Hi everyone! I have been wondering what to do with tracks, which despite sounding "decent", are at their core boring and mediocre.

For example, I spent some time today on making this idea, and while it sounds ok, I'm not sure if I should work on it further.

I have heard that some people finish everything regardless of whether the track is good or not. Would like to know your perspectives on this.

Here is the demos (looped) of what I made today. Everything is kontakt, except for that solo guitar, which is a loop heavily edited in melodyne: main, solo guitar pluck. And another example of an idea, with which I don't know what to do.

 

The more mediocre music you write, the better and faster you'll get at writing music overall, and perhaps more importantly: the better you'll get at writing FULL songs. I'm willing to bet many people here have 50 mind blowingly fantastic ideas saved on their drives, but those ideas will never turn into songs, because they're forever locked up in 20 second loops because it's so much easier to come up with these cool, short loops than it is to write an entire song and who wants to move on to the tedious part?!

Besides, it's the only reliable way to benchmark your own progress as a writer/composer/producer/...

 

I don't think it's too mediocre, it got some vibe and could use some arrangement idea for build ups. If you got tired of it, maybe find a collab. Some people are just good at starting something out of nothing and there are people that their creative sense sparks when they heard stuff that's halfway done and eager to add his own touch and finish it. Also remove all those loudness processing and make it raw so they have some space to work on it.

 

Maybe it sounds mediocre to you, but is it completely true given the fact the track is not developed yet? At least you gotta try to finish the song and only then you can give it your rate. Keep developing your sound and keep pushing it forward. Those clips sound good, you only need a great hook melody that gives you that eureka feeling. What usually works for me is to create two sections. Two melodies like the verse melody and another more hooky for the chorus, that way it gives a wider sight of what can be done to glue them together, either with a bridge, breakdown, or whatever scoring trick.

 

Always try to finish every song. Then park it somewhere and listen to it once in a while. There will probably be something in it that you really like. Maybe you can rework the song around that or maybe that thing can be the seed of a new song.

And if you find out how to finish every song, please tell me how.

 

they sound ok quality wise, but very loopy. I can see why you think they are kind of boring after many listens. It sounds like everything was done with the computer or any human playing has been quantized to where it sounds mechanical, like a computer only does. One example has a drum fill that sounds like you hit the Drum Fill button on a 80s Casio accompaniment section.

What to do with them at the point you have them, is a judgement call. You can pour more effort into something, but if you are already bored with it; you might be better off just moving on to thte next idea. Wether you delete them or not is a question of storage space, if there are parts you can salvage and re-use somewhere else. When you have this kind of feeling about a track, it is usually an indication you are actually getting better at making tracks. You are figuring out you can make better stuff than what you currently have. The only real way to get past that is to push through it and do more working and practicing.

 

I'm in the other camp. If it's mediocre I won't continue on with it as it for me is a waste of time. I won't finish a song that doesn't live up to my own standard. I'll only write good songs, the others don't live to see the light of day and perish in the darkness.

 

You haven't gone past the looping stage. Try arranging the song as you go. Strip away, add. Define sections, at least a developing A section. If things are flowing, an A | B section would be the best. From there you can know for sure. And if are unsure, leave it and move on, give your ears a rest, work on something else, and come back to it. If you dislike it in the next listen with fresh ears then it's best to move on. Everyone here has given good advice. My additional advice is that if you're having problems with arranging, break down your favorite songs and split up the sections so you can understand how things develop.

Here's my attempt at just going past the loop stage from your original idea:

 

So about your ideas. They are just that ideas. Are they mediocre? What does that even mean for an idea? I guess it might be best to think about potential when it comes to ideas and not judging them in terms of their current value. If you don't think there is the potential to create something great out of it, it might be best to just let it go. Maybe come back later to it.

And what about the argument to finish everything? You can make an argument for both sides. Personally I have started to spread out my ideas rather quickly. I am trying not to spend a lot of time with the initial loop, but rather come up with a track structure as soon as possible. I found that once I get stuck in the loop, it can be difficult to get out of it. For me the best way to get around it is to not get caught up in it in the first place, so I tend to at least set up some basic structure and work with it.

You might want to try something as a general rule. If you copy something, make an effort and change something in the copy. You don't have to change everything, but try to make the copy different. It might seem silly sometimes, but it will make all the difference. Even if you copy a straight open hat, change the velocities slightly or extend or shorten some hits, do whatever you can to make it different. Add a ghost note, whatever. If you copy it again, you can copy both parts and change something again. Like that you will always have some change. The changes don't have to be major, they can be subtle. You might not even notice it right away, but these little changes will add up and your music will become a lot more alive, it will be less boring.
If your DAW has the possibility to add variation to midi data, that can be a great way too. Just randomize the start points ever so slightly, and the velocities. That way you will not have the same thing happening twice.
The same goes for loops. If you copy a loop, change something. Cut them up, turn a hit around, pitch something up or down, repeat something. Put some crazy effects on it, bounce it down and replace one or two hits with the “new version”.
If you don't change something, add something new. If you introduce a new element, you can get away with just copying something underneath because the listener will be drawn to the new element, so it is not that important.
Deleting stuff can be as effective as adding stuff. So take away an element, or a hit.

 

It's like going into a gym, pushing some weights, and after 40 minutes realizing, 'Why am I not strong yet? I'm awful at this; I'll give up!' Except that with music, it's not that linear. You might make an amazing track as a beginner and an amazingly mediocre track as an expert. You don't have full control over the quality of your inspiration (let's put it like this), but what you do have is control over the circumstance in which creativity and inspiration can flow. And this is really subjective, but I'll tell you something that is probably true for everybody: you're going to make trash, that's a fact, deal with it. There's no way you're going to stop making mediocre music (and I'm not saying you are) without actually knowing how mediocre your music can be. The important thing is to maintain consistency and not be ashamed or have your ego hurt because of the stuff that you produce; be playful, have fun. This is how you make your creativity flow.

I notice that a lot of people get "creativity blocks" mostly because they have a big ego and they are trying to accomplish their "big vision," but they simply can't because this is not how creativity works. Creativity is like accessing another dimension; you never know what you're going to get there. The techniques will help you in your trip; your previous experience will help you in your trip, but you never know what you're going to get, and you simply can't force that.

The only way to "get good" at it is to continue producing music and finishing your crap. Have the balls, look at what you think is mediocre and think, 'I'm going to finish this.' This will teach you a deep lesson about music making.

 

The main reason to finish every track would be that you are forced to do stuff that you are not good at. If you are excellent at creating loops, but you don't know how to get out of the loop stage, it might become really frustrating. The better your loop is in comparison to your finished track, the more frustration you will feel, just because there is a big difference between the two. If you force yourself to always finish the tracks, you will become better at finishing tracks. At the same time you will become better at coming up with ideas too. A lot of the stuff you learn will flow into your ideas too.

 

can confirm. i'm always abandoning ideas that are (to me) incredible, at all different levels of completion. sometimes i just hit a wall or get uninterested or a noodle on guitar sidetracks me and now i've completely started a new project while i was literally just meaning to write a guitar lead for the bridge of the song i was already working on lol..

all three happen alot. but for me that's totally fine. granted i've been writing and recording my own stuff for 5+ yrs now and it's just me so i don't have any timelines or pressure from collaborating musicians or anything like that and i've completed tons of songs at this point so it's not like i can't finish songs. i just kinda do what i want. i usually know when one is special when i just HAVE to keep going on it. nothing can distract me bc i'm so stoked on it. which is semi rare for me bc i do mostly live instrumentation (gtrs, bass, drums, keys, synths, etc) and i write/track vocals so songs take a long time for me to complete (weeks minimum). it has to reallly be hitting for me to stay stoked on a track to see it through to completion at one time.

which is the last big thing for me. i can't even count how many times i've come back to one of those in-progress projects and finished it a week/month/year later. it's cool to me that when i'm needing inspiration i can go back into my own track ideas and often one just hits me and i'm stoked on it and now i'm finishing it up. i love it.

again, i'm just doing it for myself so there aren't any rules or timelines or pressures for me having to produce a certain volume of output. if it's a job thing for you i can see how being more disciplined when finishing projects makes sense but to me the whole "you should always finish everything" just seems in total opposition to the idea of why making music is fun. music is ab feeling and if you're not feeling a track why force it? i already have a job. i make music for fun and for the love of it. i'm not trying to make it feel like a job too.