Just kinda wondering when inspiration strikes for you guys. Do you like to get an idea going in your head and recreate it when you get a chance? Do you like playing in a dim space or with the windows open and sunshine? during the morning at night? Do you try to stay motivated in one direction until completion (song) or do you start from scratch each time and just experiment?
I work in a few different ways, especially since I now have a family and full time job.
First off, I rarely ever start a new track when I’m working on another track (and I’ve always been like this, even before life got more real with a family/teaching job 
). I like to finish a track up completely before moving on to anything. I always try to have a plan before I sit down to work. For instance, last night I spent time transcribing drum patterns from a couple of old tracks from the MnM to my recently acquired AR. This was something I could easily get into and not have to worry about what I was doing too much since the overall idea was there for me to copy/paste. Some evenings, I have to tell myself to quit because my output turns counterproductive at a certain point as I lose pieces of work with silly mistakes (accidentally deleting patterns etc).
As for inspiration, I often work in the evenings as I typically have the most flexibility to work because my wife is kicking back doing her thing and my son is asleep. Now, it can sometimes be hard to be creative at this point because I work with 5th graders all day and also I am usually the one to put my son to bed, but I get bits of progress out as long as I have a goal in mind. If I am really beat, I try to focus on creating patches/kits or doing something that doesn’t require a whole lot of focus/energy.
I really really prefer working in the morning because I have the most stamina at this time and can really get into what I want without hitting a wall. I sometimes will wake up at 5-6am to get an hour or two of uninterrupted working time.
As for my ideas, I rarely have an explicit idea that I want to flesh out, other than knowing the scale or time signature I want to write in. I pretty much just start working without any real idea of what kind of track I’m making. I just try to make it sound interesting, different, and good. As long as I am working towards finishing a track, I’m a happy camper.
Some days I will just experiment nonstop, usually when I have a new piece of gear…and my working space is in the garage with an A/C unit for the summer and heater for the winter. I sealed the garage doors, so it’s pretty comfy. I have a couple of lamps, so it’s pretty dimly lit and calm. I have a small window I can pull the shades up on in order to get natural light in…but no window to open as the A/C unit takes up the window.
Great topic!
It used to be that if I felt I had an idea worth pursuing, I could fairly easily stay focused for days on end in order to finish a song from start to finish. Didn’t need to have a preconception in my head, I could start with a random melody on a piano roll or chopping up a random dialog sample.Wrote music like that for years until one day I just didn’t feel like doing that anymore.
These days I’m so flat out with work & uni that I’m happy to snatch whatever brief moments I can and have fun mucking about and making noise without bothering to actually record anything - that usually happens on a friday night when Im home alone, or first thing saturday morning when I’m wide awake & full of beans.
I do have a few concepts & techniques filed away in the back of my mind that I’d like to explore when I have more time - I suspect they may turn into some sort of recording. Not a fan of the dungeonesque vibe as I enjoy sunlight & fresh air far too much.
Gotta say though, the best thing I ever wrote was based around something I woke up to playing in my head - got up, figured out what the notes were & wrote them down before going back to sleep.
This is something that I need to do more of…just hit record and start building something. I know this will often turn into some avant garde ambient piece, but it definitely helps with learning the ins/outs of a piece of gear and getting more comfortable with performing/recording on the fly.
The reason i was interested in this topic is I am kind of torn in multiple directions when i start piecing something together. I realized i’ll get a good beat going and then while trying to tie in a synth voice i get kinda bored(?) of the direction i was initially excited about. I have a really nice space is the finished basement where i can be as loud as i want and its pretty cozy. Problem with that is, I have most of my creative energy during the day and something kinda drives me crazy about being in a dim room with no windows when creativity strikes. Now im starting to think i just need to create an easy system of having all the synths in a shallow box or something that i can more easily move them to a different space.
That’s what I do with my setup. Makes it easy to take to friends for jams. It weighs a ton, but it works well. I can send you a pic of it tonight if you want.
two things i’ve always liked about the elektrons is their identical size and onboard sequencers. one of my pelican cases is set up to carry a single unit and a small notebook, so every day when i walk out the door i take the case with me. then i go to a cafe after work and sit by a window with good coffee and one instrument for an hour or two before going home.
advantages: there’s no internet, family or refrigerator to distract me … i have the creative limitation of a single instrument … and i can think up a goal for the day that i can focus on accomplishing within a timeframe that is reasonable but not unlimited.
these sessions add up, and i’ve learned an incredible amount and sketched countless tracks just by making them a regular part of my day. then i feel better about being in my dark basement 
with the rest of my gear to get compositions finished or to practice them in the context of a liveset.
two things i’ve always liked about the elektrons is their identical size and onboard sequencers. one of my pelican cases is set up to carry a single unit and a small notebook, so every day when i walk out the door i take the case with me. then i go to a cafe after work and sit by a window with good coffee and one instrument for an hour or two before going home.
advantages: there’s no internet, family or refrigerator to distract me … i have the creative limitation of a single instrument … and i can think up a goal for the day that i can focus on accomplishing within a timeframe that is reasonable but not unlimited. [/quote]
I love this idea, especially since it is hard to get focused when you’ve a family and you’re always needed. I might start making this a regular thing where I go to the cafe after work to get some me time before heading home.
That’s what I do with my setup. Makes it easy to take to friends for jams. It weighs a ton, but it works well. I can send you a pic of it tonight if you want.[/quote]
Please send a pic. I was trying to think of how I could put together something for this. I have the RYTM, Four, minitaur,slim phatty and a small mixer. Would be great to build something that could hold them all. (I realize it will be heavy and awkward. long as i can get it up stairs by myself i’ll be happy 
That’s what I do with my setup. Makes it easy to take to friends for jams. It weighs a ton, but it works well. I can send you a pic of it tonight if you want.[/quote]
Would be great to build something that could hold them all. (I realize it will be heavy and awkward. long as i can get it up stairs by myself i’ll be happy [/quote]
Yeah, I’ll post it here tonight.
And yeah, I found my flightcase via craigslist where I had to pick it up from an hour away. I didn’t realize how huge it was and was scared I couldn’t fit it in my trunk. It barely fit, and weighs a ton. The fact that it has wheels helps tremendously.
here’s the core of my setup. the only things i need to unplug is the main power, couple of midi cables, and my stereo outs.
here are two power strips (you can’t see one because it’s mounted just before the one on top). since i replaced my sp606 with the AR, everything is a lot more tidy.
here it is all packaged up and ready to go somewhere. there are two handles on either side of it, and then the one on the front that you see in the picture. if it wasn’t for its wheels, i’d probably never move it.
obligatory studio pic
I’m pretty much the exact opposite - when I’m in the zone I tend to jam patterns and move on to the next one as soon as I hit the wall. The downside, of course, is that I rarely finish anything quickly, the upside is that I have a library of ideas on my computer and machines.
When I’m tired and/or not feeling particularly inspired, I go back through the various bits and listen to them coldly to see what’s good, what’s not, and what might work together.
For example, over the weekend I was taking half an hour to go back through old Ableton projects (going back a decade) and feeding my A4 with a few loops to see if I could develop them with analogue voices, p-locks, etc. Then fired up a more recent project for a listen and accidentally found that the older stuff is a great fit for what I’d been working on, inspiration struck and I put together an arrangement.
Occasionally I’ll come up with melodies while going about my day, in which I try to hum it in or write down a note on my phone to remind me, but it’s rare. Generally perspiration is the key to finding inspiration for me.
Here’s Mike Huckaby talking about using Maschine in a similar way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL9Tm_VoW1c
Also, I’d highly recommend this: https://makingmusic.ableton.com/ for general tips on workflow.
This maybe more massive than i think but taking a chance it’ll work out.
I’d highly recommend wheels, unless the case itself is pretty light. I looked, but couldn’t find a weight on the case.
In any case (no pun intended), I think you’ll enjoy the freedom of being able to move your setup easily from one place to another.
I like this idea that the single instrument sessions add up. They really do. Not only in the material produced but also in the knowledge and comfort with the instrument.
My studio building was built from the ground up from an acoustic layout contributed by John L Sayers. Construction included a dead channel, resilient channel, U-boats, no perpendicular angles or parallel surfaces, all that… My ears are well tuned to the room and the speakers, now after 9 years. I have finally settled on an ergonomic configuration for 3x Elektrons and a few other small pieces. There couldn’t be a better place to create. However, I am most comfortable sitting inside my home, on the sofa with a single Elektron instrument. Sometimes I have headphones on, sometimes I’m patched into a 20 year old pair of Tannoy 6.5" speakers across the room. I consider it my Studio B. It gives me a casual place to stay productive when I don’t want to make the symbolic 75 foot journey to the studio building, and deal with the pressures I impose on myself in doing so. I’ve written many tracks in “Studio B”, some even recorded to 2 track into my laptop right there, only making it to the actual studio for some mastering touches.
Getting back to creating…
There is just so much power in focusing on pulling as much as you can from that one instrument. This has greatly influenced my live sets, as they are more of a multitrack mix of songs that live mostly on a single instrument, than they are a homogenization of everything. There are some songs I write with all 3, and they sound vastly different and their power lies more in the sonic sense than the compositional sense.
Ultimately, I think it’s a great benefit to have more than one place to be creative with your music. I’ve brought my A4 to work to organize patches and ended up starting a track there.
Love this “ready to go” setup.Something that I try to do as well.
Off topic:
Never open the garage door!
I hope you play live with a mask 
Haha, I actually sealed the whole garage off so that it can stay nice and cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
As for playing live, my last show was back in 2009 for a laptop battle (ouf, how I hate those things, especially how you just have DJs playing prefab stuff) and that was using a laptop/monome. I bounced all my monomachine tracks down to play via mlr using the [url=“http://monome.org/”]monome.
I’d like to play live again, but with a full time job (teaching) and a family, it’s hard to prepare for something like that. Though, I am in the midst of creating a fresh live set just for my own amusement.
I’m usually happy if I finish a track every month
…it took me a few years to realize, that i can live where i work…for a while…
but i can’t work where i live…no way…
since that is settled, i keep these two parts of my life separated…
i go to my studio on daily bases…or not at all…
sometimes i work for 10 hours…sometimes 18 hours…and sometimes i sleep in the studio
and don’t go home at all just to get on with it the moment i wake up again…
and some things can only be done when everbody else is sleeping…
i fool around…or i watch the walls…most essential things happen within minutes…
the last 20% 'til you finished something always take the same amount of time and effort, or even more, than the first 80%…
those 80% are fun…most of the time…
those last 20% are a bitch…always…
i smoke blunts while working…but it’s more about holding something in your hand than really smoking or beeing high…a joint can last for six hours if i’m in the flow…
i like dimmed lights…
i got all working surfaces with small direct spotlights…no overall big lights from the ceiling…hate that…
in the corners, against the wall, i got some eye candy mood boosters…led ambilights…
i change the colour depending on my mood to give the room some glow…
winter is my prefered studio time…a perfect year is, when i can work all winter and don’t see my studio in summer at all…
i have all gear setted up at all times…but always choose certain tools only to work with for now…changing from project to project…
elektron is not always involved…
but a4 and ot are part of my liverack that is always somewhere with me…
i got some kh120 in a dedicated bag…an add on labtop…and a rack with metric halo mobile i/o all packed up and always ready to go…
changing location and set up temporal is sometimes a big help…and sometime even the last chance to fight a writers block…
and when i see these pictures, i realize i have’nt touched my oto bisquit in quite a while…need to do something about that…
what a monster of distortion…
I have the curse of hundreds of unfinished pieces over 20 years sitting all over dusty disconnected hard drives. And some going mouldy on 3.5" atari st cubase disks.
there are even tascam C90s in wine boxes in the attic with ‘works of wonder’ on them.
When I die, I hope some curator trawls through my estate of musical ramblings, is astounded at their brilliance and issues them into a classy format like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exegesis_of_Philip_K._Dick
maybe I’ll be posthumously remixed and like James Joyce, be brought to life, appreciation and acclaim far beyond the expectations of my mortal noodlings.
or maybe I’ll just continue to record 12 bar epics in my own little world when I have my rare moments of zen, with the kids asleep in bed and the red wine is at the perfect temperature; save them for some other time and wait for the next peaceful moment where I start all over again.
I start from scratch each time, unfortunately.
The Science Lab was great because it forced me to save my work as I had something I wanted to accomplish.
But I’m not a professional music producer so there’s really no need to save half finished tracks. If the track doesn’t peak my interest in the first hour or so, I turn off all the machines and go outside and do something else.
The nice part about the Elektrons though is when I turn everything back on, the last thing I was working on is there! Surprise!
That’s when I make the call - hmmm, do I want to finish this for my own satisfaction or scratch it and start over? I usually scratch it.
My space is limited so I usually just reconfigure my machines for inspiration.
I’d say the winter is more productive for me in terms of building tracks - In the summer I’m outside more because it’s warm and the days are long.
I’d say the sweet spot for me is the fall as the snowboard season hasn’t started and I skate less often as it rains a little more - so I’m at home, inside.