My biggest challenge ever with my music, get tired of song?

[cyphersuit]

3 days sounds rather long to me?!

[Sendy]

Takes me up to a month to finish a track, but I am very much detail-oriented, combine mixing, composition and engineering into the same process, and I work on more than one track at once to keep things fresh.

1 - Save constantly. Do not overwrite old versions. Typically I'll end up with about 150 versions of a track, from sketches, to the final mix, with everything inbetween. That way, if I need something from an old version that got messed up, that I overcomplicated or overmixed, tweaked it away from it's original intention, etc, I can just go back and copy/paste. It's also good for a/b-ing the mix to see if it's developing in the right ways. Those DAW project files are tiny, so it's no biggie.

2 - I tend to listen to my music a lot as I make it. This acts as a great filter. If it isn't gripping me, it'll probably be forgotten and it's corpse looted for goodies later on. I tend to feel that what I'm making at the moment is up in the best 10% of what I've ever done, even if that isn't true per se, it generally means I don't waste my time on tracks that aren't ever going to be polished because they're turds. When I'm in the zone, I can listen to what I'm making all day, sometimes even on loop, as I ponder my next move.

3 - Procrastinate with soundmaking toys to get inspiration. Sometimes I'll be partway through a track, then just start playing with synths with no aim in mind. Let the subconscious play around. I'm suprised how often I come up with killer sounds and riffs this way.

4 - When you get writer's block, accept it. Do sound and beat design, make ambient textures, play a computer game for an hour or go for a walk.

It used to be that I finished a song in 2 nights. That was back in 1998. These days, there's so much competition and so much amazing music, that I'm finding I need to be constantly pushing myself to perfect stuff, make drastic changes that I don't want to make, put in hours of work on single elements, just to keep up. That's what makes me happy, your mileage may vary.

Just know, I totally understand how it feels to get tired of your own work, and it's quite depressing. If it happens to me several times in a row, I'll quite music for a month or two, or go and work in a different medium (keyboard composition, chip tunes, or even something totally different like game design or drawing).

Finally, I think remixing someone else's work or collaborating can be very stimulating for the creative senses.

[newtoFL]

Awesome replies thanks

[metamorphosis]

Hello, I have been creating some songs every now and then for myself just as a hobby for ten years and the technology and terminology gets too confusing for me so I try to do what I can. Here has always been my major problem... I am not sure how long you guys spend creating a song, but I listen to a new song I created over and over again for any mistakes and after a while I find myself not even liking the song anymore.

However when I first created it and listened for the first few times I really loved it, but after replaying it over and over again to tweak it I have no emotion for it. My question is this, do you have this same problem and is it because I only listened to it carefully 1000 times but the song is just as awesome as when I first started with it?

It's normal to get that. Go away from it for a while and come back. After that it'll be more fresh and you'll hear the 'mistakes' more anyway.
I can take anywhere between 5 hours and 6 months to complete a song. Doesn't bother me, but certainly I feel like we're all a bit precious nowadays, about stuff that 99.9% of people will never hear. Best to cut and run

[Virtualex_HS]

Hey there,

I am fairly new to the whole music production thing and just started around a year ago ... to some extend I know your "problem", here is what I do:

1. If I am not enjoying what I am doing I just stop it - happens more often than not ... I start the DAW (after the daily work is done ... kids in bed etc..) and don't really get into it ... so after listening to some work in progress without any inspiration I just close it and do something else ...

2. Show what you got to your friends - usually if I think I have something good, I mail a minute of the song to 2-3 friends and see what they think. Most of the time they just politely ignore what I send them but from time to time there are parts that seem to be to their liking and I find that very motivating to know, that there is a least one more person that will enjoy your work.

3. It can be helpful to submit the song to forums like this and ask what people think.

cheers
Virtualex

PS: For the record, I usually spend between 20 to 40 hours on a song over the course of 4-6 weeks. I usually end up with 30-40 iterations.

If you like you can see where this leads to: https://soundcloud.com/virtualex_germany

[Michaelparkinson]

I've heard that the more you listen the more the mistakes, poor mix etc sound "normal"

[zerocrossing]

I work super fast. I've never liked treating a song like some precious flower. That's the best way to strangle the life out of anything. What I'll sometimes do is come back to something later. This is why preset memory is important to me. If it's for yourself, why work on something beyond the point where it brings you pleasure?