I was feeling inspired, motivated, and creative this evening so jumped into the DAW to start making something new. Created a drum beat, started to feel a flow, opened Serum to create my synths.....then derailed. Now it's zapped everything and just not feeling creative or inspired, instead just feeling annoyed and angry and in problem solving mode.....again! I hate it so much when this happens, which seems to be far too often.

The latest software glitch was in Serum. It will not let me assign assign an envelop to anything and adjust it. I can create the LFO envelope, assign it to the filter cutoff knob, the little icon and blue ring appear as normal, but nothing I do let me adjust the amount that the envelope applies to. It is either full sweep or remove it. When i hover over the envelope mod icon to adjust, I get the arrows to adjust, but it simply just adjusts the main knob instead of the envelope amount. I've tried to assign to allsorts of knobs, and the same on everyone, so seems to be a generic bug. After spending an hour troubleshooting, I'm now uninstalling and reinstalling, having to reinstall my user presets and all too just to be able to use the synth that is normally my go to. So freaking annoying and such a mood killer!

Anyone else get far too annoyed and angry when this happens? It sometimes puts me off for days as I feel like my computer cheated on me and don't wanna see it again until I've cooled down enough

And this is the first time I've had such a bug in Serum, so this isn't a Serum-specific rant, just a rant about software bugs beyong creativity killers in general!

 

Using TCD version of Serum 1.363? If so, it's a problem someone asked about on here recently. A possible bug, or problem with that version. It does not exist in the legit one. I have had 0 problems with the current latest legit build.

Rather than have my "session" grind to a halt I will do things like problem workarounds. Maybe a modulation Tool or other Enveloper plugin, and then something like Shade or other Filter. If I hit a little brick wall like this, I always try to just remind myself to Keep Going; or I will get stuck. It's always why I do not spend lots of time trying to recreate perfect copies of sounds. If it veers off-course; I just go with that.

 

Last edited: Sep 23, 2023

Occasionally. But I've learned to get rid of buggy software.

 

I've been derailed for years. I am desperately trying to find a way out of the rabbit hole and start and finish tracks.

 

It's best to not be so dependent on specific software & choose quality software to boot. If Serum is too buggy for you, there's dozens of other valid replacements. They lack a feature you want? Limitations encourage creativity more often than not. (To an extent of course)

 

Nope, I usually pull out one of my guitars, which is a very therapeutic experience

 

You also make a good argument for having a couple of hardware synths around. It doesn't get much more "immediate".

 

I remember that time I finished a track, but this happened many, many years ago...

 

I wouldn't even get into complex sounding synths at this stage. Just a basic piano sound to get my ideas for a song saved, or alternatively an acoustic guitar. I did use to do the same as you a while back though. I found myself worrying so much about creating a particular sound, that by the time I'd got what I wanted,I wouldn't have any use for it and merely saved it as a preset, which I might add I rarely bothered to use.

 

Making music with a computer, if you want to be really productive, is a much bigger undertaking than anybody thinks, and it's all your responsibility to set up, and resolve all problems. I guess that's why many people are going back to working with hardware, because you can avoid most of the more complex problems with it that way. Anyway...

The biggest and most obvious problem is choosing the best OS and software which will give you least problems when you work. One doesn't have to achieve nirvana to realise that. Choose your software wisely, and choose the amount of software you're dealing with wisely, too. The less different software - the least headaches. If nothing else, have some "core plugins" you are 100% sure are working 100% reliably, and use those when starting a project.

My little advice is to choose the most reliable companies whose software you like to work with, instead of hundreds of different companies and plugins. A delay is a delay is a delay. A compressor is a compressor is a compressor, etc. Just imagine how much easier it is to deal with just a handful of different companies and their plugins.

When you do that, you will be able to work with software the same way people work with hardware, and be able to stay focused on your creativity! Cheers!

 

Last edited: Sep 23, 2023

The biggest derailment I have is recording audio with Ableton. I use guitar effects and amp sims exclusively and I have to use a work-around to remove the delay - create two tracks, one with live monitoring turned on and the other with it turned off. When you compare both tracks after recording you can clearly see the delay of the monitored track. I know why this happens, of course, it's the delay created by the effects but surely there's a way around having to create two tracks? Also, I wasn't aware of this workaround until recently so all of my old projects won't be as well timed as they should be.

I intend to use Cubase for new projects.

 

Me, I never had problem with Serum/LogicPro and, I hope, it always goes like this...

 

Since years ago, after having similar problem, inspiration killed by technical problems.
I took the decision that inspiration always have to go first and flow.
So, as a consequence, any technical problem encountered while writing a song Must be left for later.
Synth don't work? Another synth. Effect problem? Another one. I just take very short note to check it later. In my "tech time".
Now I have my "artist time" which is the most important and "tech time" which is when I can, that mean not often.
This have another consequence : I almost don't do tech time, because the work-arounds I find as an artist become my go to plug-ins...

Last but not least, I read what people say about plug-ins before I begin to use them. Serum is a good example, I read so many comments about problems with cracked serum that I decided not to use it.
I've done some test tho and was able to do any serum preset with Vital which is free, or phaseplant which is very stable. (I have the legit version)

 

Last edited: Sep 23, 2023

This is sort of the reason I like to surf and tweak presets. For one thing, too much complexity stands in my way, and I do get quite easily derailed if I have to spend a lot of time on the scientific stuff in a project.

I like to get the musical elements down and finished as fast as possible so I leave too much sound design out of it, probably not as creative as some in that respect but them's the dice.

 

I just use serum RET release and i have no problems at all

 

THIS!!
I remember spending a whole fucking day trying to make some release to work. before going to sleep i told myself: "i just wanted to make music wtf" and ended up deleting it.

also, what Olymoon said

 

And that's why the old school guys carried around dictaphones to record their song ideas when inspiration struck.

 

Organization is the key really, use that time when you have no inspiration to sort out your plugins, presets, samples and everything, make favorites, don't be afraid to use something you already did, dunno about your DAW, but I can just open another project tab in Bitwig or browse that project in browser panel and take whatever I need from it, instead of starting from scratch every time.

IMO making drums when you got inspiration is such an buzz killer, normally I would start on piano or good patch that got me inspired, than would just pull whole drum section from another track to get me going and would do the same whenever I can't find good place holder sound in less than 10-15 seconds.

Long ago I started appreciating less is more when it comes to things I use, as someone said, delay is a delay, pick one you can get results with and move on and so on, making sounds early in composing stages is also buzz killer, tweaking anything for more than 10 seconds is, being that EQ, synth or anything else.

Saw in too many tutorials guys would start mixing drums without any context, but in their defense they already made whole track previously and now walking your through the process, so no wonder people got stuck on few bar loops of nothing really, they saw it too many times already and can't move on if drums aren't as good as commercial tracks, than can't add single element to it without feeling underwhelmed and go about over processing everything to get in groove again, it's just putting horse before the cart thing and one really lose interest in projects like that, can't fit most of the things anymore, moved on too quickly from composing phase and have nothing to even arrange and strive for.

That's why using clip launcher area is essential to me, just jam and do quick moves until I got sections done, than play it live and record what I do, after refine all that in arrangement section. Pilling layers of sounds on one section lead nowhere also, be happy with one sound doing one thing and move on, make variations of it, later go nuts with production and fine tuning, layering, mixing and etc.

I like having Endless Smile on my master when I play project live from clip launcher, assign it to controller and that's enough to get me grooving and make transitions, have Simplon too for filtering, keep it really simple and effective. One can do his macro effect chains in Live/Bitwig, than just do tons of stuff pulling one macro knob.

One should prepare himself for that creative urge and than just let himself go, without thinking much about plugins, sounds or anything, hardware or software, it's really about how one is organized, you can have whole hardware setup and still get stuck tweaking single sound without much context.

 

Last edited: Sep 23, 2023

Its the worst feeling in the world especially when you're on a creative high and its all coming together. Yesterday I had the nightmare of submitting to a major placement where I had ten hours to write and finish a track. I was 10 mins away from finishing the mix then Kontakt shit the bed and decided to fill up my C drive until there was 100mb remaining (its never done this in the all the years I've been using it). Everything crashed, the project file corrupted and I lost it all.

I slept for a few hours, then it just decided to work again, I had 10 mins before the deadline, finished the mix, tried to upload to the company but had to do their admin before it was accepted. I missed the deadline by 30 seconds and the opportunity closed as I clicked on the submit track button. Thanks Kontakt.

 

What really gets me is when I have to login to a paid plugin and it takes forever.