So uh... I'm behind a schedule....

Anything about MUSIC but doesn't fit into the forums above.
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...that I set for myself to come up with a few good tracks (about 5-6 decent ones that I can enjoy and that other people might too).

I told myself a year, well in about a month and a half it will be a year.

And I got a couple of crappy finished tracks, and 2 that might turn out just alright if I ever get around to finishing them. One is a track that has tortured me since Summer and split off into 2 or 3 different tracks. The other is one that I think will almost be finished kinda soon.

So assuming I still want to have something to present to others by my year's mark... what do I do?

I kept taking long breaks of a couple of weeks or sometimes a month or so before touching the music again, as if my brain needs time to proccess what I've listened to from other artists, what I've made myself and what I want to do. Looking back at what I did a year ago it was horrid, and now what I got is relatively good. Even comparing what I have now to what I had back 4 months ago is much better... even if overall I don't feel that confident in my currrent quality. So I feel as if I'm improving off of where I started off when I started. (I had messed with music re/mixing stuff before purely for fun, only last year did I set out to make my own stuff).

Part of me thinks that I shouldn't rush it, but just get a more regular time to work on music and practice, but I'm horrible at keeping schedules. Which makes me feel worse as music is the one thing I can point to as something useful I'm doing with my life, which I can't even crack down to do that regularly.

The other part says to suck it up and just try to go through it and put in all the time needed, no matter the quality and/or strain on my sanity but do the best I can especially for the tracks I really like.

But I dunno. Perhaps I care too much about quality, I feel like each track I make and then start to like is a part of my soul and so I want it to at least be somewhat good. If I don't get that 'part of my soul' feeling I can't find the motivation to work on it at all.

I'm really at a loss of how to approach the situation. The only other thing I can think of is make my roommate or someone else to push me when I try to procrastinate.

Now I could push that date back, but I set that goal and I feel as if I should follow through with it. I really don't want to do that.

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Lot's of people get this it's not unusual. It's better than thinking everything you do is great only to find out you're the comedy act on X Factor.

You need to take a step back and think what are the things that stop you starting and prevent you from finishing (other than the not starting thing). I suspect you've set an obstacle for yourself with the "quality" thing and having an EP's worth of "quality" material by a set date.

What do you feel isn't up to par in what you're doing? Is it arrangement/production or composition? Are you focusing too much on production as a way of rescuing a dud production, or are you tinkering with the composition to get to some quality threshold before getting to arrangement and on to production?

It might be worth posting a track or two with a note of why you think it isn't there yet. Other people may have a different feeling about that. Alternatively, take tracks you haven't touched in a couple of weeks or more and listen to them, preferably in a different environment and make notes of how you feel about the pieces and each part. Which elements sound right, what sounds wrong, do important things sound muddled or obscured, whether this bit drags or the transition between parts is too abrupt.

Basically, lots of things that aren't just sitting at the DAW tinkering with it. That way madness lies.

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OK, I found your Soundcloud page.

There's plenty of potential in there. But I wonder whether your heart is in producing psytrance or trance - and this may lie at the heart of the problem. You could be missing out on an identifiable advantage in your earlier rock-oriented stuff that you could introduce psytrance elements into. Mogwai meets Shpongle could be an interesting direction to take.

But, you need some identifiable leads. Or as it's psytrance, wilfully mangled sci-fi samples. The tracks so far have the feeling of being more backing tracks than anything. I'd also sit down and work out where builds and drops need to go (embrace the clichés of the genre). You're building up energy and then letting it dissipate - it's a easy thing to do.

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Gamma-UT wrote:OK, I found your Soundcloud page.

There's plenty of potential in there. But I wonder whether your heart is in producing psytrance or trance - and this may lie at the heart of the problem. You could be missing out on an identifiable advantage in your earlier rock-oriented stuff that you could introduce psytrance elements into. Mogwai meets Shpongle could be an interesting direction to take.

But, you need some identifiable leads. Or as it's psytrance, wilfully mangled sci-fi samples. The tracks so far have the feeling of being more backing tracks than anything. I'd also sit down and work out where builds and drops need to go (embrace the clichés of the genre). You're building up energy and then letting it dissipate - it's a easy thing to do.
Eh the earlier rock stuff wasn't exactly my own, I just mixed around and edited clips on an xbox indie game for that. And that was before I discovered psytrance. I don't listen to rock/metal nearly as much as I used to.

And ya I've thought about the cliche thing but I really hate long breakdowns and the like. I'm more influenced by full-on, 90's Goa and acid trance than straight up rock n' roll. But perhaps I should rethink the style I'm aiming for and see if it clashes with what my brain is trying to make.

Thank you for the advice :)

As for identifiable leads, that's kind of been a weak point I've been trying to sort out... I'd say that is the one thing holding me back more than anything else is dealing with melodies in the lead instrument(s) and their progression throughout the track.

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better effin' get it in gear ...
:P
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Give me 50 laps! I wanna see progress.
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