I've spent years writing and producing music in ableton, often with no real progress. I'd write good parts, often catchy choruses and melodies, but could never get around to finishing a song. I probably have over 200 saved projects that never went anywhere.
The problem had to do with my character and approach to writing music. I'm not a massive technical nerd, but also a perfectionist, so I'd spend ages just tweaking shit, trying new vsts (thinking that'd fix the problem), etc, and end up getting super frustrated.
I'd previously been in guitar bands, usually playing bass guitar, and the process of writing songs in a purely fun, creative sense, is what I'm all about. That part I adore.
My big revelation came when I saw a clip of this newish band, Youth Code (industrial stuff, but the idea is still relevant). Their whole attitude was that of simplicity, diy, energy. Their first songs were all written with a Korg Emx (a hardware sequencer/drum machine/synth, all in one type device).
Luckily enough my friend had an emx, so I bought it off him and started learning to program it (really easy and intuitive to use). My plan was to only use this thing to write music. Within a few months, I'd made more progress than I had done with years of writing in ableton. I've now played my biggest live show yet and have had some amazing feed back.
TLDR: Think about your goals with writing, think critically about your approach, don't get overwhelmed with decisions and options. Get to the root of the your ambition, break down tasks and try have fun. Don't think you have to copy other professional techniques, and how they do things, and don't think everything has to be perfect (particularly with settings on knobs or whatever, trust your ears). This is a miserable path most of the time.
Submitted August 28, 2017 at 01:20AM by roland8888 https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/6wh4dp/biggest_and_most_simple_thing_that_changed/?utm_source=ifttt