Not making the music I intend to make

[sleepside]

“You have 20 years to write your first album and you have six months to write your second one.” –Elvis Costello. Not to mention the Difficult Third Album

[onthebannedwagon]

The Software Slump is my favorite sophomore album name.

[error.eyes]

I would be thrilled to have this “problem”. To me it would make my day to start by mimicking or copying someone else’s style, and end up with something entirely “unique” and personal. That would be so extremely rewarding. I would be more proud to say, “I made a me style track”, than, “I made an [insert-artist-here] track”. I would invest time and effort to further grow and nurture that.

[graverubber]

@bangonadigi

weird, experimental, glitchy, garbling piece of music

I like that stuff.

[Microtribe]

Practice practice practice.
This is the way.

[sheathe]

You start out trying and failing to make a certain vague concept of music in your head. Stick with it for several years and you will have your own style, as long as you keep chasing the ideas in your head and not just imitating for the sake of getting popular.

[plragde]

@sleepside

"You have 20 years to write your first album and you have six months to write your second one.” –Elvis Costello. Not to mention the Difficult Third Album

Bad example – Costello’s second and third were light-years past his first (the former on my list of Great Sophomore Albums). Now, the fourth…!

[SKull]

@bangonadigi

I sit down at the Digitakt with an idea in my head for a straight ahead Robert Hood style techno banger or a simple hip hop breakbeat loop.

2 hours later I have this weird, experimental, glitchy, garbling piece of music…parts of which sound cool and I’m happy with, but I have no idea what to do with or if I even want to take it any further.

Then I do it all again and have another completely weird, slightly danceable pattern that sounds nothing like the first one, almost in a completely different style.

I’ve been making sounds for over a decade now. And I’m afraid I haven’t gotten any further.
Except that my style is consistent.
But I haven’t finished a single track.

But I did learn to enjoy to just jam for a few hours at a time, and to be happy with that.

Not everyone is cut out to be a real musician. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

[HotdogLothario]

@comradecry

with music it took me 10+ years to finally start creating something thats close to what i want.

This is comforting, as I’m about 5 years in and sometimes wonder if I’ll ever get close to where I want to be as a music producer.

[deadfly]

IMO you should embrace this. There are already a million Robert Hood style techno bangers, but only one of whatever it was that you just did.

You do get better with experience at making the music that you intended, but I think it’s more important to just be yourself

[sleepside]

@plragde

Bad example – Costello’s second and third were light-years past his first

You’re not wrong, but I picked him because he’s the only one for which I could find any reliable attribution for that quote (or its many variations)

[Buad]

I can totally relate. However I agree with what others have said in that your gear really depending on what you use can enhance it. From my explorative experience I know that if your after a specific type of song or overall sound you just have to work on the structure/composition first.

As you mentioned getting side tracked with filter automation and then just dwelling on how the DT allows you to easily go wild. That’s one of the great things about it, but yes, staying focused is where you probably need to get your song in a rough way together then start going from there.

I beatbox a vocal of a song idea, and then I have that as a reference for what I’m going for and figure out what sounds I want to use and either sequence or perform the parts in live record mode. So at some point just figure out a way to structure your song that works for you to then put it together with the DT and then go back and season the crap out of it and keep what you like and discard what you don’t b/c unlike food the flavor isn’t baked in, you can always strip it back and try something else.

[KingDuppy]

“Sophtware,” please.

This was in fact one of the first songs I ever tried to cover, when I got my hands on a sampler:

Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground) music video

[DJSpaceP]

Check out channels like Dave Mech, Red Means Recording, Ihor, and more for tutorials on techno and related genres with Elektron boxes. Use what they do as guides to learn foundational steps that you can practice and repeat. This way, you learn the “rules” to consistently create foundational patterns and music that sound “right” for the genre, but you are also free to break or ignore any of those rules.

Note how these experienced musicians can slam together a great sounding pattern in no time. That’s because they “know the rules”, and have practiced the steps to creating these foundations countless times. The interesting parts start to come when they are getting creative and weird in the context of those well-learned foundations.

Best of luck!

[bibenu]

@DJSpaceP

channels like Dave Mech, Red Means Recording, Ihor, and more for tutorials

Makers of “from scratch” videos like RMR and Ihor have definitely been useful to me. Must check out Dave Mech.

[ccr]

In my experience, there is a huge temptation with most boxes to use too many sounds. This leads to melodic and rhytmic overload. I like the cooking analogy: you might have a lot of possible ingredients, spices, etc. but the art is to combine just a few of them in the right way.

[sheathe]

This must be why I make so many different styles. I’m American and used to eating 7 different cuisines throughout the week.

But I’m happiest when I’m just cutting up jalapeños, tomatoes, onion and cilantro for almost every meal, plus beans or eggs.

[dhunterrr]

I’ve given up on songs or perfection and try to be less precious about it all. I’m just a hobbyist, it’s not worth stressing over too much.

I try to think of songs as just a pattern of notes that work together and I try to feel free to swap around sounds for parts, rhythms, change arrangements and tempos; basically treat everything like I’m remixing it.

That can help steer something back to a type of music you want to make too.

I do want to make nice recordings and performances. I think that approach can also help with recording because I’m not seeing a song as a completely fixed entity.

[jdaddyaz]

Self control, and studying are really important.
Set a day aside where you do all your experimentation/p-locking. Save what you like, trash what you don’t. Try to be stern and don’t horde a bunch of eh stuff that will clutter up your save folder.

Set a day aside to study how producers in your favorite genre get their sounds the way they do. Attack Magazine has a lot of great resources, and I think they may have even dissected a Robert Hood track as well. Watch videos, such as Yan Cooks on YouTube, he has some great tips. Don’t forget to practice restraint, but know that everyone is getting side tracked, and fucking around with sounds for hours without getting anything done, or doing something but having it sound like a hodge podge of experimentation.

Set up days to explore, to learn, and then on production days have a plan and stick to it. Nothing wrong with dissecting and copying other people’s arrangements to learn. You’d be surprised how many big names started by doing just that, some still do.
“How’d you get that kick, it sounds like this other producers?”
“Oh that’s because it is. I sampled it because I liked it so much and had no idea how they did it.”

Don’t be afraid to go off the beaten path though. That’s a good way to find your own unique sound.

[swanage_fan]

great thread. glad i’m not the only one