Hello friends and Happy New Year.I was thinking it you be interesting to know how other people get motivated to produce music.Share here anything that helps you.It could be a synth preset or a photograph or another person.I my self find good inspiration by visiting looperman and listening to any loop that pops out randomly or by listening new music every day here or on the net.
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Happy new year, friend!
I usually just mess around technically or creatively with something I have until I come up with a result. It is all about fun and play, like a toddler doing random stuff with his stash of lego bricks, and it is a very relaxing experience for me. I might have some random technical sound design idea popping up in my head while I was doing something else - then I would soon be trying to put it into reality in renoise, ending up with something else than expected, but keeping the material that proves interesting as instruments…
Then at times an idea for a song is born somehow, and then I put together some of those instruments to try to make something musical out of it. One of my instruments, me finding a purpose for it, might instigate the process. But also other things… For example just I’ve recalled how I once had let a tts software speak with accent, and decided to make a song out of it, letting some tts software say crafted things as lyrics. Also sometimes special samples inspire me to make a start. Sometimes just a motto - and then I look on the web for interesting samples that could be linked with the motto, and use those as starting point. Seldom I have a vision of a complete tune, and decide to try to make something similar to it - always ending up with something different than imagined, but anyways…
Most of the time I just dig up some project from my stash and put it in front of me, and try to keep making it better or adding something substantial. This inspiration comes from the moment - like I would hear a sound, and it inspires me to do a melody with it, I then hear it as a loop going, and in my head there pops up an idea how it could go on, or how it could be altered, or what else might sound interesting to accompany it.
Then I just keep going with trying to make better what is in front of me, until I’m satisfied with it.
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Are you ever satisfied?Cause I am never satisfied with the results but I have learned that when it gets me very anxious it’s time to let it go and revisit it down the line with a clear head.
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Happy new year mate 
I’d say I’m similar to Cloud in that I like to fool about with different rhythms/melodies until I like something. Occasionally a melody will pop into my head and I’ll write it in a file with a simple VST until I come back to it one day, the problem is I come up with too many of these and don’t tend to them often (what I’m trying to get better at currently)
I enjoy playing video games and I’ve always found them to be a good source of inspiration, since it’s world building, tells stories and has lots of sounds etc. I like writing music alongside voice as well, and I find that vocal samples/weird effects can inspire a melody to fit it.
Other than that I’d probably say just going out and about and listening to the world around me, different sounds can make me think of music by themselves, since I guess you can make music with any sound.
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Lately I’ve been making good tunes after a really crappy day at work. I just come home and think “well, today sucked but there’s always composing”
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Are you ever satisfied?Cause I am never satisfied with the results but I have learned that when it gets me very anxious it’s time to let it go and revisit it down the line with a clear head.
Yes it is another thing to find the right point to “let go”. I am also always unsure about this. Because you can also go the other wrong way, and let go artificially, much too early, this is what happens to me when Im confronted with a deadline… Maybe this will change when I have produced more tracks, and producing them has become a routine with always the same methods. I still have to settle down my way, am still learning while trying to come up with something good.
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Now that you mentioned it, deadlines made me more productive.Contests like the one we have here is a very good practice and we should have more of them frequently.
I get inspired by other musicians mostly. Usually I’ll find someone new and become amazed by the sounds they create, the rhythms come up with, or the clarity of their mixes. Lastly it was artists like Vaetxh, Richard Devine, Valence Drakes, Autechre, etc Then I’ll strive to achieve similar results, but the more I try the more I get frustrated or lost realising I can’t produce like them, or at least not to the quality that they can produce and so I give up and then I take the things I learned while trying and apply them to my own way of making music. And I find that I’m much happier then, taking what I learned and using it to make my own weird, glitchy, semi-abstract, music.
I do have to admit though I’ve turned into a very lazy producer. I don’t watch tutorials, study synthesis, sound design, try to learn other software, or even programme synth patches anymore. I just fuck around with glitching up samples using fx combinations. Then re-glitching over and over. Chop the results and re-arrange them. If I can’t make something in a day or two I’ll either get bored with it and move on, or get lost in too many tracks and lose direction.
All lot of my music these days is made using as little sequencing as possible, it’s all based on probability and conditions. I’ll make like one pattern for each instrument slap on loads of maybe commands and the add loads of randomly automated effects, then let the whole thing run and see what comes out. Then I’ll tweek, then listen, then tweek, then listen, rinse, repeat. The reason behind this is mostly from watching people like Richard Devine create almost-generative music with these massive setups of modular gear doing all sorts of probability type stuff, A effects B which which controls C,D,&E, resulting in X for example. I then try to replicate this type of setup using Renoise. Only problem is while Renoise can do similar things, it feels a lot more limited than modular. You have to do work arounds and even then they don’t actually totally work as you would like. Anyhow maybe someday I’ll be rich and have my own modular gear, but for now I’ll just be broke and gearless.
Really wish I could go back the old days where I would sit and sequence a track note by note, study synthesis, sound design, and try to improve my knowledge, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do it. It just feels to tedious and that’s not what music should be about to me. Maybe in the future…maybe 
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Do what you do man whatever pleases you.
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Strangely I sometimes have such a mind state, so I can already hear a nice composition/song in my ears. It usually happens when I have an heavy lack of sleep, so nothing you should try. Then the problem is to not loose that gentle auditive inspiration. I loose it very quickly, for example if I then am stuck with some annoying technical workflow problems. It’s a bit comparable with dreaming, only if you write down the dream quickly, that you remember immediately after waking up, you will not forget it. So the process of writing down needs to be as fast as possible.
Also when I listened to a lot of good other’s music before, I might be inspired automatically in the next days. Though while direct listening or trying even to copy, I usually am not inspired at all.
Drugs usually do not help me at all with this. It only makes the workflow thing less annoying, very subjectively of course, simply caused by foolishness. But at the same time, I then loose a lot of rational power and awareness of workflow possibilities.
I usually start with the beat / bass, if I am not inspired. I usually start with chords and bass, if I am inspired. I want to change that now, my goal for 2020 is to start the song without any drums, so making the melodic instruments already very rhythmical - that’s what I usually love. Then I will add the beat, as the very last action.
I really like Bitwig 3.11, it’s now really fast, and I love it’s object oriented / receiver concept. It makes a lot of DAW workflow extremely easy, even send channels are great using a single or multiple parallel audio receivers. It heavily simplifies organisation. But I still not always imagine how much more capabilities I have there, like simply layering multiple VSTis on the same track or so. Only workflow killer still is the pianoroll hehe. Of course I love Renoise, too. I love this pattern structure and navigation within it. Or pressing return to hear the current line simply. Gorgeous. So much good concept in Renoise. If now Taktik would program a pattern editor and matrix into Bitwig, it was the perfect DAW.
There are also some really cheap tricks for me to be inspired, like setting up a 16/32 lines random loop in the song, or transposing the whole thing by a semitone or so, just to get another tonality. Or changing the song speed, changing attack/decay times.
I use my phone recorder when i have something in my head so i wont forget it.Also i forgot to mention that when i am a little drunk i compose faster and sing better
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I get inspiration when leave the comfort zone
It can be a concert, a trip or a sad stroke of fate in life.
Technology is an inspiration killer
Renoise, Bitwig, Modular or Guitar Pro 
have infinite possibilities but fail in details, can not or only very cumbersome what I would like
On other Side, When i only knew, use Protracker and nothing else, had no problems and musical output
While I’m upset about these little things, many other people make great music
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I guess when we have everything in our fingertips these days it’s hard to focus on making just music, but yes many people can.
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It is all about finding your ways, how you can put inspirations into sound. You have to trod a lot, try this and that path. If you succeed, you find a path that can lead you the way from idea to tune. I guess that is the secret of success and being productive - to have your save paths set, and then just walk those roads again and again…
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Well said my friend
Out of the many ways people find inspiration, my personal favorite is when you’re just messing around with a scale or instrument and it invokes a certain emotion. I will use that emotion as an inspiration for my tune.
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Many good answers here. Often I find inspiration in new tricks that I learned (music theory, music production), or new instruments that I found. I feel the need to put this into practice.
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Totally true,when i mess around with minor scales i am instantly moved
Music is a constantly learning process and thats the fun of it,always something new to learn every day.
Yep. Another ways to find inspiration for for me:
- It’s often fun to change a DAW or gear and make things in a new way.
- Change the genre you usually work in (or at least music mood from sad to fun for example).
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