How long do you like to work on your tracks ?

[Synthack]

.........

[BONES]

Which is my point, exactly - you get out of it what you put in. If you're happy after 15 minutes, then you're happy. If you're happy after 12 hours, then you're happy but it doesn't mean the thing you've made is any good (although, as I said, yours isn't terrible).

I have to say, though, that I don't get this "I'm only doing it for myself" thing. Who else can you do it for? I can't second-guess what anyone else is going to like, I only know if I like it, if it is good enough that I want to listen to it. We see it with every album - songs we kind of think of more as fillers always find fans who think they are the best song on the album and the label doesn't always agree with us on which should be the single (but they always win those arguments because it's them spending the money and we don't really care).

[LeVzi]

These days the actual creation side is faster, since i've stopped making every sound from scratch. But the mixing down and mastering process is taking a LOT longer because i've learned more and really want a better finished track. Plus I do a lot more referencing now, including the biggest test of all, my car stereo, getting stuff to sound good on that is a mission because its such an old system. The VW NS10 stereo system. lol

[Bombadil]

"…………..

[Bombadil]

I'm in temporary retirement from recording. Sometimes, I'd get a track right off the bat, sometimes I do it over, and over, until I'm sick of it and my fingers/vocal cords hurt, and go for the 'safe, good enough' take. I hope I back into it soon.

[jancivil]

I don't always begin with a lot of intent, but I usually do in some way. Things happen live that can take it all into a different direction, and I go with that and get out of its way. It seems almost like I have things in mind below the surface, because some things come out I seem absolutely prepared to execute that were not in mind, or the conscious workings of.

I worked about a twelve-hour day reworking something yesterday, and I didn't plan for that but to just kind of check before deleting the gigabytes-large movie off my shrinking drive. Shoulda known because the same thing, only worse, happened just before that. And both are seriously improved (I'd learned a couple things since early 2021).

[Mikro93]

That's a great question. I've found it varies from track to track.

Very often, I'm working on one track at a time, and it can take somewhere between 2 and 12 hours, depending on how complicated it is. Sometimes, I'll just improvise something on the keyboard with a fancy Kontakt library, and it sounds good.

Recently, I've been on the road a lot, and I've noticed that I have a few tracks being made, and I need to revisit them. It's actually not a great feeling, to know that I have the third part of a 6 minute track to write from scratch and can't release anything until then.

[DJ Warmonger]

I have to say, though, that I don't get this "I'm only doing it for myself" thing. Who else can you do it for?

Uhh, the audience? If you like your track, but no one else does, it's probably just bad ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't see any sense in making tracks no one else enjoys. Great music will be appreciated by others.

[xoxos]

Great music will be appreciated by others.

well yes, that's why the masons make it. distributing music without Greatness would be a problem.

[surreal]

I have to say, though, that I don't get this "I'm only doing it for myself" thing. Who else can you do it for?

Uhh, the audience? If you like your track, but no one else does, it's probably just bad ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't see any sense in making tracks no one else enjoys. Great music will be appreciated by others.

Define great music? I want to make music again that others will listen to and enjoy but... what is music that is great that will be listenable is a question I am really wrestling with! !

[vurt]

I have to say, though, that I don't get this "I'm only doing it for myself" thing. Who else can you do it for?

Uhh, the audience?

f**k em.

[kritikon]

I don't see any sense in making tracks no one else enjoys. Great music will be appreciated by others.

Only if they get to hear it. Some of us are not making it for other people to listen to. The one short period I did that it nearly put me off the whole music-making process. I have no intention of making my music for anyone else but myself. If anyone else does get to hear it they've been up to something nefarious. I might at some point put some of my recent music out there, but I seriously doubt it. I'm with vurt - f**k the audience. I don't want an audience.

Occasionally the missus gets to hear a track, but to me it feels somehow weird. A bit like others watching you while you have a wank. Some things are personal. In fact I suspect I'd rather have a wank in public than make music in public.

[jancivil]

n/m, this is just not the joint for me

[BONES]

But the mixing down and mastering process is taking a LOT longer because i've learned more and really want a better finished track.

That's strange because I've found that as I get better/more experienced, it takes me far less time to finish than it used to. That's because I spend less time trying things that I now know are a waste of time, which has streamlined the process considerably.

I have to say, though, that I don't get this "I'm only doing it for myself" thing. Who else can you do it for?

Uhh, the audience? If you like your track, but no one else does, it's probably just bad ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Right, because everyone else knows EBM/Electro-industrial music better than we do. Why would I even care what the audience thinks? I mean, it would be nice to make some money for a change but I'm not going to spare even a second's thought on doing anything to achieve that. I don't see how you could. We just make the best version of our songs that we can and put it out there. If it finds an audience, it finds an audience but if it doesn't, it's not going to affect what we do next in any way, shape or form.

I don't see any sense in making tracks no one else enjoys. Great music will be appreciated by others.

But it's unlikely to be great if you don't like it yourself because you won't have the same passion to put into it. I worked out a long time ago that it's just too hard to fake it. There is a business side to music but most of us who create it are artists. We're making art, not some consumer product. Every band I can think of who have made deliberate efforts to be more popular have crashed and burned - they haven't achieved that breakthrough and they've alienated their earlier fans in the process. e.g. If you look at pop factories like Stock, Aitken and Waterman, I bet you'll find that those guys were really passionate about what they did. That passion may have been ruthlessly exploited by record companies but I'll guarantee that those three blokes truly believed in what they were doing. They weren't thinking "if we pump the kick up another 3dB, we'll sell an extra million", they were thinking "when we pump the kick up another 3dB, I love it even more!"

It's all you can do. You can make truly great music and never achieve any success if what you do doesn't find an audience. History is littered with such composers who achieved comparatively little during their lifetimes but are revered today. That is even more true of painters and it comes down to something I say a lot around here - the most popular things are almost never the best. Success is a lottery - do you think Justin Bieber would be able to achieve any success if he was starting out today? He was lucky to be up on YouTube at a time when YouTube could make him a star. Today he'd go by virtually unnoticed, drowned out by thousands of others trying to achieve the same thing. OTOH, if you put in the work and know what you're doing, anyone can make great music.

[LeVzi]

But the mixing down and mastering process is taking a LOT longer because i've learned more and really want a better finished track.

That's strange because I've found that as I get better/more experienced, it takes me far less time to finish than it used to. That's because I spend less time trying things that I now know are a waste of time, which has streamlined the process considerably.

Not really, because you get your mix done, then go back a few times after a break and alter it, because you are better at picking things up, when you create, mix and master you own work, its tiresome to listen to the same thing time after time, where as before i'd say "OK thats done" now I am much more critical and will take a lot longer to get it right, so I don't say OK its done until I am sure I am ready to. In the ears of a professional it may still sound crap, but to me, ive done all I can, especially mastering, using many different places to listen gives me the best frame of reference, and that takes me longer, where as I'd before have said if it sounds great on my monitors, its fine.