Hi guys,
Does anyone have any tips/systems in place to finish tracks ?
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Good question!
Welp, sometimes i like to start from the āmiddleāā¦ 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 itās 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 speakā¦ 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.
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Listen + do stuff in a feedback loop until you like it 
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- Create your āmain patternā (all instruments of the āmain compositionā)
- Loop your main pattern and mute/unmute tracks until you know how to start the song
- Compose the build up from start to main pattern by using the ā2 instrument techniqueā
(which means if youāre adding instruments, it should be at least 2 at the same time) - Make sure thereās movement from start to finish, and donāt use any pattern twice
- After main pattern have a break and/or do a āside compositionā, but always keep the movement
- At the end of the song bring back some parts from the beginning
- And something like that, and so onā¦ But it also depends on what style you would like to do.
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Keep working on it til it stops getting better. Then itās 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
Thereās good advice in this thread, but I donāt think any amount of tricks will solve your problem. The most important question to ask yourself is: āwhy do I want to finish tracks?ā Do you want to release an album? Do you need new DJ material? Without a tangible, real-world aim, youāre 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.
Iām speaking from personal experience. I love the process of making music, but Iāve 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; itās not really a choice.
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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.
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I feel that many of us go through this, but itās hard to talk about. If Iāve managed to have any positive influence then Iām quite pleased. Enjoy your project!
Iām a perfectionist and Iāve been self learning about music theory and production for 6 years and on one side Iām glad I didnāt waste my time writing songs when I had no business doing so just because itās been just now where I really feel comfortable in my understanding and confidence to do anything I want, Iām 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 āget itā
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You donāt need many plugins or hardware or anything like that, you just havenāt reached the maximum potential of what you have.
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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 havenāt found your sound think of your current sounds/instruments as placeholders, you still need to write the song, sounds can be polished later.
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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, thatās why songs in minor that use bVI chord a lot sound so euphoric, bright, etc. It also covers every harmonic alteration youād 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.
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Rhythm is perhaps the most important overlooked aspect in music as time rules everything, perhaps you are getting bored with your music because you havenāt 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, heās the best in YouTube for learning music theory imo.
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Study the harmonic series and its intervals and analyze your favorite sounds/songs, thereās 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 donāt use your eyes use your ears are stupid imo. Thanks to using my eyes Iām 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.
Good luck and remember to have fun, itās all that matters. 
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@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?
Bumping an old thread, but this is something Iāve been thinking about a lot. Iām curious how many of you have tried the technique of writing one new track per day (or week, whatever you have time for) as a way of keeping things fresh and enforcing deadlines. The goal should be to get as far as possible, and avoid the feeling of āwell, thereās always laterā¦ā
I did this when I was starting with music creation back in 1991. Iāve created at least one track each day. Sometimes 2, sometimes 3 and sometimes even 4. But this was only possible because everything about mixing and mastering was left out completely (regardless of the fact that this wasnāt possible on SoundTracker anyway). And of course those tracks didnāt sound āprofessionalā at all, it was quite the opposite. Today I couldnāt even think of creating that way. If youāre rushing through production just to be finished at the end of the day or the week or whatever, creating would turn into a kind of assembly line work, which is bad for both composition and mix/master. The result would suck and you would never be satisfied with it. And thereās absolutely no point in releasing something youāre not satisfied with. So no, I refuse to use that technique.
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Interesting take, but I see things pretty differently. For me this is more of an exercise in killing perfectionism, not a mechanical effort to accumulate a mountain of work for release. For me the alternatives are typically: 1. start a new track almost daily anyway, and put off finishing it because time is infinite or 2. work for months on the same track until all the life is gone from it. So this experiment is more like a cold shower to shock myself out of those patterns, if that makes sense.
Besides, some of my favorite music was written and recorded in a day. Quality control is an orthogonal issue. 