getting fed up with getting nowhere in my tunes

[havran]

I wonder what makes a great painting: new brushes, or inspiration?

Definitely new brushes: Biggest sale of the year spend spend SPEND

And granulating pigments -- those are the best.

[_leras]

lately i've been getting fed up with getting nowhere in my tunes.

so what I might do is delete all my VSTs and samples and start from scratch.
I'm thinking something like only one of each thing, almost like Noah's Ark of sounds to compose with.

How many times have you opened a DAW since you posted this?

Have you made any musical progress?

[mjolnir]

actually, i did make a bit of progress; made a few tunes but not a lot and they aren't earth shattering

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

I recommend the One Synth Challenge here at KVR. Great exercise to promote focus on a deadline.

[mjolnir]

I might change my entire style and genre.
Lately, I've been listening to a lot more ambient and less industrial and maybe slightly less Kpop and breakbeat.
Problem is, I'm not sure if I have the skills to finesse ambient. Or even if I do, it might seem too boring.

Some of the commercial long-term successful internet radio stations I listen to play good ambient, and it's genuinely good, but it's so overly simplistic.
Like the same subtle thing on and on for a full 5min30sec doing barely anything but still with superhigh sound qualityy and excellent sound design.

I'm not sure if I want to become that. My current style is sloppy and primitive, but I do try to have personality.
LOL I should probably STFU because I'm starting to sound like my own enemies

[Uncle E]

LOL I should probably STFU because I'm starting to sound like my own enemies

Image-1.jpeg

[mjolnir]

@Uncle E: that's damned funny, my friend

[Ah_Dziz]

Sometimes when I'm getting bored of stuff I will record everything to audio as I create it and limit myself to only editing resampling and then rerecording the result. Making an interesting piece of music a few minutes long happens before you know it.

[mjolnir]

Sometimes when I'm getting bored of stuff I will record everything to audio as I create it and limit myself to only editing resampling and then rerecording the result. Making an interesting piece of music a few minutes long happens before you know it.

That's a good idea.
I feel like sampled audio is a lot more fluid anyhow. Every DAW can use WAV audio so that opens up a lot of options for workflow.

Lately, my Linux system lost Windows VST support so I can't do nearly as much as before. However, I regained FL Studio (vDemo) functionality. So I started messing with the step editor and WAV export. I started to get ideas again that way. I love loading up a WAV file and playing it accross the keyboard.

[JerGoertz]

I like to imagine something like a movie scene, or a dream, something visual, then pretend I am hired to write a soundtrack for those images. And I like to think that I have to communicate something with the tune, like telling a story, no words allowed. Works very often.

I really like this idea.

mjolnir, if you're having "writer's block" or something similar, focusing on your tools might not be the right approach. Instead, sit down and really try to conceptualize where you're going with your track. Knowing enough music theory to understand things like chord progressions, key changes, etc. might provide a helpful framework for structuring your composition as well. Question/answer, making-a-journey, variations-on-a-theme, etc. are also all useful concepts to base a song on.

[mjolnir]

thanks guys.
i'm feeling a bit better.

maybe i just need to accept that lately in life i'm going to have some difficult times with music unlike in my past.
so far, the tough times quit after about 3-6 weeks and i get ideas again.

in the meantime, i discovered a workaround for my crashed DAW program.
and later in 2025 i still might get some kind of DAWless setup happening.
i just don't have much money.

but overall, i'm optimistic about about 1/3 of my tunes. the rest kinda not LOL

[Uncle E]

⅓ is pretty good. My graveyard of forgotten projects is at least 500 deep.

[FranklyFlawless]

I might change my entire style and genre.
Lately, I've been listening to a lot more ambient and less industrial and maybe slightly less Kpop and breakbeat.

If you are interested in mixing ambient and breakbeat together, you could create intelligent jungle, which is more or less what I personally consume now:

1. The Drumkilla - Motherland EP
2. Rainforest - Leap of Faith EP
3. Limit - Cold Snap EP
4. Various Artists - Abandoned Planet vol.3
5. Various Artists - Abandoned Planet vol.2

I do not like any other jungle albums from Monochrome Recordings enough to list them here, and I do not listen to anything else outside of jungle anymore.

[Rubenasjoka]

I know the feeling, like probably everyone. Even the best haha.

But never delete them. Just start a new song and work with different stuff. Try something new without it needing to be something. Then I make some shitty stuff and all of a sudden it clicks again. And them a couple months later I figure out what to do with the track I got stuck with haha.

[ulrichburke]

Let the radio inside your head play the tune on repeat, then just write what you're hearing in your brain. Once the basic melody's down, listen to a track you like to hear how to arrange it. That's what I do and I do a track every couple of days (or so!)

ulrichburke