What is the hardest part of the process for you?

[Argle]

Does anyone else find that when you arm a track and hit record, your dexterity suddenly drops by about half? Or is that just me?

[TheLastBaron]

Does anyone else find that when you arm a track and hit record, your dexterity suddenly drops by about half? Or is that just me?

Definitely not just you, this always happens to me every single time. What I usually end up doing is hitting record and then just messing aroudn for a little bit so I don't feel like I'm actually recording, I'm just fiddling around with what I want to play and then when I get it right I happen to have it recorded.

For me the hardest part of the whole process is just starting. I'll sometime sit at my computer and not do anything for an hour. What ends up working best is if I just throw stuff down even if I know it's completely different from what I want and I'll end up trashing it all later. Similar thing to if you have to write a big paper and can't get that first sentence.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Motivation, persistence.

[Aephus]

Transitions. Hands down. I don't know why I have so much trouble with them, but I do. I have a hard time going from a certain pattern to something completely different, yet staying true to the key I'm in. I've had a couple successful instances, but it seems to be rare for me. I also compose very leisurely, so I'm not as up to par as I could be. o.0

[Aephus]

the creative part is what sucks for me. i have almost no creativity which is why most of my remixes are pretty much just covers and also why i will probably never release any original material. i can not create a melody to save my life

you can. you just have to break free of trying to sound like something else. or a kind of genre. once you can let go of that, you'll be able to. at first, your melodies might not sound as good as you want them to, but with practice, they'll improve and you'll develop wonderfully.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

you can. you just have to break free of trying to sound like something else. or a kind of genre. once you can let go of that, you'll be able to. at first, your melodies might not sound as good as you want them to, but with practice, they'll improve and you'll develop wonderfully.

I think with Sixto it's just running into a classic problem with being any kind of artist.

Once you're in the know about something with music and you're good at it, it becomes harder and harder to really impress yourself. Like, I doubt a guitar player like Michael Romeo is really blown away by pentatonic guitar solos at this point, but he'd probably still agree that they sound good.

That's a problem I've run into. I'll come up with a guitar riff and something that could work for like, an intro to a song, but then it's not sounding like the best thing ever and so I give up. Then, after I've deleted the file and think about it I'm like..."Well, it did sound good and sounding good is more or less the goal with music."

So yeah, I guess the rule is that even if it isn't the most amazing thing you've heard in your entire life, but it does sound good, keep it anyway.

[Aephus]

I think with Sixto it's just running into a classic problem with being any kind of artist.

Once you're in the know about something with music and you're good at it, it becomes harder and harder to really impress yourself. Like, I doubt a guitar player like Michael Romeo is really blown away by pentatonic guitar solos at this point, but he'd probably still agree that they sound good.

That's a problem I've run into. I'll come up with a guitar riff and something that could work for like, an intro to a song, but then it's not sounding like the best thing ever and so I give up. Then, after I've deleted the file and think about it I'm like..."Well, it did sound good and sounding good is more or less the goal with music."

So yeah, I guess the rule is that even if it isn't the most amazing thing you've heard in your entire life, but it does sound good, keep it anyway.

Indeed. Thanks for your addition

[mickomoo]

The whole "producing" part with mixing and stuff. No good at it and don't even like doing it.

Other than that, sometimes actually finishing songs is the hardest part. I have so many unfinished songs it's insane.

Music Theory, how to maximize the potential of melodies/chords using Music Theory.

Mixing the low end, for me too. Not necessarily the low-mids, mainly the bass and sub bass. I tend to have trouble bringing the bass out, and I have to check between my Grados with clear bass and okay sub bass, and my Skullcandies with muddy bass but good sub bass. I have literally no good way of testing my bass.

Other than that, just finding ideas to write a song at all. I didn't start listening to music until the 7th grade, so I have almost no inspiration other than ocremix and a few oldie artists. When I do find my inspiration, it tends to flesh itself out rather easily, within 3-30 days, depending on how complicated the ideas my brain wanted to create.

Getting over "the hump" of taking my original ideas for a remix and fleshing them out to get a nicely constructed, cohesive track. It's far to easy to get stuck in a rut 2-3 hours into a song and not know where to take it next.

Mastering is a bitch.

Inputting every single note everything by mouse/hand is a bitch.

Listening to the same section of a song 600+ times over and over can definitely be a bitch.

It makes the going very slow.

Transitions. Hands down. I don't know why I have so much trouble with them, but I do. I have a hard time going from a certain pattern to something completely different, yet staying true to the key I'm in. I've had a couple successful instances, but it seems to be rare for me. I also compose very leisurely, so I'm not as up to par as I could be. o.0

I know those feels... all of those feels. And I dont know how to get better =/

[Garpocalypse]

I know those feels... all of those feels. And I dont know how to get better =/

Competition.

Life has been causing me to slack lately but every time I see my placement on DoD or PRC I can't help but feel like I need to slay more of life to get more studio time in.

[Argle]

I think with Sixto it's just running into a classic problem with being any kind of artist.

Once you're in the know about something with music and you're good at it, it becomes harder and harder to really impress yourself. Like, I doubt a guitar player like Michael Romeo is really blown away by pentatonic guitar solos at this point, but he'd probably still agree that they sound good.

That's a problem I've run into. I'll come up with a guitar riff and something that could work for like, an intro to a song, but then it's not sounding like the best thing ever and so I give up. Then, after I've deleted the file and think about it I'm like..."Well, it did sound good and sounding good is more or less the goal with music."

So yeah, I guess the rule is that even if it isn't the most amazing thing you've heard in your entire life, but it does sound good, keep it anyway.

Yeah man. I totally agree. I spent years being way too hard on myself, and as a result my output (and enjoyment) suffered.

[ectogemia]

Yeah man. I totally agree. I spent years being way too hard on myself, and as a result my output (and enjoyment) suffered.

I agree so much with this, but at the same time, it has REALLY driven improvements in my game. For instance, my production compared to what it was a year ago is utterly night-and-day.

So there's that positive aspect to it, but yes, it has definitely screwed up my output. But what I do create is sounding better and better. I just hope one day that I hit the point where I'm satisfied enough not to have those crippling hesitations that make me unproductive now.

[Kruai]

Making myself sit down and mess with my music is pretty hard. I used to just wait for the muse to appear, but then I'd never get anything done. I've found that if I sit down and just mess with some synths, I'll get inspired to work on it a whole lot more.

When I actually get around to making music, composing the melody is probably the hardest part for me. I think that's why I like making remixes so much--I can do a lot with a song if a melody has already been given to me, and I can make variations and improv off of that. Making one from scratch is the plops, though. I can't wait to take more music theory class next semester.

[Forrest]

For me, establishing a sense of space with each channel or instrument is really difficult. The word "mud" comes to mind. As I attempt to bring more and more content in, particularly when most of the tracks are being bussed out to a reverb, it's so easy for things to clump together in the mix. Virtual instruments can really sound dull and lacking depending on how they're used. Bringing in real musicians has been key for me to realize when the problem is the software, and when it's actually my writing.

To be forthright, I am learning that the problem is MORE often that I am just not writing space between parts.

Listening to great music really puts things into perspective and actually I stills a sense of respect and ambition to the process.

[AngelsDen]

Transitions, Drums, Bassline and Mastering... Everything else is like a mental image i can always review. But i cant get a clear Vision of these 4 important things mentioned above.

[Sinescape]

I know all of the problems stated to far. As with Kruai, doing remixes gets me out of the work of writing a melody, which I'm really not good at. My melodies usually become too complicated and hard to remember.

The other problems are more often than not a matter of just sitting down and getting started. I've learned that for me to get out of the 16-bar rut, I need to forcibly give it some sort of rudimentary structure (Build-up, Break-down, Finale etc.) out of the awesome 16 bars and then add stuff, remove stuff, move other stuff around and tinker with the results. That always sparks new creativity.

However, my main problem is production. The music almost always ends up sounding too thin and lacking midrange content. Recently I've learned how to remedy muddy bass with EQing, but I seem to constantly forget to fill the 500-1000 Hz range.