need some guidance on some of the basics

[simon_marklar]

Hey All, its been a while, long time no type

I've been dabbling with making music for at least 18 years now, mostly just sketching out ideas in a DAW and never finishing anything.I'm trying to figure out how i go from a few random loops or sounds to something more. doesnt have to be a track, I just to move to the next stage.

My biggest problem is lost work and sometimes this makes me give up on a project (if the work was substantial and i had ideas for that bit of lost work) because I've done heaps of edits and didnt save the project for a long time or I did save the project but I forgot about all the random shit I changed for whatever reason that I didnt like and now its saved and I cant undo it. basically im finding it really easy to overwrite something I dont want to overwrite because my workflow is haphazard and naive.

I've thought of using "save project as" to make a new version of the project ends up with a cluttered file system and badly named files, not to mention what if you just want to save a couple of things (eg a midi track or something that can only be saved at project level and not as a preset) but have heaps of other edits to all the other parts of your track that you think are shit and dont want to save? Is it a case of being diligent and only working on one thing and saving when its done, or do you clone whatever it is you are wanting to work on so it can be discarded if the edits suck?

also I thought bouncing a track to an audio file could also be a viable method, but then you're stuck with audio


Question: What are some basic practices that are not DAW specific (a process i guess) that can help with managing a project and its assets (eg presets for effects/synths, duplicate a synth and its midi track or bounce it to audio before adjusting the knobs etc), that reduce the amount of work i loose.

DAWs should integrate something like Git or SVN, now that would be AWESOME

thanks!!!

[Oktagon]

It’s kind of difficult to recommend a workflow without knowing what DAW you’re using. Eg on Ableton it’s easy to drag sections of your project into the browser - tracks, clips. Ableton also automatically creates a backup of your set when you save in v10.

It does sound like part of it is a problem with committing though. It’s normal to worry about whether you’re making things better or worse. Usually it’s best to just keep moving though because the most important thing for me is momentum.

[ZenoSupreme]

^+1

I use fl studio, and i can only recomend what I do, besides save as off course. I clone channels (eg. VST synths plugins so I can tweak them without changing the original). after tweaking I A/B them. Somethimes I do this with mixer tracks to. but than again I'm pretty sure of myself when I want to change something in the mixer track, so most of the time I just take out what I want to change (no regret).

I think that the best advice that works with every DAW is to imagine what you want to change and why you want to change it, and than change it if it needs change.
cluttering up your save folder whit shitty names for files is always a bad habbit; try making sub folder for each song, than name the files accordingly (eg. song 1, song 1_different bassline). When the song is done, trow away the rest of the files (or trow some away when you know you're not gonna use them anymore).

keep things simple for yourself, escpecialy when keeping track of projects and not finishing them is a problem for you.

good luck!

[Lost to the Void]

It sounds like you are overworking stuff, saving multiple versions and are afraid of killing your babies.

I think it`s not really a matter of technique as it is philosophy.

Don`t save multiple versions, commit to thing, move on, retain the immediacy, otherwise all the vibe and viscerality gets lost in multiple edits and fiddling and "is tunesave 127 A better than tunesave 136 B?"

Strip back your processes, make music, if it loses it`s immediacy stop fiddling.

Don`t be afraid of deleting or binning music, some shit just needs to die so you can move on.

[simon_marklar]

It’s kind of difficult to recommend a workflow without knowing what DAW you’re using. Eg on Ableton it’s easy to drag sections of your project into the browser - tracks, clips. Ableton also automatically creates a backup of your set when you save in v10.

It does sound like part of it is a problem with committing though. It’s normal to worry about whether you’re making things better or worse. Usually it’s best to just keep moving though because the most important thing for me is momentum.

I'm using MuTools.

I'm pretty sure the problem that i am having is more philosophical, i.e. it comes from my brain over thinking things and the symptoms that present are that I lose work then give up.

You're right about momentum. The only track I've ever finished i did in one day on FL studio, funnily enough I was coming down from acid so the brain wasn't present to sabotage hah

[simon_marklar]

It sounds like you are overworking stuff, saving multiple versions and are afraid of killing your babies.

I think it`s not really a matter of technique as it is philosophy.

Don`t save multiple versions, commit to thing, move on, retain the immediacy, otherwise all the vibe and viscerality gets lost in multiple edits and fiddling and "is tunesave 127 A better than tunesave 136 B?"

Strip back your processes, make music, if it loses it`s immediacy stop fiddling.

Don`t be afraid of deleting or binning music, some shit just needs to die so you can move on.

nah, its not that anal... yet... hahha

Its more like , I something sounding good, then think "i want that sound to rise and fall" or whatever and then i'll try and make the sound do what i hear in my head by twisting knobs or automation. its here that I make too many changes because i dont really know what im doing (its just a hobby that helps me with my anxiety - i am not a musician just a dabbler), eventually i fuck it all up and realise that my last save is missing so much that I cant replicate it or something else and i give up.

Thats why i asked for best practices - ways to work that reduce the chance of me being dumb and losing work. I guess i was thinking theres some basic knowledge that i was missing, some thing so obvious and simple that i wont see it because im looking for complicated solutions

But you are right, i fiddle too much and what was exciting and occupied and distracted me from life turns into work and becomes a chore, which is why i give up until i get the urge to start again, which can be years later...

[Oktagon]

WhatsApp Image 2019-02-22 at 00.14.50.jpeg (90.88 KiB) Viewed 5310 times

[Planar]

So as already advised, this will differ per DAW, Ableton makes a lot of this easier with it’s clip library.

I create a folder per project, I keep multiple copies of that project inside the folder and use semantic versioning. I only do this by the time I’m at the arrangement stage as that’s the only time I’m likely to make difficult to reverse changes with automation or destructive editing. I don’t bump version numbers for minor things, it has to be a big change, no naming things after changes I've made either. I've only gone back to older versions a few times ever, but I do appreciate having them there just in case.

Unused projects get archived into a dedicated folder. I never go back to these to improve them, but I do dip into them to steal ideas or if I’m stuck (again, Ableton shines here). Sometimes I’ll spend an hour organising my project folder to keep it manageable, but there is usually 1 current project anyway unless I’ve been working on sound design type stuff when I might have a few projects hanging around, so I know exactly what I’m working on. Just some basic discipline.

I commit to audio very quickly now and if something gets to the arrangement phase then it’s the only thing I work on until it's done. Multiple projects going at once just doesn’t work for me, it’s too easy to tinker with something else rather than go through the grind of finishing.

I say just finish something, try not to get bogged down in detail and just get through it. In the end it won’t be what you want, but then you work on something else and finish that. Eventually it becomes a habit and you get better at sticking to the task when your project gets more involved.

[SpecificObjects]

Its more like , I something sounding good, then think "i want that sound to rise and fall" or whatever and then i'll try and make the sound do what i hear in my head by twisting knobs or automation. its here that I make too many changes because i dont really know what im doing (its just a hobby that helps me with my anxiety - i am not a musician just a dabbler), eventually i fuck it all up and realise that my last save is missing so much that I cant replicate it or something else and i give up.

Thats why i asked for best practices - ways to work that reduce the chance of me being dumb and losing work. I guess i was thinking theres some basic knowledge that i was missing, some thing so obvious and simple that i wont see it because im looking for complicated solutions

But you are right, i fiddle too much and what was exciting and occupied and distracted me from life turns into work and becomes a chore, which is why i give up until i get the urge to start again, which can be years later...

If your problem is that you fiddle too much with parameters you don't know the impact of I'd suggest writing down their states or numeric values the moment you think a sound is well designed but needs some automation. It's cumbersome, but then you'll always be able to recreate what you had when you're fucking the sound design up. And you won't end up with endless save files on your disk.

Best option would be of course to just learn what every knob is doing. Focus on one sound generating plugin at once, only make sounds with that one until you're confident with its parameters. That way you can make elaborate choices instead of guesswork. Many software synths or samplers have the same kind of options anyway and once you'll get used to them it becomes easy to adapt to a new one.

Of course it's also okay to just play around and be happy with a random result, but if you want to see progress with your music I'm afraid you'll have to put in the work of learning the principles of it. In the long run there's no way around. The way I see it is that the base of your problem is that you're unsure of what you actually want to achieve when you open up that DAW and until you've figured this out it will be hard to make choices in the first place.

[Akaspeedy]

Its more like , I something sounding good, then think "i want that sound to rise and fall" or whatever and then i'll try and make the sound do what i hear in my head by twisting knobs or automation. its here that I make too many changes because i dont really know what im doing (its just a hobby that helps me with my anxiety - i am not a musician just a dabbler), eventually i fuck it all up and realise that my last save is missing so much that I cant replicate it or something else and i give up.

Thats why i asked for best practices - ways to work that reduce the chance of me being dumb and losing work. I guess i was thinking theres some basic knowledge that i was missing, some thing so obvious and simple that i wont see it because im looking for complicated solutions

But you are right, i fiddle too much and what was exciting and occupied and distracted me from life turns into work and becomes a chore, which is why i give up until i get the urge to start again, which can be years later...

Im guilty of this myself.......we are searching for the perfect sound, and when it doesn't meet our expectations, we give up thinking we are useless at writing music......in the few weeks of reading this forum and a few days interacting here....Ive learnt that its just best to make music, and not get bogged down by semantics......there are set skills in every aspect of music.....just focus on doing the thing you enjoy....creating music......ive been stuck in 8 bar loop syndrome for years, rarely finishing or at least sequencing a track to a point that I can say its done enough. Your not a master mix engineer....your not a master mastering engineer...just write music

[cosmicmassif]

If you find a really good sound, save the preset somewhere, so you can come back to it and use it later. I don't save multiple versions of the project though, even having that available would slow me down too much I think. I had trouble with this before but I realized you just need to always move forward instead of constantly looking back at other versions.

[simon_marklar]

Of course it's also okay to just play around and be happy with a random result, but if you want to see progress with your music I'm afraid you'll have to put in the work of learning the principles of it. In the long run there's no way around. The way I see it is that the base of your problem is that you're unsure of what you actually want to achieve when you open up that DAW and until you've figured this out it will be hard to make choices in the first place.

Yes, this is a big part. I know what I want some part to sound like, just not how to translate that into a patch or whatever. I've got a basic understanding based on observations on what happens when i turn a knob etc but most times i'm listening to the output and thinking to myself "I have no idea how that sound came about" - its all trial and error which leads to turning one knob too far which loses the sound and i just cant get it back to how it was -> frustration -> bin it. but the trial and error has produced some wicked sounds and interactions... until i tweak it too much... as steve said, I need to commit and move on.

But if i knew the technical details of making sounds, rather than randomly striking gold and thinking "what if i keep going, maybe something better will come up" then I could get something close to what i want, commit to it and move on, and i might actually finish something.

Now, to spend some time with mr google finding some guides....

thank you all, this has been illuminating!

[Lost to the Void]

This has been touched on already.

But just make music. Finish tracks. Don't get bogged down with the minutae of mixing.
A great tune is more important than a well produced one. If the tune is solid and works and keeps you interested that's important. If you have that, then start worrying about the details.
Look carefully at the musical space around what you have as you make it. If all your sounds are in the midst, look for stuff that sits elsware.
I always think when composing techno you need to think like a classical composer rather than as a band or whatever. Examine the music space as you add to it, compose with the audio spectrum in mind. Be aware of what you are filling and where and what with . Once you nail this along with the actual musicality of composition, then everything will already be slotting together naturally and therefore final production will be less daunting.
You are a composer, you are putting together an orchestra, not a band, you are in charge of everything, and so knowledge of this in context will help with everything.