I started a project back in March with every intention of finishing it in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I was constantly interrupted for about 2 months, snatching and hour or two here and there until it was completed about 10 weeks later.
Here’s the thing: In my humble opinion, the end result was much better for the constant stop/start and interruption cycle. I found more schoolboy errors, creative sound design and better composition than if I’d ploughed through the process in a couple of large chunks of time.
Anyone else found this? And do you think that chopping and changing between several projects at the same time improves the quality of the final product?
I’m usually spending every ounce of my spare time on projects*, and if I can’t get something up and running in a few days, it’s probably going to end up in the garbage bin. I’ve got a few ‘archived’ ones where I bit off way more than I could chew and want to give them another run in the future, but those are going to take a serious miracle or a rush of incentive to bring to life.
.* = when I’m not shisposting on the internet
Starting and stopping a large musical project feels a lot like opening up code from months ago – I have no idea what my point even was, and I usually can’t get back into the headspace that even made any of it make sense. I guess I’m just not really consistent enough for that, personally; everything can change at the drop of the hat, for reasons even I don’t understand
Great thread idea, too! I’m curious to see how others work over the long haul.
A friend of mine uses the Pomodoro technique for academic marking tasks and he swears by it. The timed working intervals seem too short to me but there may be something in it.
Pomodoro was developed from iterative software design methodologies, apparently. Not sure if it applies to what we do.
I have worked on some songs off and on for 3+ years before putting them out. One thing that helps is I have a notes plugin in my DAW that I can put my ideas into as I get to the end of a session, and then when I pick it back up whether that’s in a few days or a few years it is easier to pick up where I left off.
I have done tracks where I finish them in like 2-3 sessions of a few hours each, but I would say that is the exception rather than the rule for me. Average time to finish a track from start is probably 6-8 months now, but it used to be over a year for me.
I have projects I have been tweaking like old car engines for up to a decade before figuring out what they needed to feel finished. I am trying to close that time gap more these days and a lot of it has to do with me being more organized. I’ll have to check out the Pomodoro process.
I have a pretty involved organization process INSIDE my actual projects, things being named, samples being placed all in the project folder, tracks being frozen if it involves VSTs I might not have later, etc. But when it comes to the dozens/possibly hundreds of projects themselves having timelines with notes attached and self-imposed deadlines on them… well that’s something I’m still working on.
I have an IT background and did a lot of development back in the day. In-house standards and methodologies were great (albeit hated,) if you had to maintain old code or were new to a legacy system…
… this approach has much the same benefits and, in my opinion, is a very sensible workflow. Trying to maintain someone else’s uncommented code or following out-of-date documentation is a nightmare. It’s just like revisiting an old project if you didn’t stick to your own “in-house” standards, working out what the heck you did, where you put everything and your original thought processes that got you there in the first place.
I’m doing an album right now and I’m so prone to the “new shiny”. I’ll finish a song and love it, but once I get another one going the last one sounds dated.
Another method I’ve been using since maybe 2017 is how I name my projects. Instead of giving it a cool special name right off the bat, I use a format like this:
[Style/Genre] [BPM] [Purpose*] [Key/chord progression, if any] [Date] .als
I do the same for my instruments, racks, anything. That’s for mainly if I start something, don’t have an immediate reaction to how i like it, and save it in my Music Production/Ableton Projects/2025 folder.
*Purpose meaning: I sometimes do test sessions, make templates, create racks in projects all on their own. Then of course there’s beats, loops, sound design stuff, mastering projects
So a typical title for an unfinished project looks something like this:
DnB 172bpm Bass fx rack Sub bass in Serum2 Bbmi 05-22-22.als
-or-
Drone 86bpm Pro3 jam sesh w FX Dmi-F 05-22-22.als
I have so many projects named “thing.als” 9___9 so this keeps me from having to open everything from the last 20 years to see what it even is all the time. Sometimes I’ll add “Come back to this” or “YES” so I know I liked it. lol
…Unless I’m drunk. If I’m drunk, I’ll name something “IONRGIENRGndfsngnsjfdnog.als”. because i’m annoying, even to my future self.
