How much of your work do you bin?

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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Pelecaras
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How much of your work do you bin?

Post by Pelecaras »

Just to get a feel for people's process and to also reassure myself that it's normal to make loads of rough before a diamond is found.
I was wondering as a (ROUGH) percentage how much of your work you bin and how much goes on to becoming a track/idea etc.

I know the pros will probably have very little chaff but would be interested to hear if I'm progressing as as a rough percentage I bin about 80% of my stuff, a year ago it was 100% so I'm definitely learning this production voodoo shit.
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RWise
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by RWise »

I always like to keep past projects and recordings to recycle sounds, so i never will actually delete anything.

However, i like to make initial ideas for tracks fast. My best tracks have happened the fastest, in terms of base idea and structure. And usually only about 40% of ideas i make turn into full tracks.
But even with full tracks that i finish, only about 20% of them stand the test of time for me to want to still play them out and possibly try and get a release on a label.

It can take a lot of searching through the mud to get the gold sometimes.
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by dubdub »

What do you mean by "bin"? I never really delete anything, I just export it as is when I realize it's not going anywhere. I probably make one finished track for every 10 loops/sketches. I don't think how good are you are has anything to do with the percentage you actually finish.

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Lost to the Void
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by Lost to the Void »

If you are "finishing" every tune, you probably aren't experimenting enough.

Lots of ideas I start don't ever get finished.
Then once I finish stuff I wait until I have a collection of finished stuff, and I assess it all in bulk, and bin the average stuff and keep the cream.

I suppose I let maybe 40% of my stuff at best be declared release worthy.

One thing I have learned over time is when to move on and let go, and not be too precious. Don't be afraid of deleting shit.
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Pelecaras
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by Pelecaras »

dubdub wrote:What do you mean by "bin"? I never really delete anything, I just export it as is when I realize it's not going anywhere. I probably make one finished track for every 10 loops/sketches. I don't think how good are you are has anything to do with the percentage you actually finish.
I never said that buddy, I'm just curious as to whether others bin stuff and by that I mean they realise is absolute shite and delete from their drive.
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P0607r0n
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by P0607r0n »

I work with the machines mostly on "live set" basis. Sometimes I come up with stuff that I would like to keep on the machines, but usually I delete it after couple of weeks, and then again from a blank(ish). When I had audio interface (which sadly got stolen) around 20% of my jams was finishing as some arrangements that I wanted to make track from.

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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by Pelecaras »

Lost to the Void wrote:If you are "finishing" every tune, you probably aren't experimenting enough.
I have the opposite problem, I never finish tracks.
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by Prophän »

I think I bin 45% of my projects, usually it's because I notice they take too much time and start losing their original idea..

Mimui
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by Mimui »

Just today I collected all my tracks that can be used for finishing,
there where like 50+ tracks that had something in it wich was good,
but I just know now from newly gained experience that the total arrangement and so on, wasn 't all that good.

So I made a "salvage" map and did: save as => collect all into that salvage map and delete the original messed up file location.
Now I 'm up for catching the nice sounds and working em out a little (gainstaging and stuff before it goes to my own samplepack).

U can also make .alc files if you 're working with ableton, it saves your total track in a file (midi,synth,fx)
But I rather work with samples since I can sometimes really make a mess when I 'm producing and am a bit scared messing some sounds up.
therefor it 's harder to destruct samples, yet make sure u don 't miss out on essential autamations.

that way u preserve creative ideas u can re-use to make a track in about 5 minutes if u want,
wich leaves u time to be more creative in the arrangement wich is most essentual at the end.

to give you a number;
17 deleted projects (all sounds wich can be designed brainless)
44 for salvaging to a personal samplepack
12 ones i dont know what to do with

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buffered
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by buffered »

i don't save anything unless i feel it's good enough to work longer on.
I'm mainly hardware so i'll get a solid block going and then if its working, i'll record separate tracks into the daw and save the project.
I've trained myself not to be precious. if it's not working after an hour of twiddling knobs, i'll turn off the machines without recording anything.
I keep everything if they have passed the first step of being recorded into the daw. Then from 10 tracks, i'd say 2 are good.
The others will sit near completion and i'll duck in and out on a slow night and just chip away. take things out and solidify.
Fresh ears and distance are important. I'll find that the forgettable tracks sometimes just need something stripped out and they seem ok.
But once i record into the computer, i really make sure that i arrange the track as quickly as possible in that first sitting. This is key for me.

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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by td3l »

>90 % gets canned between stalled-out ideas and ideas that made it into full (albiet rough-cut) tracks. And by canned, I mean just left behind and forgotten in the archive--I delete nothing, as often times there are good sounds that can be re-used in future things.

If you aren't shit-canning a lot of stuff then you probably aren't experimenting and exploring enough. Also:
Pelecaras wrote:I know the pros will probably have very little chaff but would be interested to hear if I'm progressing as as a rough percentage I bin about 80% of my stuff, a year ago it was 100% so I'm definitely learning this production voodoo shit.
Why do you think this is the case? I can pretty much guarantee most pros have just as much chaff as the rest of us.

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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by nomadjames »

All of it.
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by TvSkY »

i try and 90% finish 90% of my tracks . but I would say half my tracks just sit on the HDD unheard for all time. But I try and finish them now and see where the end up rather than abandoning them at the early stages

sometimes i find the track you thought was crap at the initial stages turns out great

also I have started rewriting tracks I have finished but not super happy with . these can turn out great and really different as you purposely take a different path with them than you may otherwise

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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by rsntr »

I don't bin anything since I never know whether I might consider an element of a failed track to be worth using in the future.

Aside from that, I finish probably more than 90% of the tracks I started, meaning getting the arrangement and a rough mix together. Similarly to Voidloss I let finished tracks rest and assess in bulk, deciding what gets a proper mixdown treatment. That's probably not more than 1/3 of all finished tracks. But what always surprises me is when people like tracks that I'm rather embarassed of and don't consider to be good at all. I guess it's not always for the artist to decide what work is to be enjoyed.

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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by ZenoSupreme »

back when i was making hiphop, I finished about 30% of the beats. But actual rapping was done on about 5% of the beats. Back then I would start a project and if I liked it, I would finish it asap, the rest would just perrisch on my hard disk...

now with techno it's quite different. I work on different projects at the same time. I dont care if a project remains on the shelf for a whyle, because the music is more connected to how I feel, and I dont feel the same every day. This also resultst in having a lot of versions for the same project, whitch are alle a bit different, but still whith the same backbone. If I would take the percentage of all the versions I would bin more than 95%, If I just look at the projects I would say around 75% gets to see the light of day :)

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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by msl »

I discard most of the track ideas i come up with. I finish about 20% of the tracks I start. But only 5% makes the final cut or about 1 in 20 will be a final released track.

I have hundreds upon hundreds of unfinished, half tracks and ideas on my HD that were "just not good enough". I reuse the elements I like from these however by exporting them as loops in my own library. Very occasionally I'll go back to a "good idea that wasn't quite enough" from years ago and rework it.
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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by disparate »

Lost to the Void wrote:If you are "finishing" every tune, you probably aren't experimenting enough.

Lots of ideas I start don't ever get finished.
Then once I finish stuff I wait until I have a collection of finished stuff, and I assess it all in bulk, and bin the average stuff and keep the cream.

I suppose I let maybe 40% of my stuff at best be declared release worthy.

One thing I have learned over time is when to move on and let go, and not be too precious. Don't be afraid of deleting shit.
I went through the classic phase of not feeling my music was improving alongside not finishing that many tracks, so alongside generally trying to be more disciplined and put in the hours I decided to embrace the "finish everything you start" even if it's not all great, quantity-begets-quality, Mike Monday type approach.

It definitely got me out of a rut and I finished lots of tracks over the year or two since adopting that, 100ish. And it certainly improved my ability to go from a loop to an arrangement and my mixing skills (how are you gonna practice mixdowns if you never finish arrangements...) and general muscle memory with my gear/DAW etc, so no regrets.

However it did mean I'd made a lot of mediocre music that I was never gonna do anything with, and felt like skills best developed through experimenting, reading/tutorials, etc. like sound design and drum programming hadn't kept up with making finished and technically proficient music. Probably talking a 10-20% "hit rate".

So now I'm just trying to balance both really. Keep consistently finishing music but give time to learning and experimenting too, and hone my instinct for whether an idea's worth finishing or not cos there's not enough time in the world to keep finishing everything I start ;)

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Re: How much of your work do you bin?

Post by innovine »

I bin everything.

I work mostly with hardware, and I do save some presets and patches, especially a collection of samples processed together into a coherent drumkit, but generally I go for a live or nearly-live session, just jamming around for the evening, and then turn everything off. If I try to actually work on a track, I don't like that "work" bit. So I just play and try to keep in the moment, and ditching everything is part of that. Keeps me happy and I've no particular interest in releasing anything.


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