Starphoenix

Not sure if this tidbit of advice will help, but here's how I finished American Pixels. That was a 5+ year project, tons of excitement at the front-end, and then it turned into... work. And here's the problem, I have a family and a full-time job, so I kept hitting the snag where I'd work all day, spend time with the family, have a pocket of free time at night, and then... not have any energy left. That, or there'd be this sense of "yay, I have time to work on music... and oh no, I feel obligated to work on that project and I'm really not in the mood..."
So, that happened over and over, and occasionally I'd have a magic day off (holiday, whatever) where I'd get a wonderful 4 hours in a row to myself... and during those moments, I could tap into the creative juices and get it going again... but man, those little magical windows were rare. Like, once every few months rare. It got really frustrating seeing an album inch to completion in those sporadic bursts.
The answer for me: wake up earlier. I'd set my alarm for 4:30am, be in my studio by 5am, and get in a solid hour, hour and a half every morning. My brain wasn't yet tired from the day job, I was rested and fresh, and the stuff that seemed like work before now seemed fun again. And, it actually helped my happiness level, so even though I was sleepy, I was giddy at work considering the progress I made in the early morning hours. And then I just had to ride and chase that feeling until things were done. It was tough to get started, but then it became strangely addicting.

Might be down for this. Chillhop is a style I’m trying to transition into, and this might be a good opportunity for some practice. A Mario Paint mix sounds kind of appealing.

You're welcome! That's what PRC is about, right? To learn and grow, and feedback has helped me a lot so it's good to return it

Awesome job with this mix! Taking such a short track and extending it out to the 5 minute mark without the track becoming overly redundant is impressive. There isn't much I can give in the way of feedback except to say that the resonance of glass synth that drops in around the 5:05 feels rather high.
Good luck with the judges panel. Look forward to seeing this on the homepage sometime in the near future.

Excited to see this album released! From the tracks I've listened to so far, everyone has done a great job with one of the best RPG soundtracks of all time. Major kudos to everyone. Look forward to streaming the rest of the album.

No disrespect whatsoever to @timaeus222 but the opposite is true for me - when I am not feeling "inspired" about an arrangement or a composition, I put it down.  That being said, I've heard that Chuck Close is credited with saying "Inspiration is for amateurs," which I disagree with especially because I think his stuff is (on the surface) the same thing over and over again.  I recently finished 10 or so tracks for an indie game, and I flat out DIDN'T meet deadlines because I wasn't feeling inspired about some of the tracks.  They weren't saying what I wanted them to say!
So @DarkEco to your original question, I would advise you to first master your primary instrument, and I mean strive for professional level playing. Most of the composers I have played have had a big impact on me and my arranging. We are all of us product of our influences. Cement to yourself who you want to emulate, because everyone emulates someone. Bach got his hands on some of Vivaldi's orchestral scores and came up with the Brandenburg Concerti because he took apart Vivaldi's introductory phrase structure and reconfigured it like legos into something he loved even more. He walked many many miles round trip so he could go listen to Buxtehude play organ, which impacted the rest of his fugal composition. If your influences are your contemporaries, that's perfectly fine too! Rush cites Led Zeppelin as a HUGE influence, and they were playing/touring at the same time. I think Neil Peart said in an interview that for a couple years in Rush's early performing, they sounded like a Led Zep ripoff band.  They found their own voice eventually, of course.  Led Zep, their biggest influence was blues form!
If you aren't a formally trained musician, that's perfectly fine. Just cover the music that you love - don't play the same stuff all the time, and internalize the components that you love. Have no fear in incorporating your influences into your compositions. It creates meaning. Jazzers are advised and taught to transcribe solos from the greats on their instruments (and NOT their instruments).

If you're having trouble focusing your learning process, I can relate - I have minimal formal theory training as well, and it can be especially hard to know where to start when you don't really know terms.  Here's the resource that's helped me the most lately: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeZLO2VgbZHeDcongKzzfOw/videos
If you're having issues with composition specifically, I'd particularly recommend any of his videos that talk about utilizing motifs.  There's a Dark Souls vid and a Zelda: Link's Awakening vid that talk about motif use and transformation pretty thoroughly, and it's really made a huge impact on my writing lately.
Aside from that, the best recommendation I have is to transcribe.  A lot.  Even from your own tracks.  If you find a chord progression you really like, throw down a dummy instrument (my go-to is a simple triangle wave), write it out and examine it isolated.  Or if you like the interplay the chords had with the melody, put down another dummy for the lead and look at the relationships between the two.  When you find something you like, even if it's from someone else's work, try emulating it.  Don't feel bad about borrowing elements from music that inspires you, especially when you're learning something new!  Adding techniques to your repertoire will make you a much more effective composer when it comes time to write to a client's specs, and I find that the more comfortable you get with a new trick/technique (even if it's "borrowed"), the easier it is to implement it into a track with your own spin to make it sound more unique.  It's not necessary to rediscover every composition technique for yourself, only that you can use it effectively.
The chord/lead dummies also translate into my own originals and arrangements, not just transcription.  Blocking out a new section can help you determine how well it flows with the preceding material, and it really helps me avoid wasting time fleshing out an entire section only to find it won't work structurally.
I also have to echo Timaeus that if it's possible, make at least a little time for music stuff almost every day, whether it's starting a new tune, transcribing one of your favorite game tunes, or making a new synth patch.  But don't beat yourself up if you miss a day and definitely take a day or two off if you need it.  The mind needs time away from conscious processing to recombine novel information and let what you've learned solidify.  It functions a lot like a muscle; overtraining is more detrimental than it might seem on the surface, so if you find that it's too stressful doing X number of days per week, back it off a bit and make sure to focus on enjoying the process.  Maybe even just pick a few days of the week to purposely be away from music, or schedule out what you want to work on for which days - it's the consistency that's most important rather than the sheer quantity of time you spend with music.
Hope that's helpful

PM me your entry, I'll sub it in for the meantime.  You both better contact ThaSauce Network on Facebook.  That's what i had to do when i locked myself out lol.

Ran into this issue as well trying to create a new account after locking myself out of my old one. Not sure what is going on.

Color me intrigued.

This source selection has me intrigued. I'll try to knock something out by the 15th.

Might jump in next round, depending on the source. Had a lot personally come up over the summer that prevented me from doing much musically, but I want to start getting back into a flow.

Considering we are on the outset of the holiday season, many people are probably just busy.

My bad DarkeSword. Didn't even notice these threads were under the music history forum. Just assumed this was the general music forum. Still no excuse for lazy posting on my part.
Anyhoo, to dive a bit deeper into why I enjoy the Super Monkey Ball 2 soundtrack in context of the game. Besides sounding good, the juxtaposition between these bright environments and characters with music that becomes increasingly more ambient and darker by the time you reach the last two boss worlds gives a unique feel to the game. Maybe if I had a little more music knowledge and experience I could dig into why that is, but just as someone who enjoys games and music the soundtrack did an excellent job of matching the environments, and in a game where you're dying frequently and having to replay stages countless times over, the last thing the music should do is become a nuisance. Perhaps that's why the music becomes more ambient as the game progresses: to not needlessly draw the player's attention as the difficulty of each stage ramps up. May not have been the intention, but definitely an interesting coincedence.

It's here - our new album cover!

I've posted it to the first page of the thread too. Tell us what you think!

Seems like an interesting source. I may try to whip something hoppy up again, minus vocal scratching. Kind of feeling like I want to experiment with some 808s.

Great job @Dextastic and @APZX. You both had solid mixes that I enjoyed. Didn't get to vote because I had some personal stuff come up this weekend, but wanted to congratulate you both.

Not quite where I want it to be, but I'll have it up in an hour or two. Pretty short track overall.

Sure. Definitely wouldn't be any excuse to not have something turned in. Lol

I'll have something up right at or near the deadline. Not sure if I'll get to experiment with the sample chopping like I wanted to, but I'll have something a little hoppy.

I was thinking more along the lines of vocal chops.
BTW, if anyone knows where I can find a clean version of the lyrics, that'd be swell. My Google Fu is failing me.

Haha, yesss! This track is just begging for some kind of jazz-hoppy mix.

Haha, yesss! This track is just begging for some kind of jazz-hoppy mix.

Okay, let me see if I can explain this without sounding like a pompadour wearing hipster. So, width is an interesting topic of discussion in of itself and so is layering of elements, but lets start simple with the idea of masking as this has a lot to do with what I'm about to discuss. Masking is when you have one element of a mix hide or cloud the ability to hear another. So, lets listen to your mix and do some analysis of what is readily able to be heard versus what is more than likely causing it to be masked (best guesses based on the sonic qualities of everything going on). The piano can be heard, but it has no real definition in the mix. It is just kind of there and not really adding to the mix in its current state. More than likely there is a combination of the guitars and drums taking up too much space for the piano to really shine. That is probably the largest masking issue in the mix. I don't know how to tell you to correct this without you actually revisiting the mix from the start. But I can re-suggest starting the mix from zero and mixing up and developing a static mix from that. This helps you find a general level and balance of the instruments that work to keep various elements of the mix audible and not fighting each other for too much space. Don't worry about EQ or Compression or effects at this point. You just want to get something that is generally favorable and kind of what you're looking for from the focus of the instruments. Then after this point you can start to add in EQ to clear up some space and create more space for the various instruments. 
Now, I keep saying "space" and let me tell you this is probably the hardest thing to define in a mixing context. Not because it is necessarily hard to achieve, but because it is incredibly difficult to put into words exactly what it is. It is kind of the situation of where you know exactly what it is because the big name guys have been doing it so well for so long that you know exactly what it sounds like, and when it doesn't sound like that it is definitely noticeable. Essentially, you almost want to picture a stage or volume or something where all these various elements are playing together. Then you've got to figure out mentally how these various elements are placed on the stage or volume or whatever. Then you've got to work on making the mix of the various instruments sound like what you're picturing. Go listen to pretty much any Pop, Rock, Metal, Hip Hop, RnB, or whatever and just pay attention to where the various elements are situated relative to one another. This is where the ideas of width and layering start coming into play. 
So, width as I said is an interesting concept in of itself and the general idea is that there are two speakers so there is a fixed amount of separation between the two that is the inherent width of any mix. However, it is possible to go beyond those with things like stereo expanders, but those as you've pointed out can cause issues with mono compatibility. Though there are ways to make a mix that is wide and is mono compatible. Really, the general idea at play here is partially related to the idea of sum and difference of the left and right. The greater the difference between the left and right overall the wider the mix will probably sound. It is also important to note how our brain interprets sound. Most of the issues with mono compatibility are when you play with the phase of either the left or right compared to the other. The more out of phase one is with the other the wider it will sound, but that also comes at the price of compromising the phantom center (remember the center doesn't actually exist). With that being said if you have a very solid phantom center and more or less invert the left or right phase of an element in the mix you'd be surprised at how forgiving the brain is to it. Sure it still won't sound correct, but it starts to get you thinking about it. Additionally, with this we're generally less sensitive to higher frequency material being out of phase than lower frequency material. Use that to your advantage. You really have to use all sorts of tricks to make the brain think it is hearing something that it may not necessarily be hearing. 
That really brings me to the last point I'd like to make about layering. As I'm sure you're aware of already there is layering different sounds together to make a more complex sound. Well, you can apply the same idea to a mix in not only the stereo field, but also the depth of a mix. You've kind of got to think of the depth like drawing a 3D image on a piece of paper. Is it 3D? No it isn't, but it looks 3D and the same can apply with a mix. It is just an illusion of an element in the mix being closer or further away than another. Lets go back for a second to the idea of width. Now, if you place something halfway panned, hard pan something else, and if you apply "gentle" stereo expansion to something else then the end result is something that will likely sound wider than had you quarter panning, half panning, and just hard panning. The gentle stereo expansion is not likely to cause many issues with mono compatibility either. Plus, if you control the volume and spectral balance of what you pan out then you've also created complexity to the mix where certain instruments appear closer and further from the listener. Apply this same kind of thinking to just depth of the mix and you'll be starting to get the idea of layering within a mixing context rather than a sound design context. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you listen to the big name stuff with these ideas in place you'll likely find that they are wider in the top end and narrow the lower in frequency that they go creating like an upside down triangle. Trust me it'll take time to wrap your head around it, but these are things to start paying attention to. 
Ultimately, a good modern stereo mix is one of illusion. There are some monitoring tricks you can do to see what exactly is going on. For instance if you mono your monitoring then what you're hearing the sum or phantom center of the mix. If you mono your monitoring and then invert the phase of either the left or right then you're hearing the difference which is really just the out of phase material that will disappear when the mix is collapsed to mono. Now, this out of phase material doesn't necessarily translate to width. It is just what will disappear when you collapse to mono. If you hear a lot of low end like this then that is generally pretty bad. But if you hear some reverb tails or such then it probably isn't such a big deal. You've got to alternate between normal stereo, mono, and mono + invert to really get a good idea of what you're mix is doing. Also, you've got to just experiment to understand what these things all mean to the end result of the mix. The last thing I'd like to suggest is applying things in layers. That is to say if you need a lot of compression on a signal then use multiple compressors for the different aspects of the sound that need compression. This typically creates a more natural sounding result than one compressor doing all the lifting (though it may be desirable artistically to do one layer of compression). Apply the same idea to width. Add it in stages and try to bake it in from the beginning. 
Okay, that was a lot longer than I expected and I waffled about a bit, but hopefully it makes some sense. 

As usual, excellent stuff. Love the percussions for this track. Sound almost gives me a Sagat meets SaGa Frontier II vibe.