How do you move beyond the 8-bar loop?

[funky lime]

It could be, there's a whole song in those 8 bars. You just gotta stretch it out, let it breathe. Don't necessarily be in a hurry to get from one note to the next, or one chord to the next. Then you might realize your 8 bars could actually be 32 bars, and that's way closer to a whole song. And having grown from 8 to 32 is almost like progress (!) and might provide the motivation you need to crack on.

Also, re: the piano thing, some people like to write with a piano patch that has a softer string/pad sustain layered underneath, to further increase the amount of articulation available from a single scratch track. Also, maybe try singing/humming to develop your melody; often times, the thoughts in your head can get lost in translation if you aren't particularly good at performing them with your hands. The voice is a more direct link between idea and sound, at least for some people, and is worth practicing in its own right. It's also the most portable instrument ever, and arguably the most expressive, and anyone can learn how to use it. (I'm not saying you need to necessarily use your vocals in your tracks; i just mean it's useful as a songwriting tool)

[Distorted Horizon]

Anyway, I'm just trying to figure out why most of the time, my song ideas end up being short loops.

Ah.. Forgot one very important part.. Collaborate with someone you know that doesn't suffer loopitis.

That way you can make an idea and that other person can then take it further. Then you take it a bit further and then the other.

It's often fun and it makes some weird connection between two beautiful minds

[MrMagneto]

Hey there,
I just read the original post and here is my advice:

Don't get into mixing, effecting and fine tuning your instruments too early.
Here's why I think so:
From my experience the creative and the analytical/engineering parts don't go along very well. You either concentrate on spitting out ideas without worrying too much about compression and reverb. Or you focus on the details of your effect and mix settings.
Just keep in mind that the more effort and time you put in your effect chain, the less likely you will be able and willing to change the initial creative ideas/melodies/harmonies.

[sjm]

Also, maybe try singing/humming to develop your melody; often times, the thoughts in your head can get lost in translation if you aren't particularly good at performing them with your hands. The voice is a more direct link between idea and sound, at least for some people, and is worth practicing in its own right. It's also the most portable instrument ever, and arguably the most expressive, and anyone can learn how to use it. (I'm not saying you need to necessarily use your vocals in your tracks; i just mean it's useful as a songwriting tool)

This is good advice too. I like to - once I've got the basic chords sorted out - record scratch tracks for the basics of the track, one of which is normally the vocal track (I normally have vocals). I just sing random stuff that comes to mind over the track. The idea is more to get a feel for the melody and intonation, rather than come up with anything final - although sometimes there are a few lines that make it into the final lyrics. But it doesn't have to be for vocals; you can hum the lead synth's line or the bass part too.

I find that the final melody is often not the same as the initial idea, but normally is inspired by it. And other instruments sometimes borrow parts of the melody .

So it's a great way of capturing that initial spark of creativity or "the idea" behind the song. I personally like recording a guitar or synth noodling track (i.e. some sort of lead) on a lot of things for much the same reason. It's not about playing a fantastic part - that's not going to happen when you don't know how the song goes and have never played it before - but again about capturing that initial spark so that you can come back to it later. Again, the final melody will be very different, and might not be played on the same instrument.

There's nothing worse than having a whole load of ideas and then losing them forever because you didn't capture them in the moment.

[vurt]

lemmykins

[Kjb]

I've started laying out the structure of the track in the playlist before actually doing anything else. I make one part ready, usually the drop or the main part of the track and then focus on the other parts to fill it and build from the beginning till the end.

I used to get stuck but mainly 'cause I started mixing and/or enhancing or just doing everything before it was even nearly ready, so just focus on the track itself and when it's good untouched, you know it's ready and obviously it will sound even greater when it's processed and mixed right!

You can also test your mix on some online mastering services (previews) to hear does it sound good or bad, and maybe even take the mastering purchase from there, if you can't do it yourself or nobody else does it for you.

Keep working on the track, don't rush. If you feel like it doesn't go anywhere, take a break or start a new project, but don't leave the old projects unfinished though. Always, try to complete all projects even though you think they suck.

But really about making parts fit together more easily to fill the track completely, seems to be much about choosing right samples and sounds for the track.

[smd12]

Sometimes i get a riff and i start to record just the guitar. Then i try to expand on the riff i have and find what chords or other riffs or melodies go with it. I keep jamming for 5 or so minutes. I then play it back cut and paste the bits i like and fit.

I then put a generic beat that kinda fits the groove and then start re-recording the riffs that i like in time and put things were then sound the best and just build it from there.

[mrzig]

I, too, have to challenge myself to get out of loops. My best influence has been a collaborator who was very good with dynamic arrangements. I also love to explore chord theory, which will jumpstart new sections. Lastly, you could build a section of your song, and then just take one element, like the bassline, and try and build completely new chords on top of your previous bassline and see where that leads you. Or you take 2 of your 8 bar loopitis tracks, smash them together and see if you can create some bridge section to make them mesh.

[melomood]

Copy and paste various parts of those bars along the timeline of your session view

Jam around it,find some bits that work.Maybe flesh out those bars with variations

find the bridge
has anybody seen the bridge?
I'm just tryin to find the bridge

seriously tho,the first part might help

[dark_virus]

Filters are very good to add variation to your loops. Like the elements removal trick mentioned early, filters can add to dramatic section changes, breaks, intros and outros. Use automation on the cutoff and you're on the way.

Also, changing/swaping your drum sounds are a lot of fun. Change drum sounds on certain parts, vary the amount of reverb on snares (Dub Reggae anyone?), distort, flange, delay, bit crush... go crazy here and you'll find new aspects of your 8-bar loop that even you were not aware of.

And don't be affraid of killing your precious 8-bar loop with a crappy/lazy arrangement. At this point, it's much better to have a bad final result than no result at all.

[generaldiomedes]

Assuming you are making electronic music? I've only been at it for a year, but here' s my experience FWIW.

Personally, I don't flesh out anything resembling an 8-bar loop until I have several music ideas sketched out in Ableton clip view (usually 2-4 bars long). Those might get thrown away, or morphed, but I want lots of ideas floating around before I try and start solidifying things.

Many ways to get ideas - listen to other songs, cycle through presets or samples, or just start noodling on your keyboard over a drum sequence (and make sure you record everything!!). Learn to listen carefully to the sounds being triggered in your head by the experimentation. Musical skill beyond the very basics is overrated IMO - the kind of melodies you hear in electronic music are hardly the stuff of virtuosos. I think what is more important is virtuosity in sound design and music theory - most of my stuff is the result of carefully editing in the piano roll through multiple repetitions.

As for the arrangement (the hardest part) I find initially just copying another song structure helped me get over the hump. A lot of it is learning how to write the 'filler' aka theme and variation to stretch out those ideas into a full song. I still have a long ways to go in this regard, but it helped initially. A book that really stuck for me was 'Dance Music Manual' by Rick Snowman - the explanation of the principles behind the song structure are excellent and apply to any genre.

[Kinh]

Ive been-a-readin' these replies and all im seein' is other people sharing their process. That may or not be helpful but the problem isnt process related. Its about creativity and problem solving. Meditation is your solution. The rest is just bullshit. Slow down. You're more than your thoughts.

[ghettosynth]

Try to compose / produce horizontally, not vertically from the start.
Meaning, try to force yourself to get a basic song structure as soon as possible and care about details / sounds / layerings etc. later to not get stuck in the 4 / 8 bar 'looperitis'.

Would you recommend setting markers in your DAW first to specify which section of a song is what before filling in the blanks with melodic ideas? Or .. just record one track and play long melodic ideas, then come back and break them up into sections..? How do you normally work? I like the simplicity of your suggestion.. horizontally instead of vertically. Great!

I do both, depending on what I'm working on. I've said it before and I think that someone else said something similar, but, just take the eight bars, make it 32, then copy it five to seven times and start taking out parts that are annoying or begin to bore when you listen to it played back. This could be everything in some places as you want to switch to something completely fresh, or, it could just be that you strip it down to percussion.

I almost immediately put in some structure, small breaks, larger breaks, even if they eventually go away to be replaced by something else. A small break could be nothing more than thinning, dropping, or fading an instrument. A larger break usually means a larger cut for a longer period. Often for dance tracks I'll start out with the cliche of just dropping out the kick and bass for a section.

In other words, force a structure, even if it's with stuff that you know is going to be replaced. Then listen and try to play along if that's your style, or use step sequencers, or edit the piano roll, whatever. Point being that you let the raw structure guide you to work on the whole track instead of thinking in just the eight bar loop. For me, this usually helps reduce the temptation to clutter up the loop.

I like to jam over the top of a structure like this, but that's because it's fun, not because I always keep the jam in its original form. I might cut it up and use pieces of it in different places.

Also, if I am using a lot of loops for percussion, whether actual loops or just step sequences, I'll often play/record one acoustic percussion instrument to add some unexpected dynamics. Even that, though, is not immune from the edit. I might keep it in long form, or I might cut out sections of it at some, interesting to me, arbitrary length.

[cron]

I tend to separate out arrangement completely by having 2 DAW projects on the go: project one for sound design, laying down parts, just about everything; project two for arranging and editing all the blocks/stems/pieces of audio that I've rendered out of project one. It helps keep my mind on structure because even if I've got a banging loop going I don't really feel like I've done anything unless an audio render crosses over into the arrangement project. That's when it really becomes part of the track in my head.

I'm sure there are less extreme ways of separating out arrangement, but it works for me.

[ghettosynth]

I tend to separate out arrangement completely by having 2 DAW projects on the go: project one for sound design, laying down parts, just about everything; project two for arranging and editing all the blocks/stems/pieces of audio that I've rendered out of project one. It helps keep my mind on structure because even if I've got a banging loop going I don't really feel like I've done anything unless an audio render crosses over into the arrangement project. That's when it really becomes part of the track in my head.

I'm sure there are less extreme ways of separating out arrangement, but it works for me.

Interesting, how do you do transitions? I use something similar to this for my ambient stuff but that's mostly because of methods and it's just less messy that way.

I don't think that I could do more structured beat oriented stuff this way because as the arrangement progresses I usually want to change things in the sound design.

I do separate mixing and arrangement as you describe and there some minor editing of the arrangement can happen.