Motivation and Dedication

I have much to say on this. Before I do, a few questions, asked in earnest:

1) how long have you been producing with serious intent? Not dicking around, but furiously serious…?
2) have you set any personal goals? What would you like your efforts to achieve?

I’ll reply more after those answers…

I think everyone goes through this, some days I sit down on my desk and make 1 percussion loop, in the great scheme of things it may not seem very productive but actually when you are in the mood to make a track sometimes these sounds just fit.

Nothing wrong with making sounds to go into your library for later use.

D&B is a tough old place and everyone is fighting to get a release and to make people dance but you gotta keep grinding away.

if you listen back to your music from say 5 years ago, you will see progression and it will make you keep pushing. Music should always be fun rather than an effort.

Have you tried using a different DAW? Possible Studio One Professional or BitWig. Even just to mess about with plugins etc. It may just spark something.

Hope this helps.

Hey man,

Just my two cents, but don’t delete things as much as you want to. I know the feeling where you’ve felt you had a good session, then listen to someone else’s tunes, get discouraged and feel like binning the entire project.

Instead, share more with your friends, family or label contacts (as it sounds like you have a few). Obviously don’t spam, but if you feel a bit ambivalent about a WIP, see if someone else is digging it. I’ve found that sharing often is a great motivator, as it affirms creative direction and gives you an audience that has your best interests in mind. By that I mean someone who’s taste you respect, who is critical but fair, and who appreciates the difficulty of the art. These people lift us up.

colateraldnb wrote:

…No matter what i do i just cannot find that determination and motivation to make music anymore?

….When i was younger i was spend a lot of my free time making sounds & messing around which i found so much joy in. Which even led to releases on Flexout Audio, Proximity Recordings and Uprise Audio. .

The bit about messing around, finding joy in that. That’s the creative mindset…
It sounds like you have experience and developed some solid skills, and now perhaps finding (or reaffirming) your new production aesthetic might be the path to turn you back on so to speak.

Perhaps this can be found by not listening to Drum & Bass for a little while. Absorbing yourself in other genres for a couple of months to get some more inspiration inside your head.
When you get the urge to sit down at make some music… fight it for a bit longer. Keep building up the inspiration and only when the urge is too big to switch off, get back to the writing, then you know you’ll have something to explore….

We have only limited time on this planet! As a creative person you must relish that time…

For some reason this situation makes me think of physical exercise. It took a while, but over time I got to know what type of workouts and equipment I enjoyed using (swimming, group classes, functional training gyms), what was a struggle to get excited about (running, exercising by myself, weight rooms), and that when I do exercise, I tend to feel better about other things going on in my day to day life.

With production, I’ve had many setbacks, I have had year long stretches of not doing anything (thanks video games!), I’ve experienced envy when peers have successes and I’m feeling stuck, or trying to use tools that I don’t know or understand and eventually look like lost time & money (Zynaptiq Un:Mix…), and points where I am not enjoying what I am experiencing or think I’m not experiencing. But then I have also gained perspective, experiences, ideas (when I remember to act on them, or at least make note of them), and connections with other people, that when you step back & think about, are really cool. Lately, I’ve been in a strange space because of a major move, and several big changes; new job/career, new city, another kid on the way, got rid of most of my hardware, no space for a studio currently, just starting to meet music scene people. I also realize these are new opportunities and challenges, and when I start to fixate on bad stuff, I need to shift and remember what’s good as well. I’m also thinking more about “what’s the story I’m trying to tell” when I do get in the mood to write music.

It might be time for you to think about what’s important to you in regards to music. Ways to spark the fire, or approaches that work for you. That could be exploring a new sound, or a limited set of tools, or making a new personal sample bank. It might be reaching out to someone for a collaboration, or offering to share some of your knowledge & experience to help someone else. What has been enjoyable in the past for you, what are the accomplishments that make you go “fuck yeah, I did that!”? What’s the story you’re trying to share at this point in the journey?