Help finishing tracks

[srcmtrl]

Hi guys,

Does anyone have any tips/systems in place to finish tracks ?

[Jek]

Good question!

Welp, sometimes i like to start from the ‘middle’… or the thickest, most complex part of a song;
then peel back layers till i reach the the start / end of a section or the whole song.

Also, sometimes it’s ok to not worry about mixing untill most of the composition is in place,
this can help to get notes down on paper so to speak… then treat mixing/mastering as a next step.

Another thing is sometimes a song tells a story, so when you compose you can reach the ending.

[Jonas (Djeroek)]

Listen + do stuff in a feedback loop until you like it

[TNT]

1. Create your “main pattern” (all instruments of the “main composition”)
2. Loop your main pattern and mute/unmute tracks until you know how to start the song
3. Compose the build up from start to main pattern by using the “2 instrument technique”
   (which means if you’re adding instruments, it should be at least 2 at the same time)
4. Make sure there’s movement from start to finish, and don’t use any pattern twice
5. After main pattern have a break and/or do a “side composition”, but always keep the movement
6. At the end of the song bring back some parts from the beginning
7. And something like that, and so on… But it also depends on what style you would like to do.

[slujr (•MrZensphere•)]

Keep working on it til it stops getting better. Then it’s done

Also, inspiration is a poor substitute for discipline.

If you get in the habit of writing every day, you will finish lots of songs

[spinesois]

There’s good advice in this thread, but I don’t think any amount of tricks will solve your problem. The most important question to ask yourself is: “why do I want to finish tracks?” Do you want to release an album? Do you need new DJ material? Without a tangible, real-world aim, you’re going to be stuck doing what comes naturally to you.

Many artists are naturals at finishing things and find this kind of question a bit silly. Others are simply into the process of creation for its own sake. The angst arises for those who occupy the second group but feel unfulfilled by not having a substantial body of work. So, envision what you want that body of work to look like, and build towards it.

I’m speaking from personal experience. I love the process of making music, but I’ve spent a long time at it and have zero releases to my name. Finally deciding to work on an album (and committing to it) has vastly changed my relationship with music-making. Now I have to finish things; it’s not really a choice.

[srcmtrl]

Wow , I definitely relate to the second option as well. Its amazing you managed to encapsulate what I have been going through for the past 10+ years of making music. It has always been for the rush of the creative process (or just process in general) but I have never stuck to a sound or a project.

Maybe I should do the same, I returned to college this year so am quite swamped in work I should be doing, but i am sure i can find time to work on a project. Thank you so much.

[spinesois]

I feel that many of us go through this, but it’s hard to talk about. If I’ve managed to have any positive influence then I’m quite pleased. Enjoy your project!

[Bluethereal (Bryan B)]

I’m a perfectionist and I’ve been self learning about music theory and production for 6 years and on one side I’m glad I didn’t waste my time writing songs when I had no business doing so just because it’s been just now where I really feel comfortable in my understanding and confidence to do anything I want, I’m finally breaking the habit of compulsively closing projects without saving and exiting 8-bar loop limbo.

These have been the breakthroughs I had in these past few years that made me “get it”

• You don’t need many plugins or hardware or anything like that, you just haven’t reached the maximum potential of what you have.

• At the end of the day good songwriting, arrangement and decent mixing is what makes a song good. A good exercise is listening to the demo versions of your favorite songs and notice that the only thing that changed is the timbre and mixing, most of the time the arrangement and structure is the same. if your sound design or mixing is still not as polished as you would like or you haven’t found your sound think of your current sounds/instruments as placeholders, you still need to write the song, sounds can be polished later.

• After learning basic music theory, I searched for more philosophies and advanced concepts that resonated with me. I love and really recommend Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization by George Russell just because I was studying the modes and realized each chord in the diatonic scale is tied to a mode, Lydian is the brightest mode and corresponds to the IV chord in major/bVI in minor, that’s why songs in minor that use bVI chord a lot sound so euphoric, bright, etc. It also covers every harmonic alteration you’d think so lets you have understanding of advanced scales like Harmonic/melodic minor, Gypsy, Arabic, Phrygian dominant and their modes, and when and where to employ them.

• Rhythm is perhaps the most important overlooked aspect in music as time rules everything, perhaps you are getting bored with your music because you haven’t mastered this, a good rhythm can make anything sound good, this is why a lot of modal music relies on it as the harmony is weaker. I studied different types of rhythm and time signatures, I highly recommend David Bennett Piano, he’s the best in YouTube for learning music theory imo.

• Study the harmonic series and its intervals and analyze your favorite sounds/songs, there’s nothing like Renoise to learn sound design just for the spectrum analyzer, I personally have the block size set to 16384 samples and peak fall to +4.8/oct. People that say don’t use your eyes use your ears are stupid imo. Thanks to using my eyes I’m able to use my ears now, I can even play songs by ear now because I finally grasped concepts like chord and non chord tones, melodic syncopation, etc.

• I’m embarrassed to admit I became proficient in Renoise’s keyboard workflow late and I used to obsess over dumb things like having a set LPB/pattern length or certain bus routings or doofers but realizing the ZL, ZT and ZD command exist opened my third eye. This is my template:
  

  

• “untitled” is the zone of experimentation and to do whatever I want, it doesn’t matter if I don’t like something, If it doesn’t fit the song it stays there. Create any variations you can and one of them will be the one. each pattern in untitled uses ZT and ZL commands.
  
  Tell me what other daw would offer this granular control over the bpm per pattern? also I never understood how to make songs in other time signatures in other daws but in renoise is so easy, just change the pattern length! also I can use any LPB I want.

• Between untitled and song there are a bunch ZD (delay line by step) commands just to have space to keep samples playing (much like a timeline in a daw)
  

• The thing about shortcuts is that even if you know them it takes time to get used to them but when you do believe me you’ll be writing songs in no time, these changed everything for me:

fn + <: return to first line of pattern
fn + >: return to last line
fn + updown: navigate pattern every 16 steps

option + arrows to navigate instruments

cmd + updown to navigate song
fn + cmd + arrows to jump to first or last pattern
cmd + < or > to choose another pattern
cmd + k: clone pattern
cmd + k: edit, cmd + I: sampler

Lastly don’t overlook the advanced pattern operations like expand etc, once you start writing patterns fast and start writing songs try to imagine how long everything that you’re doing would take in other DAW or how difficult it would be to do, like literally how everything that you’re doing would look on a piano roll as it’s moving and the PLAYHEAD, I really took for granted how fast jumping and looping anywhere I want in a song is in R.

Good luck and remember to have fun, it’s all that matters.

[tkna]

@Bluethereal I am interested in your proposal.
However, I have not yet understood it to a level I am comfortable with.
Is it possible for you to share a blank template and a file of songs, etc. that document your rough trial-and-error compositions to the template?