HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE A SONG

[vamos scorcho]

for example, a 3 minute track

 

how much time do you spend overall on this track?

 

[iNCLUDING MIXING/EQING but not Mastering]

 

what is the time spent doing? making synths? making beats?

 

what's your process?

 

what kind of music do you make?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ask this because I can't tell if I'm spending too much time on some things without making progress. The further I've gotten into production and making music, the more time I spend on minute details. It's become sort of like, essential to making sure I get better, that I do these small things well. I should probably streamline, but that's not what this thread's about. I'm more just interested in hearing how long you guys spend from start to finish on tracks, and what the short/long term process is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll share mine:

 

I sit down, I put some tracks in, I put stuff in the tracks.

 

I EQ a little bit as I go.

 

I mix it down.

 

I mess with it a bit.

 

And I'm done... but it never seems DONE done. I can't tell if I'm being a perfectionist or what, it's just when I hear my own stuff, it doesn't sound finished like something else might. I think it's largely perceptual.

 

What I'm wondering is, if it really DOES take that long to finish tracks. Because I've sunk days of time into just short stretches of music, at this point, and organization. And there is still more to do, and much of it has to be tossed out or rearranged. So I'm curious.

[Squee]

It varies. A LOT!

Sometimes it takes 2 days and sometimes it takes months - even years. But at one point you might as well accept that you won't be able to finish what you're working on and get on with something else because it's not good for your health to stare at one thing for too long. It will make you blind, deaf, and dumb. Sometimes it's worth doing something drastic and just start deleting tracks (drums, bass or what have you) and build it again.

 

But hey, it's a creative process so there are no rules or ideas that apply to everyone. If you feel like your track is done after 2 hours then that's probably fine. As long as you're happy then nothing else matters.

[Friendly Foil]

Depends on the kind of track. if it's an ambient track, it's all about capturing dat magic before it disappears, so usually not more than a few hours. I spend a lot more time on something if it involves beats for some reason.

[gmanyo]

five minutes

[Braintree]

About five to six hours.

[Hugh Mughnus]

sometimes a couple weeks. I don't have nearly the skills that some of you guys have... So like, I have a sound in my head that I want to put down, and it takes a while to get it there because I don't know EXACTLY how to make those sounds.

 

And then other times I have no sound in my head I just put down whatever comes out, and then I tweak it for a few weeks and then say.. shit that was cool...

[BCM]

varies from half an hour to a few weeks... i usually manage to get the bare bones of a track down in an hour or so though.

[Cryptowen]

Generally one session ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours, with occasional quick tweaks later on (oftentimes when warming up to write a new track I cycle through the few dozen things I've been working on during the last few weeks & spend a couple minutes on each fixing bits I don't like)

 

Once in a while I'll spend more time on a track if I feel it has a lot of sonic potential.

 

<1 hour

 

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/lambent-vector

 

2-3 hours

 

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/warm-bomber-distortion-with

 

10+ hours (original version was at least twice as long)

 

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/indigo-eye-beams

 

Generally I start off making loops with whatever technique I'm currently experimenting with (currently taking one of my old songs & resampling it) until I get one that's got a drive to it. Then the song pretty much writes itself

[Guest yanG]

can be one week, can be 10 years, but how many hours per track? i have no idea, i wish i knew!

[YEK]

i read a speedy j interview and he said that if he can knock something out in for the first hour that sounds good then he uses it.... if he spends an hour and it just isn't working then he throws it away... something to that extent.

[Friendly Foil]

i read a speedy j interview and he said that if he can knock something out in for the first hour that sounds good then he uses it.... if he spends an hour and it just isn't working then he throws it away... something to that extent.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I do too

[o00o]

The longer it takes the harder to tell if its still good

[goffer]

2-4 months I reckon

 

The longer it takes the harder to tell if its still good

foreal *fist bump*

[Guest]

previously, a few hours

recently, weeks (usually over a month actually)

still bad at making concepts & loops into full songs, but now I am better at details at least

[rev85]

Sometimes it's worth doing something drastic and just start deleting tracks (drums, bass or what have you) and build it again.

 

 

Seconded. I used to spend ages trying to get instruments fitting in the mix, now I just trash it after an hour or so. More often than not you come up with something better and it saves time.

 

 

[o00o]

[Guest Frankie5fingers]

^ i like that. but yeah, i really depends whether or not the pieces all fall into place. along with your experience with the said instruments and ability to compose and master. ive only been making electronica music for a couple months and it takes me at least a week to a month to make one 3 min song. but ive also been playing Bass guitar for about 7-8 years now. if i wanna make a song with my bass it literally takes me like an hour to make an 8-10 min song. (not a necessarily great song. but all the groundwork is laid out). eventually youll be able to makes songs on a daily bases. (if you have that kinda time)

[kcinsu]

I really really like that Ira Glass quote!

[sergeantk]

 

I feel like I've been needing to read this for years

 

But yeah I try not to get caught up in a song for too long otherwise i lose the magic and nothing comes of it

[coax]

Usually a few hours to a few days but I've never paid attention to exactly how many.

My workflow is: First I need a general idea of what I want, before I start working. I usually think in broad terms like ambient, dark ambient, upbeat and fast, etc. When I have decided that (depends on mood etc), I start working on synths that fit the mood, and the hardest part is getting a good melody going. Usually I need a good beginning for a melody or progression, or else I'll quit, and when I have that beginning I have to work on the rest of the progression/parts of the track, which is usually the most difficult part as I'm not trained in music theory so I have to experiment with notes until I get them right... Can take hours and is usually frustrating up until I actually nail it.

 

By the time I have the melody I usually have some other random layers, but after that comes the part of finishing the track. The times I get far enough that I hear the whole track in my head before it's finished, are the times I'll be most happy with a track usually. I also do mixing and eq'ing while composing the track and working on the synth patches and drum sounds too so by the time I'm finished it sounds pretty good.

 

It's the same for abstract tracks, instead of melodies it's timbres and contrasts.

 

But i gotta say, many times I have finished a track this way but it has not stood the 'test of time', for me personally, and I'll ultimately decide it's not good enough to release. If I can listen to it a bunch of times and not get bored, and feel like the elements are catchy enough, then it's good. But I mean not even those tracks may go into my own personal all time favorites. I only have very few of those per year.

[gritbox]

I always start with the intention that I am just practicing and learning, so I expect it to sound like shit and will go for 1-3 hours at a time trying to make a song. If I manage to make something that I like I will go for 3-7 days trying to extend it or actualize ideas for it before I get tired/bored/frustrated and set it down.

 

That Ira Glass quote is great. The thing that has been bugging me lately is that I will sit down and I want to practice and learn but I feel like making these crap little formulaic tracks isn't teaching me anything or developing some sort of skill. All I have is Ableton with no VSTs and I am bored to death with the sounds that are coming out of it.

[SCONES TO DIE FOR]

A minimum of a few months for every track, start to finish.

[Dan C]

Months and months

[gmanyo]

ten on a bad day

[Guest od++]

The longer it takes the harder to tell if its still good

 

yeah this.

I obsess over the first pattern for an hour or two, working on getting a decent hook happening and working on the sounds and general mixdown.

From there I spend ages getting irritated and working out some sort of intro and where the track can go from there.

After working on a couple of loops and trying to get them to work together so that one can lead into the other and keep up a fair amount of energy, the track cooks along for a while, production wise.

Depending the strength of the initial idea and loop I can generally get to around two or two and a half minutes reasonably quickly but then I get to this stage where I just want to keep switching between different synths and riffs and putting more and more shit into it so it doesn't sound lazy, where what I'm really doing is adding more and more pointless distractions.

Then I cut bits out (I hate doing this) and work on bringing back the original loop but an altered version and some kind of lead out and it usually clocks in at around four and a half to five and a half minutes.

 

I'm going to work on going back to cut ups though. I don't really enjoy or have the patience to do it all manually like I used to but I should make the effort. I used to really love listening to something i've spent weeks on manually cutting up. I hate to remember all my tricks though; I'm afraid I've forgotten all of them!

Man this is a long post to write on a phone on the train