Out Of Ideas ?

Tips & Tricks
21

Try other daw, i did make many tunes in Studio one lately, but i got bored and jumped back to renoise hehe. Its kinda my way of changing environment from time to time.

22
  • do nothing
  • ride your bike (with TheBellow’s optional dog)
  • watch porn
  • be very, very quiet
  • pretend you are a bird, close your eyes and float over your friends heads (and maybe drop some poo, but remember to clean the room afterwards)
  • go online and write nonsense tips&tricks on the Renoise forums, hoping you might inspire someone else
  • read most articles here http://27bslash6.com/
23
  • load instrument, press record and write on your (computer) kayboard any sentence you like
24
  • remix Circus Galop
25

don’t sit down while making music! ^_^

26

@Matt: i reached for the non-existent ‘Like’-button :)

27

But this forum has a +1 button…

I was gonna say he forgot the plant food though ;)

28

@kazakore: ah yes thanks i almost forgot, pushed it immediately ! :)

29

dive into this big universe of music software (dont forget the 90’s).
try to switch the platform/OS for experimentation.
as soon as you get back to your mainhost boom.

30

if you’re not running linux, install it and try and make it all work.
if you’re already running linux, delete some pretty crucial folder and make it all work again.

anytime you get frustrated because you are running into problems, make some music. :)

31

Place a #Line-In Device (Make sure you have mic plugged in) and a Delay with feedback and time cranked all the way up (Turn the send down a bit too). Throw shit around and make noise. You should now have a unique rhythmic pattern. (Or a bunch of noise) Also hook an LFO to the pan knob on #Line-in.

Also record to tape and then back to computer while violating the moving parts. (Make sure that you don’t know the tape deck personally.)

32

If you generally sequence everything, try (midi)recording parts live even if you can’t play keys very well. Quantize it if it sounds awful, see that it doesn’t quantize like you expected, listen and find out renoise chose a better rhythm for your awesome riffs than you did, bingo!, maybe…

Do the opposite if you usually start composing by hitting the record button with pattern follow enabled.

Or, quit trying and just do some sampling. Construct a kit of sounds that revolve around the vibe you’re after. You don’t have to make anything out of them right away or ever. You can always use samples for something else later. But maybe you’ll get a bit excited about trying your new samples out and make some mad hitz right away.

Read some music theory texts.

Read about about types of music that are not electronic. Mexican, Classical, Indian, bebop jazz, Randy Rhodes, the folk music of your area, whatever. Read from a student/theory perspective and try to implement the song structure, rhythms and/or scales, melody and harmony style etc. in your tracker. So what if you don’t make anything from this that you want to show to your girlfriend(s)? Hopefully you learned something cool to use later.

If all else fails:

Do a cover song.

33
  1. take a nap
  2. dream about the most epic musical idea that has ever caressed the ears of humanity
  3. wake up
  4. get off the couch
  5. get on the computer
  6. actually remember what the idea was
  7. write it down

you get extra points if it still sounds as epic as you remember it from your dream after you’ve written it down.

EDIT:

oh god this site is halerious

34

Finally say “screw it, i’ll just get some hot chocolate and read the manual.”

35
36

Interesting, maybe its tuning up brain? Thx for this tip.

37

Out of ideas? Shave your balls. Sounds stupid but if you don’t do this all the time it might get you into strange state of mind once you do it. Actualy made my hard electro project move :drummer:

38

@vietkong: best idea yet. makes all the others look pretty stupid. :)

39

There is small problem in this idea.

Imagine, You are out of ideas and you have already shaved balls what then?

40

@Simonus: be patient, wait for the hair to grow back, THEN shave the balls again. your ideas will return the moment the razor touches the sack.