How many projects do you work on at once?

[Stamped Records]

In the early days of learning, I found myself paying great attention to a single project but as time has gone on, I found myself working in groups of 3 tracks. If I were to add a 4th track to this, I tend to lose interest in one of the previous 3 so lately I'm really attempting to keep it to a maximum of 3

I'm being sneaky though, I now work on the production stage of 3 tracks, while I'm at the mixing stage of a further 3. A lot of the time, I will also be working on my next composition at the keyboard, staying well away from the computer with it until it has enough form.

I feel like this keeps me moving forward as I don't always want to do a particular task. The problem I find is that as I get better at the various tasks, I find that something I started last week, doesn't meet my own standards this week, and so, my work continuously slips into the unfinished pile.

Perhaps this is just a stage of learning that we all must go through, but I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts and reasoning on the number of projects they have running simultaneously and how they keep on top of it all.

[wagtunes]

One at a time. Always have, always will.

[jancivil]

It depends. I've had ideas coming, compelling ideas I wanted to work with right away, in rapid succession which I placed in the timeline of one Cubase project but I was working on 5 things at once; which became 5 sections I made work as one whole. So that piece was over 10 minutes long finally.
The way I work, typically the middle grows, I insert bars. Sometimes I decide to insert bars at 0:00:00.

Last year at this time I was finishing one while the next one started. This year it's been one at a time. The thing I just finished has more than one approach.

What do not usually do is decide on a form first and fill it with content. I've only not finished one thing in the digital realm, and it was because I didn't have the instrument for the part to finish it, it was doomed to be half-assed. Not well articulated enough, EWQL RA baritone violin, to point a finger. Sounded great, the idea was superb, ran into a wall, decided I didn't want to die trying.

I've never lost interest in an idea. But it should be noted, I started composing in earnest in 1980.

[4damind]

Not more than two projects.

[himalaya]

Enough to suffer from Projectotitis.

[kelvyn]

It depends on what you mean by projects.
I work with a vocalist who doesn’t live in my city so I’m almost always working and on at least five or more tracks until she shows up. But I like the variation and switching between tracks gives me an interesting perspective when I come back to them.
But don’t finishitis has meant that the album we are working on has taken a few years...

[SODDI]

All of them that aren't finished. Right now that's like six. No, five. I finished one yesterday.

And I'm forever dragging stuff back out of the "abandoned" folder to see if I can resurrect something out of nothing.

[TheSynthScientist]

Generally, one at a time, otherwise the focus gets diffused.

[Bodhisan]

One at a time, and 25% of the time tweaking the prior one (after hearing playback in my car) while working on a new one.

[foosnark]

One at a time. Usually done in single sessions of a few hours, not counting post-process editing and mastering. It's not unusual to have finished a recording only to realize I hadn't yet even saved the project file in my DAW.

[Aleatoriac]

0.618

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

Too damn many.

[Googly Smythe]

I try not to put any limits on my projects. There are too many of them already. Limited inspiration, limited finances, limited room, limited time, limited talent...

[Stamped Records]

Those of you who say one at a time, I can only assume, have much more experience than I. I can see myself, some time in the future reaching a level where I can finish a project in one go (aside from a final mix), and maybe then, the speed with which I'm able to do that at, or the fluidity with which I understand what I'm doing, will mean that I am fast enough for every musical spark I have to be done and completed in sequence, or, sparks aren't completely necessary because of some intrinsic understanding, perhaps?

To tell the truth, I've still never truly finished a project - I think that's the curse of the experimental phase.

[sqigls]