subsekt

what are your tips on keeping the ears fresh?? like taking a 10 minutes break every hour? I read an interview from a well known techno producer where he said that every project he start he makes only the main body of the track and then he leaves it and start another project. after 2 weeks he goes back to the previous track with fresh ears, and this help him creatively as well.

I have to say that sometimes I get hypnotized from my own projects for spending too much time on it, and at the end I get nothing better out of it, for this reason I ask tips on this matter!

There is no golden rule right here. If you are mixing your track and you are not adjusting extremely like in the arranging, creative process then it is good to take breaks, like you wrote.

Starting a new project again and again could work also, it's different for everyone how one like to work. I work like that, even start a chilled project after some industrial madness, to use and maximize out my creativity in different areas, because like the ears, the mind gets tired too.

Ears physically get overdriven if you listen to the same loop again and again, specially if you do it on high volume, so after a while small breaks are cool to get a bit refreshed, get out of the loop.

While I am in my creative process, I tend to walk around the studio a lot. with higher volume even go to the kitchen, make a sandwich and let my imagination work on the mix further instead of the detailed sounds, due to fact of different reverberation around my place and how simply sound travels around.

When mixing or doing sound design I have a cd player hooked up and just listen to a track (or even just 20secs) every so often. I don't generally go more than 30mins without listening to a few bars of something else, sometimes a tune like what I'm working on, mostly just random stuff.

also, I know from tweaking guitar patches for hours/days that any sense of objectivity is lost after 10-20mins, and its extremely helpful to switch to something else for a minute, othrwise your ears jus start to automatically eq out harsh or irritating frequencies, or you become more sensitive to sounds that aren't in the main tone you're working on. I don't know any psychoacoustics but assume this is well researched..

I think one can differentiate between ears' physical fatigue and the phenomena of simply getting bored with your ideas because you've listened to the same loop a million of times.

What helps against fatigue is listening generally at a low volume and regular breaks. A cure against getting bored is to stop listening to your ideas/loops as soon as you stop having concrete ideas that you want to work on. Just force yourself to stop listening to your stuff while you still find it exciting. Otherwise you'll most likely kill your creative flow.

I have a process when I make music.

I go through an ideas period, where I spend probably no more than an hour on a track/idea.

I do this intensely for about 2 weeks.

Then I go back through the ideas, bin the shit that doesn`t grab me, flesh out the stuff that does, so maybe 2-3 hours per track, maybe another week or 2.

Then final sweeps and cleanups, mixdowns. Again, bin anything that isn`t really working.
No time limit.

Final listen through on each track one by one, record the ones that work, bin the rest.

Job done. Process takes maybe a month to 2 months (to 3 sometimes) to get something like 12 tracks locked down.

Kinda old school really, more like working as a band would, but it means my sound tends to be more thematically and tonally consistent. Just doing a new track each week, or 2 or 3 seems to stifle movement, it prevents an overarching "feel" or direction from developing. It just becomes "tracks".

I try to produce everyday around 2-3 hours with low volume on my monitors but on Sundays. I don't listen to techno at all outside these hours and if I'm not looking for new tunes, so I won't get "bored" with it.

In terms of actual hearing I'll take a break once I know I'm no longer hearing with clarity. Ideas wise similar once it goes stale put aside to return to at a later date. If I'm lucky I'll get the bulk of the ideas nailed and some sort of mixdown in a sitting but not always. Always nice to build a pool of stuff to dig back through like Steve says.

Usually I try and take a decent break (like, at least till the next day) between making the elements of my tracks and moving to the arranging process. As for when i decide to do that, I kind of take queues from myself in my behavior. For example, if I notice that I'm no longer adding anything, and just fiddling with knobs, I take that as a sign that my ears are getting tired and it's time to at least work on another project for a bit. If I'm just constantly doing that in everything, it's time to do something else.

I'm very similar to others here. Bang down a number of "ideas". Once I have a few ideas (20 or 30) I then go back through them one by one with fresh ears and decide if they are worth continuing to work on. I've set up a few different folders to help me stay organised. "New ideas" then from there they either go to "To be progressed" or "Backburner" (as I find it really hard to just delete stuff completely). Then they stay in the "To be progressed" folder until they are finished and moved to the "Finished" folder or sometimes even if I thought it was good enough to begin with, it might end up in the "Backburner" folder.

This helps me to see easily which tracks are "Finished" in a creative/arrangement sense, so I can then focus on just these ones to do the final tweaks to (transitions, levels etc).

Some people will say moving between projects like this all the time will result in nothing ever getting finished, but I just find it too hard to stay on the one project for too long. And sometimes, having little kids, and working from 5am-4pm during the week only leaves me with a small window to work in after they are in bed, so doing it this way allows me to keep moving things forward without needing to put in long sessions to see each project through to completion.

same as a few have mentioned. I work on a track for 1 to 2 hours to get a solid passage/ idea down. Sometimes I'll finish a track in that time. If not I'll leave it and start something else or work on another track.
After about a month I'll open up a stack of projects and listen through and make edits to arrangment. When i start to feel the track is done or that i'm going in circles I will colour code the track file in osx finder. Green means basically done. yellow is very close only mix issues. orange means minor arrangement adjustments. purple means there is a solid block of good material but needs to be arranged into a track.
This helps me get a quick monitor on where i am with files as you can sort a folder into colour tags.
The distance from projects is perhaps the most important thing. That and being able to can things without remorse.
Also I find that with time passed you can wrap tracks up quicker because you can apply gathered knowledge in between sessions and apply it to a bunch of tracks for uniformity.
You just have to be careful not to start too many new tracks. Determine a point where you say ok enough new tracks and just jump between your gathered 40 or so and start finishing them.

Interesting topic! What are your view on longer breaks to get perspective and rest the ears and mind? Ive spent 6-12h/day the last year or two fighting with production. On some ocations ive had some days or a week of, right now ive had a month off but will soon get back on track. My experience is that i usually find it easier to make progress and evolve my sound and techniques after a break like this. When im really manic its much harder to be concious about my methods and decicions.

I get like 2 hours a day for music, so it isn't really an issue for me

so much experience and different approaches! fantastic! thank you guys!

I used to work on lots of tracks at the same time but at some point it gets confusing and starts feeling like a fucking factory or something so now I'd rather try working on one track at a time. Usually after about half an hour or an hour I know if I should just bin it completely and start something new, render it and be done with it, or keep working on it. I usually try to mostly finish it at the second session (or just render it if it's not that great on a second listen) and do the final mix etc. at the third session. I probably end up with one "real", finished track for every 10 loops/sketches but I think that's just the nature of doing this stuff.

I usually work 1 to 2 hours a day on music, so it's kind difficult to get tired. On weekends when i'm inspired or able to work the whole morning and afternoon i take quick breaks at every 2 hours or so.

dubdub wrote:I used to work on lots of tracks at the same time but at some point it gets confusing and starts feeling like a fucking factory or something so now I'd rather try working on one track at a time. Usually after about half an hour or an hour I know if I should just bin it completely and start something new, render it and be done with it, or keep working on it. I usually try to mostly finish it at the second session (or just render it if it's not that great on a second listen) and do the final mix etc. at the third session. I probably end up with one "real", finished track for every 10 loops/sketches but I think that's just the nature of doing this stuff.

so in 3x getting back to the same project, you get it finished ?
pfff, I wish I could work that fast man...

when I finally decide to finish something or not, it can take me anywhere from 30 to 100 hours (which my most extreme one).
So yeah, ear fatigue is very much an issue when I get into my "finishing" process.
(finishing does mean arrangement + mixing though)
I just work very fucking slow in that part of my process.

Hades wrote:

dubdub wrote:I used to work on lots of tracks at the same time but at some point it gets confusing and starts feeling like a fucking factory or something so now I'd rather try working on one track at a time. Usually after about half an hour or an hour I know if I should just bin it completely and start something new, render it and be done with it, or keep working on it. I usually try to mostly finish it at the second session (or just render it if it's not that great on a second listen) and do the final mix etc. at the third session. I probably end up with one "real", finished track for every 10 loops/sketches but I think that's just the nature of doing this stuff.

so in 3x getting back to the same project, you get it finished ?
pfff, I wish I could work that fast man...

when I finally decide to finish something or not, it can take me anywhere from 30 to 100 hours (which my most extreme one).
So yeah, ear fatigue is very much an issue when I get into my "finishing" process.
(finishing does mean arrangement + mixing though)
I just work very fucking slow in that part of my process.

From listening to some of your tracks i dont think you should "wish you could work that fast", your minute attention to details shines through!

How do you spend your time? Do you take a lot of time making decisions, or do you try many many outcomes to find your way?
I have some problem taking my time to make decision, i work fast and decisions just happen when im following something. That has been sort of a concious decision to be able to move forward and to be able to put in the hours. But now i think i will struggle a bit to get back to paying attention to details and get some finished output...

Martin wrote:
From listening to some of your tracks i dont think you should "wish you could work that fast", your minute attention to details shines through!

How do you spend your time? Do you take a lot of time making decisions, or do you try many many outcomes to find your way?
I have some problem taking my time to make decision, i work fast and decisions just happen when im following something. That has been sort of a concious decision to be able to move forward and to be able to put in the hours. But now i think i will struggle a bit to get back to paying attention to details and get some finished output...

this is a hard one for me to answer tbh... (especially because I'm right in the middle of trying to finish one of my tracks atm)

the process of finishing a track is (in my case) a combination of arrangement + mixing.
so do I need a lot of time making decisions ?
I suppose I do, but I certainly don't try out many options.
As soon as I decide I want to finish a track, 95% of the elements in the track will be already there.
Some might be left out in the end, but there's only a 5% chance I will actually add extra elements.
But the biggest and most time-consuming part will be making the final arrangement,
and the final mix will just be adjusted to the final arrangement.

I constantly ask myself :
does this element really have to be there or not ?
Does this really add to the build-up of the track ?
And this is a process that you can repeat at least 15 times, and at many different moments in the track.
If it's not absolutely necessary : take it out !
Less is more (which is a thing I must force myself to constantly keep in mind because I have a tendency to just stuff it all up with tons of different parts at the same time).

And then there's this habit of mine where I will take every element and just draw in volume automation manually.
Drawing in tiny changes here or there for the whole duration of the track (even though I already recorded my clips with lots of volume changes)...
I know I can just use some M4L LFO to do the work for me, but I already did just that, and it just wasn't enough for my perfectionist needs.
I prefer to just draw it all in, and then I go back to each part and adjust the parts where it doesn't fit the arrangement enough.
I know that sounds very anal, but that's just how I like to work.

Have a couple of tracks on the go at once, spend a couple of hours on one, then flip to another track, works for me.