Working with many tracks at the same time

I am starting new ‘tracks’ at least once a week. I am now at 15th track idea, and I think only 3 of those were finished to full tracks.

Now I am kinda torn between “you got to finish each track to improve” and “you have to know when the idea should be abandoned”.

Since most of my ideas sound cool only the first day (then the reality of comparison to ‘pros’ hits), it’s hard to pick something to finish. I usually finish the track only when I really like it from the very beginning and don’t turn the DAW off until I got at least half of the track done.

I would like to finish all of them as kind of challenge, but there’s this voice “don’t waste the time on that, it’s not that good anyway” in my head…

Did a bit of cleanup (basically a triage) and chose a new folders structure for my projects.

Note: The ‘Trash’ folder just contains projects that I didn’t want to delete immediately, but they still weren’t anything that I would want to extend into a whole track.

Balron wrote:

I am starting new ‘tracks’ at least once a week. I am now at 15th track idea, and I think only 3 of those were finished to full tracks.

Now I am kinda torn between “you got to finish each track to improve” and “you have to know when the idea should be abandoned”.

I’m a bit inconsistent myself. I’ll have periods where I purposely only do sketches for a week or two, just an hour on each, and then times where I’m working on something a bit more in-depth, try an idea, and then decide that’s a different track, split the project in to two.

Case in point, worked on a sketch last week that’s a drop and main section (64 bars), wanted to hear how a vocal sounded, and now I’m breaking my personal “no bootlegs” rule. The bootleg is now a full arrangement, almost all different drums, mids, and music elements, and last night I took out the vocal, and could probably make that in to a dub version.

Also I comb through old projects a couple times a year, deciding if it’s worth revisiting, or just bouncing out some sounds to use later.

Also, here’s how I have my stuff organized lately, usually break stuff down by year added.

Production files:

Sample library (and yes, I’m OCD and renamed my Sample Genie samples to a uniform structure…):

Presets:

Neatly organized Harry 🙂

MindZero-

This is the struggle.

I am lucky in that, for my main gig, I am a “commercial artist”, with hard deadlines, as without them I might writhe and finish nothing. And that’s not hyperbole. There is no “finished”. There is only the deadline. For me, anyway.

But from where you sit, with your products that are more your art than a commercial product meant for a deadline, I feel like it gets even harder to figure out the last 10-20% of what needs to happen to wrap a tune. Not to mention half a dozen or more in that state.

I genuinely believe that developing a sense of how to balance these last bits is a learned skill that the successful producers have worked on for years.

I know I am not directly answering your question, but only because there is not a single correct answer. Art is art, and you create it the way that works for you. Which kid do you decide is going to university? Fortunately it’s not so dire as some kid’s future, but the point is: one step at a time, which tune do you want to work on next…?

The tips above are the logical, objective answers to help organize towards creative efficiency, etc. Absolutely useful. Mine are the reality of art and creative products done with the most bias towards creative merit. Mine are from the stance of the ideal, which is that we could always create at 100% capacity 100% of the time, which of course we can’t.

Short answer: Finish them all. Start & finish more. Keep going, your next tunes are better than your last ones.