Writers block

[sonome]

Give me a workaround for this - I wake up go to my DAW then nothing happens, shall I route an aux send from my bed into my DAW then back to the bed for a more productive feedback loop?
What are your fave tips for dealing with writers block / self doubt / procrastination / unfinished tracks etc...

[Lost to the Void]

Go for a walk. Walking is a great way to trigger inspiration, especially for rhythmic music.

[collide]

Wank to increase selfdoubts - more wanking - collapsing - depression -> INSPIRATION!

[pskept]

do anything else. i can't force my self to do creative work not even at my day job. it doesn't matter who is breathing down my neck. it flows when it flows. at normal work i will sit for days on end staring, depressed, brain not functioning, then i'll have a burst of energy and get several days work done in a few hours. its odd but i just ride the wave instead of naively attempting to control it.

when i'm writing music if i get some block in the middle of working on something i'll get pissed of and just start flinging knobs and buttons in any direction and often this will create something that piques my interest again and get things moving. drastic bpm fluctuations can do the same thing. this technique does not work at my day job.

[Martin]

My tip would be to stop focusing on the end result for a while and just focus on the process of creating and what you do there. Maybe develop your skills in a particular area, or try using your tools in new ways, or create sounds in a new way ( field recording, piezo contact mics, hook up a vinyl player and go to a flee market and buy some strange records to sample etc. etc.).

[Kromasome]

Experiment with no regard whatsoever to making an actual track. Save the project if you hear something interesting. If not, just close the session and be happy you got to learn something new and have a play with things without any pressure on yourself to make a track. Think of it like training in sport - more practice leads to better performance during the game (if you get my analogy)

Just go nuts for a while, don't worry about technique or theory just throw something in and start messing around with it. Record the output, chop it up, mess around with it some more.

Watch a tutorial and then see what you can do with what you've learnt.

Build a template so you have something to at least start with - don't have a blank project for now, so at least there is some noise to play with from the very start.
Sounds strange, but that blank page can be very confrontational when you get stuck.

Do stuff that is completely against the "normal rules" - this is where interesting sounds can often be found. Once you have an interesting core idea, you can then apply more normal technique/theory/processes to build the rest of the track around it.

Try to copy/emulate a track you really admire - just to get things moving again (I'm not condoning outright plagiarism)

Dig out a plug-in you haven't used for a while or never normally use - put some effects on it that you wouldn't normally use then add reverb, delay whatever

Only start thinking about making and finishing tracks once you have developed some more/new creative processes.

Maybe do something other than going to the computer after you wake up - maybe go outside and get some fresh air first.

Self-doubt is unlikely to ever leave you - particularly if you really care about what you are doing and you have high standards - learning to manage the self-doubt is an art form in itself.

[Merah]

Pack your bags and go to the station without them, catch the train and leave yourself behind.

[gedda]

Go for a walk. Walking is a great way to trigger inspiration, especially for rhythmic music.

And don't forget to bring a field recorder!

[innovine]

Buy more gear

[Alume]

Go for a walk. Walking is a great way to trigger inspiration, especially for rhythmic music.

Very true, i prefer to take an hour walk before switching the machines on.

Sometimes, i record the ideas i have in my head by humming&beatboxing them

[buffered]

watching tutorials from sound and mixing engineers that work in rock music can be good. They do many things to treat drums which are quite interesting and can be used to experiment with.
I particularly like ones regarding gating of drum kits and drum replacement techniques.

[Mslwte]

Give me a workaround for this - I wake up go to my DAW then nothing happens, shall I route an aux send from my bed into my DAW then back to the bed for a more productive feedback loop?
What are your fave tips for dealing with writers block / self doubt / procrastination / unfinished tracks etc...

walk away from the studio completely. ive not made music for months because ive not been feeling it. or make another genre as something to practice. do something else basically.

[sonome]

Okay so it's settled I'll go for a walk next time this happens and I'll definitely bring a recorder - that's an awesome idea!

[rsntr]

I realised that the main reason for writer's block is that you create one element of a track which you really like and you start to fear that you won't come up with a complementing element that's equally good. So you're essentially afraid that you'll mess up your basic idea and at this point you're stuck. It's like you're afraid that you have only a limited amount of ideas but in fact if you train your creative muscle ideas will keep coming. For me the best cure against writer's block is to keep creating, regardless if it's good or not.

Sometimes when I'm stuck with a track I force myself to try to come up with 3 new (alternative) elements within 30 minutes. They don't have to be good, there just has to be something. After the 30 minutes are over I just leave them and get back to it the next day. Sometimes I won't like any of them the next day but at that moment I might come up with something which works. Doing mediocre things (which no one but you has to hear) paves the way to good things.

[rsntr]

extra tip:

read "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield

[buffered]

Sometimes when I'm stuck with a track I force myself to try to come up with 3 new (alternative) elements within 30 minutes. They don't have to be good, there just has to be something. After the 30 minutes are over I just leave them and get back to it the next day. Sometimes I won't like any of them the next day but at that moment I might come up with something which works. Doing mediocre things (which no one but you has to hear) paves the way to good things.

nah just make decisions. Stop being precious and do it. Why make 3 new elements? Just continue on with a simple idea. Keep to a simple robust idea, don't convolute.
Really it is not that hard. Stop overthinking and just move forward.
As many people have said on here previous, some of the tracks they are most happy with are put together in a very short period of time. This is because they didn't get to the crippling overthinking part.
The overthinking is the part to overcome. No multiple versions, just one version. sit down and do it.
If it turns out shit, the next one will be less shit....maybe

[rsntr]

Sometimes when I'm stuck with a track I force myself to try to come up with 3 new (alternative) elements within 30 minutes. They don't have to be good, there just has to be something. After the 30 minutes are over I just leave them and get back to it the next day. Sometimes I won't like any of them the next day but at that moment I might come up with something which works. Doing mediocre things (which no one but you has to hear) paves the way to good things.

nah just make decisions. Stop being precious and do it. Why make 3 new elements? Just continue on with a simple idea. Keep to a simple robust idea, don't convolute.
Really it is not that hard. Stop overthinking and just move forward.
As many people have said on here previous, some of the tracks they are most happy with are put together in a very short period of time. This is because they didn't get to the crippling overthinking part.
The overthinking is the part to overcome. No multiple versions, just one version. sit down and do it.
If it turns out shit, the next one will be less shit....maybe

What you're suggesting is essentially the point I'm making here. I might have been unclear at this point. I'm not suggesting to clutter your track with 3 new elements. When you're stuck, you make 3 new things within a short amount of time, pick the one you like best at the end and forget about the rest. The whole point is to make decisions fast. So instead of thinking: "mmmh.. is this one thing really good enoug? maybe I should work on it longer" you give yourself a few options very quickly and pick the best. Of course there's no need to do that if you love the first thing you do. This approach is about developing momentum in case you're stuck in order to actually stop the process of overthinking. Not a technique I'm suggesting to use all the time.

[Merah]

Resample resample resample

[Mslwte]

look for images like the one in Merah's soundcloud link ^

[Planar]

As other suggest, don't force it. Create interesting sounds and save them to a library if you're not inspired to flesh it out. Do this long enough and you'll have a bunch of sounds that you can go to to when you hit a wall with a later track you do want to finish.