Mental Health Problem, Can'T Stop A Loop Jam. Can'T Finish Son

Basically, I don’t have writers block - got a real good jam going on at the moment, a dubstep loop but like always I just don’t wanna stop jamming and can never be bothered to start sequencing the song properly. It’s not that I dont know how, it’s just I love jamming. Been on this loop now for 2 or 3 days. Helllllllp!

You can try this: record your jamming live for about an hour, then cut it up and arrange the best pieces into a song. New ideas will come on top of what you already have. Or you can do a parallel live jam along with what you have arranged, then paste on top, and repeat as long as you like.

This has its definite downsides, most notably not being able to tweak individual sounds afterwards (unless you have recorded all tracks individually, via Rewire for example, which will give you more control), but is a pretty quick and fun way to get unstuck.

Force yourself. Shoot your darling in the head! I know not of another way.

I have had this problem MANY times & MY best tip for you is simply to put the song aside & do something else for a while (maby start working on a new song ?). My experiance is that, IF you force yourself to finish a song, the song will not come out the way you want it… Good Luck !! :walkman:

wish I could be there to help you arrange the song.

But wouldn’t you rather have a song you’re not happy with (to maybe revisit later), than none at all? Time passes, stuff happens, ideas get lost. Just a thought.

Maybe part of the cause of feeling unable/unwilling to start the actual song is being afraid you might fail in achieving the song you’re after… well… we all feel your pain, but you’re doomed if you don’t try ^^

But wouldn’t you rather have a song you’re not happy with (to maybe revisit later), than none at all? Time passes, stuff happens, ideas get lost. Just a thought.

It can actually be a good idea to do so (did not think about that), LOL! In my case it is very rare that I save songs that I do not get anywhere with … But hey, that’s what I usually do …
:blink:

Force yourself to finish a song, if not that one you’re stuck on.
Then you’ll know the feeling of being in that “zone”.
Maybe do an OHC or whatever.

Sounds familiar… What I do in such a situation, is I get away from the computer and any musical instrument, and work out a very rough structure for the song on paper. Then I work it out in Renoise by creating some new empty patterns with descriptive names like “intro”, “drums fade out”, “filtered guitar loop enters”, etc. I find that having a structure to work with helps me focus on creating a song rather than endlessly jamming to a loop (although I still do that too much!), even if the final structure turns out different from what I planned.

Learn to be a plumber. I hear there’s good money in that.

record your self saying “my face will melt and my toes will pop, if i dont write a song that goes to the top”. loop it for 6-8 hours while your asleep. when you wake up your bound to be either insane, or on the verge of the best song ever written,with all the motivation of…well…Mr Motavator and Hitlers german shepards after a head swap operation.

It didnt work for me tho.


record your self saying “my face will melt and my toes will pop, if i dont write a song that goes to the top”. loop it for 6-8 hours while your asleep. when you wake up your bound to be either insane, or on the verge of the best song ever written,with all the motivation of…well…Mr Motavator and Hitlers german shepards after a head swap operation.

It didnt work for me tho.
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Hahahahahaha ! Funny tip, gonna try that one myself the next time I get stuck :lol:

Other than the conceptual type learning stuff I do often.
Sometimes I have to look at it like work, that I want to finish.

But if you’re just doing it for fun, by all means, Have Fun!

i recognize this sentiment, mah gud sir! (even made a thread about it! D:)

writing parts is fun but arranging the whole she-bang is often not so fun and the hardest part for me (i guess that’s why it’s not so fun heh). i try to think that a good arrangement will make this little loop or part all the more efficient to motivate myself. but i’m shit at arranging stuff so… ye. fml. gotdiaf :< (////////-’)

Only if busting up bricks with your head is your thing…

thanks for all the replies guys :walkman:

gotta say, apart from it being fun, I completly forgot to mention my self that it is indeed a good way of brainstorming ideas and sounds for your tune. but after 3 days of loading it up thinking you’re gonna actually structure the tune and just jam again is a bit annoying, and shows how lazy I am. I’ll try the trick of doing something completly different and then coming back to it.
or, record a tape loop of telling my self my face will melt or take a course on plumbing :lol:

Been there, done that, all too many times. All I can say is that 2.5 and its improved “pattern order editor” makes it easier to breakaway from that pattern (no pun intended). Now it is almost as easy as Cubase to arrange your song and make variations.

I always get this. What I do is leave it and start a new track or continue on a different one. If it’s a good loop then I know that when i’m feeling creative i’ll be able to go back and arrange the whole track in 1-3 days. The arranger has really helped speed up the loops-to-track transition.

overcoming loopitis

edit: I’ll try to think horizontal instead of vertical myself :rolleyes:

can you post us the loop?