Furious5
ENOUGH ALREADY!
Tracks uitwerken en afmaken is tough...
Dit artikeltje schoot me weer te binnen, is al oud maar ik vind het een erg goed stukje...
"Olav Basoski - How to finish a track"
http://www.digitalsleeve.com/sites/olavbasoski/studio.asp?item=studiosub3
No matter where I am, be it doing gigs abroad, joining in at parties in the area, or shooting a video in London (oh yeah, that happens a lot...ahem), there's always people who come up to me to ask me for advice on their producing skills. Probably one of the most asked questions I get is; how can I finish a track, I never seem able to finish a track...
The real answer to this is really really simple, and you may not even like it. The answer is so simple you might think to yourself "Is he f**king kidding me??". Yeah that's right, it's so simple, it probably never even crossed your mind.
Wanna know? You really really wanna know? Ok, here goes. The best kept secret when it comes to producing a finished track is:
*******Just finish it*******
I can hear people doing "pfff"'s and *sigh*'s...
Now, what is it that keeps you from finishing a track? Finishing as in "done-all good-on to the next one".
For a lot of people the problem lies in the repetition of it all. As humans, we tend to get easily bored. We need change. Without any change this world would look damn boring and grey. We'd still be getting up each and every day at 4 AM to go milk the cows. No offense here, I know some people still do this and their hard work is much appreciated.
I'm happy we have seasons man. Would you want to have to clean the yard of falling leafs every single day of your life? Or constant cold weather? Hell, I've had moments just this summer that I yearned for the winter to set in, steaming hot as it was. But then, around the time Xmas is behind us, I always start to long for the spring. See it's all so natural to long for change, new stuff, new information, new technology, new clothes, a new car....
Sure there are folks who are just happy with who they are, what they have and do and they never seem to head anywhere. And if you ask me, these are the people who lead very boring uninspiring lives. They grow up really young and do the v e r y s a m e t h i n g day in day out. Get up, have toast and coffee, drop the kids off at school, get behind their computer at work, make some calls, hey it's 5 o'clock, get in yet another traffic jam, cook dinner, watch TV, every other Fridaynight do their adult-duties, be 50 before they know, etc, etc.
I don't even wanna be thinking of a life like this. My dear lord, I don't want to start a new series Olav Basoski - lessons in life here haha, just want to point out how important change is in our lives. Yes, yours too.
And this my friend, may just be the answer to your problem. You work on your tracks. You want it to be so perfect, you're playing it over and over and over and over and over again, hoping another or better idea pops up in your head that will totally make this the *track-to-finish-all-tracks*. Well, let me clear that up for you mate; it ain't gonna happen.
Let me give you a reallife example, I may just be sounding too blurry here; When you start a track, you lay down some beats, maybe come up with this astounding bassline, or maybe even just twist knobs on a synth and UP pops this enormously funky sound. A sound can be very inspiring.
Then, after maybe half a day of work, it's starting to get somewhere. It's cool man! This is gonna be totaly rockin'.
I've always worked with 4 or 8 bars and worked from there to build up a track. It stems from the Atari age I think, we all used to work like this back then.
You loop your stuff for 4 bars, adding little thingies along the way untill it's really nice and then start build the track with those elements.
Then all of a sudden you find yourself 4 days later, playing the same 4 bars, oh you may have built maybe 2 minutes out of it, but someone put a lock on it while you were not looking.
It's dead. It's boring. "Pff, I've heard this so often now, it makes me sick, this is going nowhere".
Yeah, if you reach that point it most likely will never be finished. You throw it out and start all over again.
What people don't realise is that you really must try to avoid even getting close to this what I call 'boring-point'. When you arrive there, fuggetaboutit mate, put it aside and start something new. Don't throw it out though, maybe at some point later you open it up again and it'll all sound fresh again.
There was a time when I really needed some money urgently. I won't bore you with details of how I got there, but I had NO DO. At all.
All I had was my little studio and a lovely new very inspiring girlfriend. Ok, so I thought if I want to make some money quickly, I'd better do some releases.
I figured if I'm going to need to have, say, 2 releases finished in two weeks from now, I better not make too much fuzz about it, just finish the tracks!
And so I did.
I commited myself to finishing a track every other 2 days. No matter what, after 2 days I had to start a new track with the other ready on tape, so I could present 2 new releases at the recordlabel I was working for at the time.
This also meant I needed to keep it simple, not too much hassle, and keep in mind the little advice someone gave me at the time; "you don't make songs, you make grooves".
And that was that. I made grooves, not songs. If I were to finish a track every 2 days I'd better not be too hard on myself. If it grooves, it grooves, and that'd be just enough to convince the recordlabel of releasing the stuff. Ok, to make a long story short, yadayadayada, a little over 2 weeks later I was at the office of Work Records, playing them the 8 tracks of what would be Samplitude volumes 1 and 2. The stuff sold great and I was able to pay the rent haha!
So there you have it. Nothing could be simpler than this I think. Ask any other producer/DJ, they'll most likely tell you they have the same experience; the stuff that's been made in the shortest time is most often their best stuff. Keep the old KISS advice in mind; Keep It Simple and Stupid. Don't punish yourself by wanting to do the best you ever can, wanting to make the housetrack to end all housetracks.
Sure, if it happens, it happens, but creativity can't be forced into certain directions. Just let the track guide you, not the other way around.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you start out by doing a housetrack and it actually wants to go in a more D'n'B direction, let it! If you try and force a house-vibe on the D'n'B track it really wants to be, it'll never go anywhere.
If you let it develope as a D'n'B track, it may be the best you've ever done to date!
Now go and make some music and I'll do the same.
As always , your happy servant,
Olav *finishitgoddamnit* B.
Dit artikeltje schoot me weer te binnen, is al oud maar ik vind het een erg goed stukje...
"Olav Basoski - How to finish a track"
http://www.digitalsleeve.com/sites/olavbasoski/studio.asp?item=studiosub3
No matter where I am, be it doing gigs abroad, joining in at parties in the area, or shooting a video in London (oh yeah, that happens a lot...ahem), there's always people who come up to me to ask me for advice on their producing skills. Probably one of the most asked questions I get is; how can I finish a track, I never seem able to finish a track...
The real answer to this is really really simple, and you may not even like it. The answer is so simple you might think to yourself "Is he f**king kidding me??". Yeah that's right, it's so simple, it probably never even crossed your mind.
Wanna know? You really really wanna know? Ok, here goes. The best kept secret when it comes to producing a finished track is:
*******Just finish it*******
I can hear people doing "pfff"'s and *sigh*'s...
Now, what is it that keeps you from finishing a track? Finishing as in "done-all good-on to the next one".
For a lot of people the problem lies in the repetition of it all. As humans, we tend to get easily bored. We need change. Without any change this world would look damn boring and grey. We'd still be getting up each and every day at 4 AM to go milk the cows. No offense here, I know some people still do this and their hard work is much appreciated.
I'm happy we have seasons man. Would you want to have to clean the yard of falling leafs every single day of your life? Or constant cold weather? Hell, I've had moments just this summer that I yearned for the winter to set in, steaming hot as it was. But then, around the time Xmas is behind us, I always start to long for the spring. See it's all so natural to long for change, new stuff, new information, new technology, new clothes, a new car....
Sure there are folks who are just happy with who they are, what they have and do and they never seem to head anywhere. And if you ask me, these are the people who lead very boring uninspiring lives. They grow up really young and do the v e r y s a m e t h i n g day in day out. Get up, have toast and coffee, drop the kids off at school, get behind their computer at work, make some calls, hey it's 5 o'clock, get in yet another traffic jam, cook dinner, watch TV, every other Fridaynight do their adult-duties, be 50 before they know, etc, etc.
I don't even wanna be thinking of a life like this. My dear lord, I don't want to start a new series Olav Basoski - lessons in life here haha, just want to point out how important change is in our lives. Yes, yours too.
And this my friend, may just be the answer to your problem. You work on your tracks. You want it to be so perfect, you're playing it over and over and over and over and over again, hoping another or better idea pops up in your head that will totally make this the *track-to-finish-all-tracks*. Well, let me clear that up for you mate; it ain't gonna happen.
Let me give you a reallife example, I may just be sounding too blurry here; When you start a track, you lay down some beats, maybe come up with this astounding bassline, or maybe even just twist knobs on a synth and UP pops this enormously funky sound. A sound can be very inspiring.
Then, after maybe half a day of work, it's starting to get somewhere. It's cool man! This is gonna be totaly rockin'.
I've always worked with 4 or 8 bars and worked from there to build up a track. It stems from the Atari age I think, we all used to work like this back then.
You loop your stuff for 4 bars, adding little thingies along the way untill it's really nice and then start build the track with those elements.
Then all of a sudden you find yourself 4 days later, playing the same 4 bars, oh you may have built maybe 2 minutes out of it, but someone put a lock on it while you were not looking.
It's dead. It's boring. "Pff, I've heard this so often now, it makes me sick, this is going nowhere".
Yeah, if you reach that point it most likely will never be finished. You throw it out and start all over again.
What people don't realise is that you really must try to avoid even getting close to this what I call 'boring-point'. When you arrive there, fuggetaboutit mate, put it aside and start something new. Don't throw it out though, maybe at some point later you open it up again and it'll all sound fresh again.
There was a time when I really needed some money urgently. I won't bore you with details of how I got there, but I had NO DO. At all.
All I had was my little studio and a lovely new very inspiring girlfriend. Ok, so I thought if I want to make some money quickly, I'd better do some releases.
I figured if I'm going to need to have, say, 2 releases finished in two weeks from now, I better not make too much fuzz about it, just finish the tracks!
And so I did.
I commited myself to finishing a track every other 2 days. No matter what, after 2 days I had to start a new track with the other ready on tape, so I could present 2 new releases at the recordlabel I was working for at the time.
This also meant I needed to keep it simple, not too much hassle, and keep in mind the little advice someone gave me at the time; "you don't make songs, you make grooves".
And that was that. I made grooves, not songs. If I were to finish a track every 2 days I'd better not be too hard on myself. If it grooves, it grooves, and that'd be just enough to convince the recordlabel of releasing the stuff. Ok, to make a long story short, yadayadayada, a little over 2 weeks later I was at the office of Work Records, playing them the 8 tracks of what would be Samplitude volumes 1 and 2. The stuff sold great and I was able to pay the rent haha!
So there you have it. Nothing could be simpler than this I think. Ask any other producer/DJ, they'll most likely tell you they have the same experience; the stuff that's been made in the shortest time is most often their best stuff. Keep the old KISS advice in mind; Keep It Simple and Stupid. Don't punish yourself by wanting to do the best you ever can, wanting to make the housetrack to end all housetracks.
Sure, if it happens, it happens, but creativity can't be forced into certain directions. Just let the track guide you, not the other way around.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you start out by doing a housetrack and it actually wants to go in a more D'n'B direction, let it! If you try and force a house-vibe on the D'n'B track it really wants to be, it'll never go anywhere.
If you let it develope as a D'n'B track, it may be the best you've ever done to date!
Now go and make some music and I'll do the same.
As always , your happy servant,
Olav *finishitgoddamnit* B.
