Absolutely. Like, if I don’t just stop myself and move on I will never finish anything because it could always be “better.” I know it’s easier said than done, but just committing and moving on really is the key for me.
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Maybe you have to decide whether you’re writing ‘songs’ or ‘tracks’.
I think they are different things. I’ve operated in this zone of uncertainty a lot myself.
If you’re writing songs, ie you have a chord progression and a melodic topline, then commit to that. Sit down at a keyboard and play it right through, refine it as a song, record it as a song, and then use electronics to generate the sounds/atmospheres/rhythms you want. But the process of 90% writing the song before you start worrying about sonic details will give it definition.
Or commit to writing tracks, in which case repetition is your friend and sonic details are everything in your search for the groove. It’s following a different muse, a different set of instincts altogether from the ones that guide songwriting when you’re sitting at a piano. I don’t think you can genuinely do both at the same time - the closest thing is writing the song, and then building a really great rhythm and interesting sonics to support it.
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It’s all about the groove. Work on getting a solid groover going and you’ll be golden.
Groove IMO =
- A solid kick and bass foundation (this should and can carry a track on it’s own)
- sound selection and those sounds sonically working well together - not mixing sounds but rather the actual sound sources working well together - the reason a 909 on it’s own can sound good
- sound placement - think straight versus syncopation
- call and response
- swing
No matter if the beat is 1 bar or 16 bars long, a solid groove can carry a track for a long time
ever thought about micro excitement? 
btw a very good youtube channel, including great ones on ELEKTRON gear
and here is the opposite way from loop to track
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Oh, is that all?
It sounds pretty good to me.
Just a few notes.
- I can hear some clashing between the guitar melody and bass/synth harmony at different moments. I’d try to fix that first.
What I’d do to keep the track evolving. - Add some hi hats. A very simple pattern first, and then a busier pattern later in the track.
- Cymbals as the track evolves, to add energy.
- A second pattern for the bass line, to fill the spaces with a more driving, 8th notes line (same harmony, just different rhythm (think “A forest”)
- Some minor percussion parts
- A chopped/rhythmic guitar part underneath the main guitar melody
I feel right now it’s a good intro/beginning, but IMO it needs to take off. Make it groove! 
IMO working with loops from different sources doesn’t work well for me either. I just end up as you told. For me the problem is that the musical ideas are already defined by the loops and there is not much creative space for me. Chopping up loops and use the samples in a creative way is for me much more fun and productive. I do this on a MPC, because my ideas start to come, when I jam. But that’s only me an my way
But if it sounds good, you may have created a new genre? Acid was born by “abuse” of a cheap 303 (okay, cheap those days).
Yes, i was feeling the exact same elements! I would say you’re working more in genre than you think, which could make songwriting easier for you. This feels pretty much like a New Wave/Post Punk track to me that would bring in said bass and hats next.
And yes, it already sounds good, not too busy or boring at all, just needs 1-3 more parts. You can work on the beat in the end, but I would say this kind of music doesn’t require a complex beat, a few conditional trig variations or fills will be enough.
I also agree on vocals - are you planning to add some later? It feels more like a song that would have vocals. Don’t have to be a good singer or have a good voice at all for that music, see New Order or recent Mount Kimbie.
Yeah i gotta completely ignore the mix right now, i know myself… if i drop a single toe in these waters i’ll end up going over everything and make no progress in the arrangement at all.
So i did make a marker at the verse to add a cymbal later last night. And another good coincidence is i did feel like this bass pattern was better suited for the synth part and i made a more simple line when the verse comes in, more post punk oriented with a single note dum dum dum dum dum at a time, it does give good energy to the drums and feels like the proper pep start after all this intro.
Also added a second guitar left panned but i’m not sure it’ll stay, kinda shifts the song towards more of a regular rock genre i don’t know.
But yeah last night i had this switch of perspective suddenly where i just listened to it from a vantage point and it’s like my brain was scanning through stuff i’ve heard in the past and considering what legos would fit this structure. I just stopped randomly jamming like i did before and actually just recorded a lot of stuff here and there without caring too much and let it stew and come back to it a few hours after. A lot of it i discarded but it does help weed out the cheesy to find what really is needed.
Frankly after this thread i feel much better to start this streak of finishing songs and i accepted that the first several tunes might be a bit boring but it’ll get better.
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I like the other comments here that what you want is a balance. I come from a “standard” school of songwriting, so take my advice with a pinch, but…
I’ve had to reprogramme my brain a bit to get my head into writing electronic stuff. What I like with electronic stuff is that I tend to start in the same way with verse & chorus sections but they don’t always go together in a linear quiet-loud-quiet format (although sometimes they do!) In rock music, you’d have a verse and a chorus; and the way you’d announce the chorus would be to slam everything into distortion pedals and whatnot. The big difference I find with electronic stuff is that the changes can be more subtle, and that takes a fair bit of getting used to. Sometimes you get songs that have a verse or chorus and don’t actually resolve into another part - or there’s a B section which is almost identical to the A section. The main difference between “traditional” songwriting and what I’ve found in electronic music is creating contrast between sections. Which OP is I think when you are running into issues.
Something I will also say is that some corners of the producer scene on Youtube have a complex that can be unhelpful to producers. While I get that adding variety and movement to a sound can be nice; it’s never “the thing.” As you say in your OP - this is the too many changes syndrome. If you write a good tune, it can be pretty repetitive if you like and if that’s the vibe you want. Sometimes the best songs are driving and hypnotic. Like if you listen to something like Underworld’s early stuff it’s just relentless and there’s hardly any movement in there - but it also works. There’s a certain trope of video out there where the premise is “I got this loop - check it out. Cool. BUT IT’S BORING.” If you’re listening to a 16 bar loop in this way, to me this mad because literally nobody judges a song by how much movement there is in an isolated synth part. (Btw, the answer in every single one of these tutorials is a magic plugin or some form of modulation.) Now don’t get me wrong, a bit of movement here and there to signal a change can create a bit of character - especially in a song that doesn’t move around too much. But the premise of these tutorials is that those changes or modulation will make the song - but that’s not true in my view. The thing that makes the song is a good arrangement/melody/hook for the genre. Improving that can take a 6/10 song to a 9/10 song. A bit of modulation or humanising your hi hats might take you from an 6.2 to an 6.3 (aka; marginal gains only in that area)
That’s a long way round of me saying - don’t sweat it, specifically when it comes to the technicalities. Of the two things you mentioned; too many changes in a song can of course be distracting. I’ve always liked the idea that a song will have a core element that stays somewhat solid (though this can be as simple as a kickdrum) and the others can move around. Other than that, it’s best to think about whether the track captures what you’re going for than worrying about whether or not it’s too repetitive.
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Was that a metaphor or a typo ?
A Robert Smith kind of vocal.
For me simple ideas with a lot of movement helps (modulation, automation, probability…) And sometimes just muting one element can make whole track to sound more alive but yea it’s hard to find a balance and of course every track is different.
Yes, for example muting drums is very efficient after the climax of a song, that is to let it levitate for a bit.
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I think this is really good advice for the kind of music you want to make: New Wave/Post Punk. If you listen to almost any 80s track, you will notice how few changes there are made concerning the specific elements. The drum pattern usually stays the same with maybe some fills. All synth melodies mostly stay the same throughout the song/a part. No noodling and knob twisting whatsoever. All of that came with more club oriented electronic music that was less focused on tracks.
But the music still works and is great. Why is that? Because it’s still rock music at heart that follows a classic structure. Or if there’s no discernible movement/change in the structure, all of the basic elements that are there are just pretty strong and you barely get tired of hearing them. And sometimes there subtle changes you barely recognize that keep things interesting. Lastly, the best songs/albums have interesting themes and atmosphere, transported through vocals or some samples.
That being said, I think a lot of 80s New Wave also sounds a bit too stale and repetitive nowadays imo. I feel that’s because their attraction was that the sounds and instruments were quite new at the time and they‘re also made to work fine as dance tracks too. But nowadays we have absurdly well produced dance music and are used to a variety of electronic sounds and sampling, so these elements alone don’t carry a track for 6 to 8 minutes.
However, the genre just has a great vibe that’s timeless and there are a few middle of the road solutions that you can apply to your songs. At least that’s the conclusion I drew for my music: 80s New Wave/Post Punk stuff seems to flow out of me as default, but I find a lot of music from the tim underwhelming and actually don’t know too much of the canon.
- When recording a part with hardware, choose 1-3 parameters that you manipulate throughout the recording. It could be subtle changes like playing a bit with oscillator shape or LFO movements, but also more drastic changes like opening the filter - depends on how big you want the impact for the element to be on the structure. Think of it as „what could I realistically do live“, that will limit you from doing too much. But if you’re doing that just to one element at s time while recording, you end up with a lot of variation without it sounding overwhelming or too produced. More like a band where each member plays one instrument and plays with that instrument‘s knobs, in tune with the other members.
- After you jammed on something, let it sit a bit. See if there’s any melodies stuck in your head. If you find yourself with some sort of earworm, chances are people can also listen to that for a long time without being bored. Or watch for other moments that make you feel excited when listening back. Double down on these and maybe remove stuff to let them shine. Also when producing, maybe try to cut everything down drastically to make the track shorter and see whether it makes the track more focused and lets the element shine more. Or whether you feel like that should have gone on for a bit longer to get into the groove. I think this is also something where advice from people who generally like your kind of music can help, they will tell you that it’s good but maybe a bit too long/ending too abruptly.
- Look for themes that fit the music or can give it direction. Could be lyrics/vocals, but also field recordings or speech samples. These elements can also inspire each other. For example, I had a speech sample give me the inspiration for lyrics and title. You could also think about possible colors you feel like your music sounds. Or think of art that could go along with the music.
These are just some conclusions I have drawn for myself and they‘ve worked quite well. Bare in mind I have only finished five tracks so far, so I basically don’t know anything other than how I managed to do that.
I think another thing is to take a step back and see if finishing stuff is really what you want to do. It sounds like that’s important for you but also destroying you a bit. Finishing stuff is not that much fun, at least for me. And you start to hate your stuff. But that’s part of the process I think, you should just be clear that this is what you want to focus on for now. Because it’s also totally fine to just noodle and have fun, collect loads of interesting loops and call it a day. We tend to pressure ourselves into having to produce something finished and that’s also a bit expected if you tell people you’re making music. But it’s also totally valid to just jam and zone out. There’s a good thread on the here by @Wolf-Rami where this is discussed at length. It helped me decide that I have to finish stuff, because it was my own choice and not something I sorta defaulted to.
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Whatever you’ve listened to during your whole life and most recently will pop up during your songwriting. You have to admit the possibility that the genre will be undefined for this very reason. If you do, then you will find your own sound. Trying to fit a genre can be a source of inspiration to further explore what you can do, but every rule is meant to be broken.
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On the topic, with my ADDled brain and time / executive dysfunction, “too repetitive or too much changes in a song” goes hand-in-hand with being bad at subtle minimalism and use of silence / dull parts.
Anyone found a trick that works for their flow? I always enjoy hearing what clicks for others even if it doesn’t for me, because I can commiserate there 
With MnM I have no problems with taking a pattern and breaking it down with mutes into song mode, I wonder what tricks I can use to manage excitement without obvious drops/risers.
SO GUYS
First time in a decade
I’ve got a full structure, i just can’t believe it.
It’s not perfect and i don’t care.
Still running a drum loop the whole track, not in a hurry to make my own kit to replace it.
Still a lot of synths that i will replace with better patches. (saved a LOT of presets from the entire arturia collection in komplete kontrol so i bet some would be better.)
The guitars are all to be recorded with better timed takes and dynamics and i’ll modify the patches in guitar rig to fit the mood better.
Still some abrupts transitions with some silence i’d like to fill with sample chops and foley to add my electronic touch.
And obviously no mixing done, i’m surprised it’s not more muddy with all those synths but yeah a lot of work (thankfully years of doing pristine 8 or 16 bar loops without finishing songs got me at least a good ear for mixing).
I think i went a bit overboard because originally i was shooting for a minimalist post punk track with a couple good synths and it ended up more synthwave than i’d like.
But anyway… I’M JUST BEYOND HAPPY.
And i feel drained.
After finishing such a busy track i think i’ll feel more assured going for my usual lightweight style.
You guys literally cured my block. Thanks everyone.
Here’s what i got so far.
Have a great day =)
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I really like this - the melodies and vibe are just perfect. You already know what you need to work on. Looking forward to hearing the polished version if/ when you do it!
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This was a great discussion! I felt similar paralysis trying to ‘complete’ a track from some of the loops I’ve made. But gained lots of insight and advice on how to overcome this and move forward with things. Thanks everyone!
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