How much time do you spend on your tracks?

[PhylumZunami]

for breakcore tracks i produce in renoise, it can take me a week or so to finish a song. sometimes months and normally those tracks never get finished. typically ill spend up to an hour or three on maybe 4 bars

[LimpyLoo]

I make two different types of tracks:

 

1) microwave joints (which are usually around 1-2 hours)

 

2) proper choons (which are usually around 1-4 weeks)

[Danny O Flannagin]

I make two different types of tracks:

 

1) microwave joints (which are usually around 1-2 hours)

 

2) proper choons (which are usually around 1-4 weeks)

Ya, strictly gear oriented stuff with sp303 and tape are usually done within a couple hours. Songs done on the computer with ableton are much longer

[purlieu]

Rarely more than about four hours on the original session, then tweaking over following days / weeks / months; very occasionally no tweaking. Sometimes I'll spend a week working and reworking a piece; a lot of the time I'll get that bulk session done and then return to it a long time later with fresh ears that can barely remember the track.

 

That said, I don't think I've ever 'finished' a track, just abandoned them. They could all be continued if I had the patience and / or skills but my mind is always moving forward to new things. So my albums are all my best WIPs chopped together really.

[Brisbot]

 

Rarely more than about four hours on the original session, then tweaking over following days / weeks / months; very occasionally no tweaking. Sometimes I'll spend a week working and reworking a piece; a lot of the time I'll get that bulk session done and then return to it a long time later with fresh ears that can barely remember the track.

 

That said, I don't think I've ever 'finished' a track, just abandoned them. They could all be continued if I had the patience and / or skills but my mind is always moving forward to new things. So my albums are all my best WIPs chopped together really.

Oh yeah, that's definitely me, except I tend to obsess over my tracks at first, working on a new idea for a week straight, and then tweak for months :). My motto lately has become: If you're still getting new ideas, then you're not done with it, no matter if you're tired of working on it. I think that's a good rule of thumb to go by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

for breakcore tracks i produce in renoise, it can take me a week or so to finish a song. sometimes months and normally those tracks never get finished. typically ill spend up to an hour or three on maybe 4 bars

Oh, so you work kind of linearly? I'm all over the place. I usually work on 'sections' of a track, which are usually 30 seconds to a minute or something. I wonder how different of an outcome you get if you force your workflow to be different, or if certain workflows generate different kinds of tracks. I have the suspicion that Aphex makes 'related' tracks with different setups of gear, such as Circlont10a, Circlont6A, Circlont14. Cheetah3, cheetah7. I think they're named after the setup itself, and with that setup of gear he tends to make similar/related sounding tracks. It would be interesting to pick certain software, and only use that software, maybe name the setup like I think afx does (write it down for sure), and write a few tracks using that strictly. It might be funner too. Instead i'm just all over the place, idgaf.

 

 

 

 

It varies - a lot. Some tracks take a couple of hours, some days, and some months. It all depends on if I can see a clear path for the track. I've got a couple of tracks I've been working on for over a year, and I've been working on them for so long now that I don't think I'll ever finish them, because nothing can live up to one year of work.

A whole year? Well I wonder how many hours you've worked on some of these tracks.

 

The worst thing is when you come up with a really awesome idea, you get to the minute point, aaaand out of ideas :\

 

 

 

 

Way more time spent listening to a track than writing and adjusting it.

Yeah, especially when you start getting in the 5 minute plus range. Omfg so much listening and small adjustments.

 

 

 

Indeed! Bouncing to audio for me is essential. I have to do multiple takes where I'm adding eq and effects in layers and then resampling that stuff to audio. Annoying as that takes time to render it all out to audio too. Suppose I just need more patience.

I'm starting to think patience is a skill that needs to be developed, perhaps some people here with more life experience than me could attest to that. I'm 21 so I don't have much of that really.

[YangYing]

 

 

How much time do you spend on your tracks?

a lifetime

[Brisbot]

 

 

a lifetime

Still working on your first track?

 

 

[BCM]

used to be quick now be slow

[Brisbot]

Oh yeah well, I used to be slow, now I'm still slow.

[Zephyr_Nova]

Are you slow, or just meticulous? There are some tracks where I've prob spent 30+ hours composing and mixing non-stop (in separate sittings of course), and I'm not sure it would be physically possible to go much quicker with the amount of programming/adjustments necessary for me to be satisfied that it's done. It's seldom a case of not knowing what to do next, though sometimes I do see a new section idea through to completion only to scrap it when I realize there's a better direction to go. But oh man... the amount of time wasted on troubleshooting bullshit problems since switching to Ableton has prob eaten up a few days of life for me. So many crashes, random clicks, and needing to trick it into letting me reopen projects. It's a wonder I haven't moved back to Acid... there's just so much more you can do with editing and sound fuckery with Live.

[Brisbot]

Well for me, dunno about ol' BSM, I'm meticulous I suppose. I used to I run out of ideas, and that was the end for the track, but for whatever reason I'm a lot better at getting them now. Though I get ideas faster than I can implement them now. I've gotten faster at implementation too, but the rate of which I get "ideas" for really anything, be it a new melody, transition, better sound, etc., is faster than the implementation. I think there's a drop off point when making a track where the rate of return isn't worth it really though. I haven't reached that point or anything as I'd know

I use FL studio personally, it's what I know and I don't see any reason to change really, but Live has appealed to me too from seeing it on youtube and stuff. It has a good workflow, if I were to magically do it over I might pick live over FL. Or maybe in a few years. The only issue I have with FL at all is running out of memory or CPU. Which has become easier to manage lately for some reason. I haven't been at all really, and my tracks are bigger/ longer than ever. Ech.

[weakmassive]

My breakthrough recently was that I really don't need or want to spend hours and hours obsessing about every detail of a track. I used to take like 3 months for a track, now I'm down to about a week. (I did Weeklybeats last year and that helped).

 

I see this problem with producers alot... like on a few FB groups I'm on. They have a room full of gear and complain about they haven't wrote a song in a year.

 

It's also easy to fall into a trap of watching tutorial videos or looking at new software...and you get the idea that you NEED this or that to make a track sound good. I just use an iPad with pretty limited software (which NEVER crashes or runs out of memory)... and part of the fun is finding creative ways around the limitations.

 

Some of my favorite producers seem to work in a similar way... just constantly churning out new ideas. I'd hate to obsess about the snare sound on a track for 4 months and then realize oh.. the song has a lame bassline or is just not working.

 

But it also totally depends on the type of track you're making. Brisbot - I could see how your tracks could take longer as they sound pretty meticulous. I really like simple and melodic (and usually pretty short!) types of songs so that helps speed things up.

[Zephyr_Nova]

I use FL studio personally, it's what I know and I don't see any reason to change really, but Live has appealed to me too from seeing it on youtube and stuff. It has a good workflow, if I were to magically do it over I might pick live over FL. Or maybe in a few years. The only issue I have with FL at all is running out of memory or CPU. Which has become easier to manage lately for some reason. I haven't been at all really, and my tracks are bigger/ longer than ever. Ech.

 

My computer not having enough memory to run my more complex tracks smoothly has been a big problem for me since switching to Live. But I am in dire need of acquiring a faster computer, so I'm not sureI can fault Ableton for that. FL was the program I started on for making electronic music, and it really is the perfect program to start on due to how intuitive it is. I remember opening it up for the first time and just getting down to business, no tutorial necessary. I'm not sure I would have had the same luck with another program. It would be fun to use it again after all these years (this was well over a decade ago that I started making tunes in FL. Switched to Reason + Vegas (for editing/arrangement), to Acid, to Live. I imagine in all these years FL has become pretty sophisticated and would be pretty easy to stick with. I know Wisp uses it (or did for a lot of his albums at least).

[Brisbot]

My breakthrough recently was that I really don't need or want to spend hours and hours obsessing about every detail of a track. I used to take like 3 months for a track, now I'm down to about a week. (I did Weeklybeats last year and that helped).

 

I see this problem with producers alot... like on a few FB groups I'm on. They have a room full of gear and complain about they haven't wrote a song in a year.

 

It's also easy to fall into a trap of watching tutorial videos or looking at new software...and you get the idea that you NEED this or that to make a track sound good. I just use an iPad with pretty limited software (which NEVER crashes or runs out of memory)... and part of the fun is finding creative ways around the limitations.

 

Some of my favorite producers seem to work in a similar way... just constantly churning out new ideas. I'd hate to obsess about the snare sound on a track for 4 months and then realize oh.. the song has a lame bassline or is just not working.

 

But it also totally depends on the type of track you're making. Brisbot - I could see how your tracks could take longer as they sound pretty meticulous. I really like simple and melodic (and usually pretty short!) types of songs so that helps speed things up.

Oh yeah man, definitely depends on what kind of track you're making. Simpler tracks simply don't take as long.

 

I enjoy tracks that take a while more than the simple ones (that I make). I find the longer I take on a track the more I'll enjoy it down the road. I hear you about limitations, but I personally enjoy having everything and anything at my disposal. I don't have anything at the center at the 'setup' though, and things are getting displaced, replaced, outplaced, you name it. It keeps me from getting bored, that's the main thing with that. I don't feel that being able to use anything slows me down since most stuff works similar anyway.

 

Heh, I am really the opposite of you when it comes to the practice of making tracks. For some reason if a track is under 2:00, I get it in my head that something is wrong, it needs to be longer. I have no clue why. 2:30 is bare minimum for me.

 

 

 

 

My computer not having enough memory to run my more complex tracks smoothly has been a big problem for me since switching to Live. But I am in dire need of acquiring a faster computer, so I'm not sureI can fault Ableton for that. FL was the program I started on for making electronic music, and it really is the perfect program to start on due to how intuitive it is. I remember opening it up for the first time and just getting down to business, no tutorial necessary. I'm not sure I would have had the same luck with another program. It would be fun to use it again after all these years (this was well over a decade ago that I started making tunes in FL. Switched to Reason + Vegas (for editing/arrangement), to Acid, to Live. I imagine in all these years FL has become pretty sophisticated and would be pretty easy to stick with. I know Wisp uses it (or did for a lot of his albums at least).

Oh yeah, there's no way I'd switch to Reason or Vegas from FL 11 (haven't bothered to check out 12 yet. Don't see why atm), though reason does have some A++ synths. I'd like to buy reason but it's too much for what it gives since I already can do most of the stuff Reason does in FL. I so wish I had mealstrom, thor, or that cool distortion plugin I forget it's name. Drive 4... something 4.

[Zephyr_Nova]

Vegas was a pretty weird choice, I admit. I only used it because the drummer in my then band was using a pirated version for recording which he sent me. I found it was better for chopping things up and arranging than Reason, but there were certainly better programs out there for that at the time. I was quite surprised to learn Squarepusher used Vegas to sequence 50 Cycles. I mean, I had my "well, it was a program I happened to have on hand" reasoning, but surely he had better options. It's intended for video editing! I believe he mentioned spending a month straight on that one.

[Squee]

 

 

 

It varies - a lot. Some tracks take a couple of hours, some days, and some months. It all depends on if I can see a clear path for the track. I've got a couple of tracks I've been working on for over a year, and I've been working on them for so long now that I don't think I'll ever finish them, because nothing can live up to one year of work.

A whole year? Well I wonder how many hours you've worked on some of these tracks.

 

The worst thing is when you come up with a really awesome idea, you get to the minute point, aaaand out of ideas :\

 

Well, I usually never get around to finishing those tracks. I have big ideas for these tracks but nothing ever happens and I just end up listening to the demo forever and ever.

[Guest Aces]

 

 

 

 

It varies - a lot. Some tracks take a couple of hours, some days, and some months. It all depends on if I can see a clear path for the track. I've got a couple of tracks I've been working on for over a year, and I've been working on them for so long now that I don't think I'll ever finish them, because nothing can live up to one year of work.

A whole year? Well I wonder how many hours you've worked on some of these tracks.

 

The worst thing is when you come up with a really awesome idea, you get to the minute point, aaaand out of ideas :\

 

Well, I usually never get around to finishing those tracks. I have big ideas for these tracks but nothing ever happens and I just end up listening to the demo forever and ever.

 

 

There is always a time frame isn't there. Lost quite a few tracks this way myself. I think the longest I spent on a track was about 7 years. Did the intro then a couple of years passed finally did the middle bit then got the ending nailed a couple of years after that. That was a really weird one, a true exception because that never happens really.

[flacid]

I'm currently working on a music making process that will allow me to create the type of music I want to make but efficiently. I know that words like efficient make it sound like it's taking the fun out of it but it's how I like to work. It will mean that I can experiment with sounds, tools (to perfect that sound and what I enjoy most) and arrangement (a weak point of mine) even more than I would do normally.

 

Previously working purely digitally I could make a track within 2-10 hours and be quite happy with the result. Now I'm working with analog and taking more consideration into musicality, timing, playing pieces together and layering them it seems to be taking a lot longer but sounds more natural. I like the direction where I am heading with the 'sound' but won't rush the tracks out just to have a finished thing (like previously) and obviously this takes time!

[Guest Chesney]

I get so little time to do it that I only get an hour here and there so it's hard to get my teeth into something so I end up doing half hour on a track, leave it unfinished then do the same on another. They will all get finished eventually I guess.

I reckon if I logged time on an average track it wouldn't be that long.

I have done specific tracks for a certain time and spent 5-6 hours on Sat making then the next morning mixing and mastering but only done this a few times.

I wish I had time to do this with all tracks. I need a good block of time for the process and ideas to flow and get best results.

Like Salem mentioned above, I have good ideas and half baked tracks going back years that I want to either finish or redo.

I kinda get my mind into a catch 22 as I have never put any tracks up on SC that I feel would be part of a main release so I kind of let the main tracks I want to release to fester as they are all in various states of completion and feels daunting to tackle them with the little stabs of time I have, so I settle with finishing odd ideas to post, or just keep starting new tracks every time I get the chance as that's the most exciting part.

[Guest Chesney]

I make two different types of tracks:

 

1) microwave joints (which are usually around 1-2 hours)

 

2) proper choons (which are usually around 1-4 weeks)

You have any microwave joints to listen to? Just bought an Xt myself.

[Entorwellian]

Tracks usually take me 3 months on average. I end up listening to them over and over until I get bored of them or they start to sound reptitious and then I think about different directions I can go with it or things to change. Also listening to them in the car vs. headphones is a good way to shape a track to sound good.

I started to enjoy doing 1-2 hour jams recently because of the time it usually takes for the former.

[LimpyLoo]

 

I make two different types of tracks:

 

1) microwave joints (which are usually around 1-2 hours)

 

2) proper choons (which are usually around 1-4 weeks)

You have any microwave joints to listen to? Just bought an Xt myself.

 

 

ha no i don't mean a waldorf

i mean microwave like 'quickly prepared'

that's what the lo-fi boom-bappers call it

[Braintree]

Usually about 6-8 hours, but it's been increasing lately since I've been adding in extra automation and other small details.

[Brisbot]

To answer OP's question, I spend about 100 hours on getting the melody down, and then an additional 200 hours for mixing, and then 300 hours for mastering. I call it my '1-2-3' attack. It's really the best way to work. Like aphex twin always said, "if you're not spending 600 hours per track, you might as well spend 0. Any over 600 though and that's overkill."

[Guest]

To answer OP's question, I spend about 100 hours on getting the melody down, and then an additional 200 hours for mixing, and then 300 hours for mastering. I call it my '1-2-3' attack. It's really the best way to work. Like aphex twin always said, "if you're not spending 600 hours per track, you might as well spend 0. Any over 600 though and that's overkill."

 

 

I know you're joking, but that would be hell.

 

Anything over 8 hours on one track from start to mastered finish just makes me resent it and would only get finished so that I can forget about it.