How to not get stuck in loops and arrange and finish songs quickly?

[Distorted Horizon]

Pick a track you like
open it in your project as a reference
copy the arrangement
delete the reference track
repeat

[donkey tugger]

115 bpm electronica

Try 116 instead, sure to break you out of the rut.

[ghettosynth]

115 bpm electronica

Try 116 instead, sure to break you out of the rut.

So you'll need at least 20 8 bar loops give or take, so, with Paulstretch you're going to want to compensate. Start your composition at 20*116=2320 BPM. That way when you stretch it out, your final track will be at 116.

You're welcome.

[househoppin09]

This will be very genre-dependent of course, but for any electronic genre you'll be doing lots of looping, which means most of your time will be spent zooming in to create little alterations from one iteration of the loop to the next so that things don't get boring. Those alterations will come in two flavors: "horizontal" and "vertical". Your "vertical" alterations will involve selectively deleting some of the tracks that comprise the complete loop on certain repetitions, with the "horizontal" alterations consisting of tweaking notes, effects, etc. on each individual track so that loop repetitions of that particular track aren't all identical to each other.

For both kinds of alteration, I've found that it helps a lot to work in real-time--that is, jam along to the track and let ideas for cool alterations pop into your mind, then execute them on the spot. For detail work, you can hopefully set up your DAW in such a way that you can easily pause or stop playback and have the playhead "freeze" at the point at which playback was stopped. Then it should be a simple matter to make the changes that came to mind while you were jamming out, rewind a bit, and hear them in action as you continue along. Most of my time goes into this sort of thing when I'm arranging an electronic track in the post-loop phase of production.

For the more overarching structural flow of the track, you need to decide on a basic "outline" at the outset and then allow yourself to experiment a bit and be flexible within the boundaries of that outline. This will of course be dependent on the properties of the particular loop and genre at hand. For example, maybe you'll decide that the loop and genre invite a classic "ABA", with gradual build-up and die-out of the A parts and a breakdown for the B part, or whatever. Make up your mind and then work within the restrictions you've set for yourself; paradoxically, those restrictions will often be the thing that cures your "choice paralysis" and allows you to start coming up with coherent and worthwhile ideas, with a clear roadmap for executing them.

If all else fails, one approach that can work well is to build "outward" from the loop. Think of your core loop as a little crossroads that contains a bunch of houses, stores, etc. Your job is then to build outward from there to create a complete town. You can sort of fly blind and go one step at a time: it would be cool to have the synth part come in gradually in stages? Build that, don't worry yet about how it will fit into the context of the overall track. Maybe a breakdown? Compose one separately with the loop in mind and then insert it in between two copies of the loop; you can always tweak things later on as necessary, just throw a bunch of ideas in there and prune them or sort them out after the fact.

In general, watch out for perfectionist tendencies and firmly squash them. Sometimes the important thing is to just force yourself to get SOME sort of arrangement in place, which you can then modify as much as necessary. Further inspiration will also often come once you've got something meaty to work with and listen to, even if your initial efforts suck. You can then iteratively refine the arrangement until it's actually good. This is FAR more true of arrangements than it would tend to be for the composition of a core musical idea itself, due to the completely different levels of creativity involved. The person upthread who said that having good loops with no arrangements is a vastly easier problem to solve than the reverse was absolutely dead on.

Of course, all of the approaches described above can also be mixed and matched as necessary. You'll probably need to remain open-minded and do just that if you don't want to get stuck in a formulaic rut. Good luck!

[Forgotten]

It sounds from your first post that you take a very formulaic approach and don't deviate from it. Try keeping a more open mind and don't limit yourself to genre, a chordal approach, putting a 'breakdown' in each time, trying to box yourself into a specific length of time, etc.

[BONES]

I use Logic as DAW. My music is electronic music. 115 bpm electronica

Seriously? Every song? I've written around 200 songs, I reckon, but I try to make a point of never using the same tempo twice. Our latest album varies between 84 bpm and 146 and the song I am collaborating on at the moment is 180bpm. (Actually, I think it's really only 90bpm but they've made it at 180.)

[perfumer]

In general, watch out for perfectionist tendencies and firmly squash them.

Everything out of key/tempo with everything else! Enter notes with your qwerty keyboard and don't quantize! Render your tracks and reverse half of them, then mix with everything at 11.

Copy what you've got and stretch it 1.5 times, then glue it after the first part.

On the master, put on a huge reverb and distortion after it - the modulated ones are best, use some random lfo's.


That should do it.

[perfumer]

Music is all about perfection, yo!

[househoppin09]

You're right, spending six weeks stressing out about whether the third closed hi-hat of every bar should have 25% or 30% wet/dry on its reverb IS a good idea! My bad, disregard everything I said

[BONES]

Thinking about this a little, I remember having the exact same problem when I first moved from hardware to software and the problem turned out to be that the software I was using just didn't do it for me. When I switched from Fruityloops to Orion, the floodgates opened and I went through one of the most productive periods of my musical life. So maybe you should have a look at some other ways of making music, either a different sequencer/DAW or maybe try hardware if software isn't working for you?

[datroof]

Hello,
I tend to come up quickly with chords, harmonies and melodies for songs but rarely finish them. I get stuck half-way in and sometimes at the breakdown at 1 min 30 seconds or so. I do electronic music but with length of 3 -4 min.
Any tips on how to turn melodies, loops and song ideas into songs and proper arrangements without getting stuck with them for months?

Write something simple. Call it done. Then write something slightly less simple. Call it done. Rinse repeat.

[Noobish]

"In The Mix"

This channel has helped me a lot with a lot of thing and they have a 3 part series dedicated to this issue:

https://youtu.be/LLmTDBV2riQ

https://youtu.be/NwTPqJKoFW8

https://youtu.be/jUq9UE55VNs

I hope and am sure this will help a lot.

[lwj]

Find a narrative and a context. For your track, but also for yourself as an artist.

Narrative is what you’re trying to get across to the listener and context is all about the listener and the presentation.
In the right context a loop can be just what’s needed. Think about dj’s looping the break on disco and funk records, but also minimal avant-garde stuff. Again, context makes all the difference.

Narrative can be as simple as the ABA of your track, but can also be more personal. Like, why are you making this 115bpm electronica? What do you have to add there? Why use certain sounds, avoid others? It doesn’t have to be a great answer. ‘Because it’s trendy and I want money’ is totally valid... just as long as you’re not just f**king about.

If you have that figured out a bit you’ll not only know how to finish tracks, but rarely run out of ideas.. because you’re not working with random hunches but a concept. Again, it doesn’t have to be anything special. ‘Bust raps, pimp hoes’ still works.

[Sk1nZ]

Reference tracks if you're having trouble with arrangement but there's nothing like practice imo, it can take years to get decent results but it will happen. Youtube is very good thesedays and check out Big Z, ive watched A LOT from different people over the years and he's one of the best, think he's done some videos on arrangement too

Something that Hans Zimmer said always sticks in my head...

" I can tell you everything you need to know in one word - Story! "