down the song parts, and recreate the same parts but with your own music.
Keep the original track to make the same parts as close as you want, or erase the track, and just go off the info in the markers. Erasing the track and making music with the same arragement is the “ghost” part of it.
Here is one I did for an Alison Wonderland track…
I like to keep things as simple and easy to manage as possible. Fortunately the kinds of music that I want to make have a simple formula or drum loop, bass line and lead pad.
This! 
I do. I like to take them out of context and crash them into a totally different genre.
great idea! I need to do that with my favorite darkwave and synthwave songs. So far I get very close on my own and really just tweaking stuff like how much reverb to use and filter cutoff. After working on hardware and learning Ableton, creating tracks in DAW only is way faster process for me but hardware more fun and creative. I like to think of the Virus TI2 synth as modular and semi DAW in a box that needs internal patching.
I go back and forth. Im starting to not constrain myself to one method.
Sometimes I work off of one pack, but sometimes those sounds have too similar coloration from how they were mastered. They sound to same-y.
Other times, I purposefully pull from a bunch of different packs to try to mash up a genre… and I’ll get good results, but also risk decision fatiigue.
I just serve the track to which method I go with.
I try to be like Bruce Lee… and be like watah.
Maybe the OP is acknowledging the “Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration” idea.
On the other hand, we’ve all heard the quote: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting different results.
I am guessing that the process of music-making leads the OP to the conclusion that all their ideas are “trash”. They can keep working, but without a change to the process, the outcome is almost certainly going to be the same.
Instead of worrying about whether our muse is going to come, maybe we should instead question our own free-will, question our ability to break free of the habits that lead us to the same musical conclusions.
This is going to sound harsh, but I really question the notion that the “sum of the parts” of a bunch of very cool samples necessarily equals something cool. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me many Elektronauts are “betting the bank”, artistically speaking on this notion.
that happened to me when I began reading the Wheel of Time novels. I finished the first six books before getting too busy to finish the last eight books. Definitely better than the Amazon tv series version.
I have a technique when Im working that i pulled from when I paint or do art in general… I’ll work on it, until I feel that if I done anything else to it, it will do nothing, or ruin it. Sometimes, I keep tweaking, and I am doing nothing, so I catch myself, and just walk away.
It may feel like more needs to be done, but maybe i am the only one who notices… and if other people still think its unfinished, I know there is always the next track.
Definitely not. Cool samples put together do not always sound good. and it depends on the samples… I use loops and oneshots… they can be played chromatically on a keyboard, so its not like Im taking parts of a construction kit to make a song, which I also do.
And great art can be made from trash… I think an art group called Fluxus did stuff like that.
Great dialog, though!
edit:
I like to add, Im on Maschine, so you use the controller to operate soft synths… like Diva… So alot of my compositions that I make that are sample based are also mixed with synths and drum sequences.
I don’t believe there is any distinction on how to generate music. It is all the same to me… playing live jazz, or smashing loops together… this is all still a small percentage of ability that the general population of earth even tries to tackle, and all have its own merit.
It doesn’t happen every time, but I think some of my best ideas have come from days where I’m not feeling it, but I just force myself to continue anyways and then stumble across something I love after fucking around for hours
“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.”
*I cite this excellent and insightful quote as a total not-hard-working amateur myself
A real pro. 
Since that interview got published, 7 days ago, he has probably released 7 more albums, or 56 more tracks.
In the same amount of time I’ve replied to a few threads here and turned on my mixer and Digitakt twice.
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” - Picasso
I also think it’s important to recognize when you’re not inspired or creative and decide to spend the day on chores like project management. Or just going through presets on a synth that got dusty and see if it sounds different than you remember.
I can also relate to the work quote. I was lucky to have three days of music making this year. I’ve spent it jamming for hours with no particularly interesting results but having fun. In between sessions, I’ve watched “Get Back”. On the final day, I’ve decided to work on one of the jam ideas. It only took me an hour to get something out of it I really liked. I then just called it a day and went biking.
That one hour was more productive than two days before it, but they’ve led to this. I’ve recognized the same with my duo. We used to hang out in a dark room for a whole day till we got to the good ideas. Last time, we only had one to two hour jams, but they were all so full of ideas that we decided we’re done with music making for a few hours, as it will only get worse.
check out this thread, I’m going through it and it’s inspiring
Here is what i spent the day on!
I get days, weeks and months like this. I’ve found the best way around is to learn a new technique or bit of gear. Then something will normally come out of what you’re learning. 
