Has anyone fallen into this Ableton creative trap?

Beakflakes

Hi there.

I like loop based techno driven by predominantly drums and rhythm, with not to much melody apart from maybe some haunting chords. Anyway, my approach to this is always to build all the components for the track up in loop mode and then deconstruct and work backwards to use these components to build up the track from the beginning in arrange view.

Problem is; I have a chronic habit of changing these loops slightly as I work - saving these morphed loops in side-projects, so I end up with many many different projects that I mean to get back to later.

While fun, this is proving incredibly unproductive.

I ended up doing the same thing in Reason so maybe it's just my personality...

Would anyone like to share their experience on this... or offer any advice?

I'd maybe consider a collab with someone with similar taste and experience (novice enough) to get some inspiration.

Cheers guys!

Sham Squire

Unfortunately there is no magic formula to finishing a track and it's the number one complaint from students that I teach. Tens or even hundreds of half baked ideas and nothing they're happy with.
I'd recommend limitations. Even as an exercise. Say your gonna make a track a day for a week. Each day you start a new track and by the time you clock off (whether that's one hour later or 18 hours later) that track is done. Finished. Never to be resurrected. The next time you fire up Ableton it's another track (no listening back 'til the end of the week).
At the end of the week go back over your stuff and see how you've done. If nothing else it will set deadlines that would exist in the real world if you were working professionally. Either to label or client deadlines. You have to have that thing done by the time they need it or you don't get paid (or they won't use you again). So at the very least you'll get used to signing off on something, getting the job done by a set time.

Dramatik

I suggest maybe trying a different approach to making tracks. Simply, start work with the main breakdown/drop first, then strip it back from there, rather then starting with the beats/bass first and working your way up into the breakdown/drop and running out of ideas or having to many elements and not being able to make them fit nicely.

It's a lot easier on the brain working this way, knowing that you don't still have the main section of the track to finish after spending so much time on the beats/bass ect. If you think about it, you're at your most creative point when you start working on a track, this is the time when you'll have most of your ideas fresh in your mind so it makes sense to work on the most important section of the track first before you hit a creative wall or it's 3am and you need to go to sleep.

It'll be really difficult to do for the first time as you'll really want to start the track in the usual way but just force yourself not to start with the beats/bass ect. Another reason I prefer working this way is that generally if I start with the beats/bass ect. by the time I get to the breakdown/drop the track already has a lot of elements in it and it's hard to add more to keep the track interesting without over crowding it. It's much easier to add an extra element to sections earlier on in the track where it's not as crowded. This method should help streamline your tracks a bit and hopefully you will be able to be more decisive on selecting elements that are needed rather then having to try a load of different ones.

Beakflakes

Thanks Dramatik. Some useful advice there. I'm slowly getting places. Bit of a scatterbrain I'm afraid:(

Beakflakes

... thank you again also Sham Squire!