Feeling lost with your own music

...direction and feeling not being able to do anything creative.
I'm going through this shit right at the moment and I've felt I can't do anything dope for like a month (except for a few beats).
I sit at the computer everyday and as the MPC is always in front of me, sometimes I feel the urge to do something but I just can't and almost get depressed by the thought that I've lost everything I have worked for over 1,5 years now...

Has anybody felt the same way and what did you do to fix it?

1.5 years is not a long time.

Relax, do other stuff, put your mpc under your bed and don't look at it all the time feeling obligated to make music.

Enjoy your life and don't worry about it. Once you feel the urge to get back on the MPC, do it.

Happens to all of us. Don't force it...

I agree with jibber as I've hit a wall on a project I'm doing at the moment. I've just covered my equipment up and doing jobs that I've been putting off around the house, watching films, chilling with family and friends etc. It will come back, just takes a bit of time

the one thing you shouldn't do is try and force it. if you try to force yourself to make stuff during this low, it's gonna come out mediocre.

just give it time.

Yeah, everyone is right about taking a break.

But... if you don't want to take a break... change it up.

Try not using your computer at all. MPC only. Backup your MPC to your computer and then format the MPC drive. Tell yourself you will only sample straight into the MPC. Start from nothing. No transferring files. Find sounds you like, even if they are sounds you've already used before. Sample them straight into the MPC. Produce it all in the box.

Try not using your MPC at all. Computer only. Move it over by the best window in the house. If you have a laptop, take it out to the park in your car. Out to a public place where other people sit with laptops.

Compose a song. If it stinks, don't worry. Just finish it anyway and move onto the next song. The 80/20 rule can apply here. Go for some quantity and give yourself permission to write some crappy songs. Don't worry, they don't all have to be gold. But the one rule here is they do have to be finished.

Give yourself deadlines. Say, I'm going to finish a song in one day and finish it no matter what.

Sometimes your soul wants to say something and your mind doesn't like it. You can end up in a deadlock. Like sticking your thumb in a water hose. I don't think much good music has been created by only the mind. Listen to those first ideas and chase them. Don't be critical. Don't think about it. Just do it and see where it goes.

Good luck!

jibber wrote:1.5 years is not a long time.

Happens to all of us. Don't force it...

yup...

keep ya head up fam, and dont try so hard.

I take up guitar for a few weeks. Eventually i get tired of the sound of it and come back to the mpc for a few weeks. Having very different styles and instruments can be just as fresh as time off. But i never feel like time off, so a change up refreshes the batteries.

this thread reads like a viagra commercial.

"it happens to all of us"

I've lost everything in HD fries and all that more than once. I totally get into those funks where I can't make it flow, I really know what the OP is saying.

I suggest just put no pressure on yourself to "compose" full blown. Just for a while dabble with no plan and be OK with it. Just make lots of 1, 2, 4, 8 bar loops. Label them well and/or save the ongoing sessions in MPC or computer apps. Then you can go back and make more if need be.

I had a 2012 that for a variety of real life reasons I couldn't really create as well as times prior, I did what I described and made 2100 loops that I have to "sample" myself in effect. And if I get them in key can be made into full productions with the quickness.

And Nym is dead on haha.

Music has a direct channel to one's emotional state. Get to the bottom of what the real problem is. Challenge your mind more.

cheers,
Ian

PS "Musical art is not my day job, but it is a serious second job (band and all that), I find that after I have done some serious brain work and then go to my guitar or drums or whatever(even math problems) my brain can perform much more complex tasks with ease."

Ian Canefire wrote:Music has a direct channel to one's emotional state. Get to the bottom of what the real problem is. Challenge your mind more.

This is the realest thing I have heard on these forums for a while... I've been battling some anxiety for the past few months and it shows. I used to be able to put my pain into the music but even that wasn't my best. My best work came from having a clearer head and no worries.

I'm trying to get back to that place...

sumtimes wen i don't feel like making music i will go digging or listen to stuff i haven't heard to get inspired

jibber wrote:1.5 years is not a long time.

Relax, do other stuff, put your mpc under your bed and don't look at it all the time feeling obligated to make music.

Enjoy your life and don't worry about it. Once you feel the urge to get back on the MPC, do it.

Happens to all of us. Don't force it...

Well what I meant with the 1,5 years is that I feel like I'm going backwards in my beat making game, it kinda peaked (I think) a few months back when I really did the beats that I liked and I liked the direction where I was heading.
I've started to listen more and more deep house and was experiementing with combining deep house and hip hop but it's hard as hell to create your own unique style. (not just for the hell of it, it's because I like it and that's what I want to do)

Which reminds me about a question I was thinking; Do the best producers (and why not the amateurs) follow the same formula for every beat, not for thearrangement, but the style and mixing technique that makes you go ''Oh! That's a Pete Rock beat, Oh! That's definately Large Professor!'' or do they have bunch of random style beats sitting in their MP or hardrive, and then they select the ones that fit the project and maybe polish them to sound alike.

Riggs wrote:Yeah, everyone is right about taking a break.

But... if you don't want to take a break... change it up.
!

Well basically all I use is my MPC and a turntable, that's it.

Metatron72 wrote:I've lost everything in HD fries and all that more than once. I totally get into those funks where I can't make it flow, I really know what the OP is saying.

I suggest just put no pressure on yourself to "compose" full blown. Just for a while dabble with no plan and be OK with it. Just make lots of 1, 2, 4, 8 bar loops. Label them well and/or save the ongoing sessions in MPC or computer apps. Then you can go back and make more if need be.

I had a 2012 that for a variety of real life reasons I couldn't really create as well as times prior, I did what I described and made 2100 loops that I have to "sample" myself in effect. And if I get them in key can be made into full productions with the quickness.

And Nym is dead on haha.

And which reminds me of that I haven't been happy with my drum sounds for a while, maybe if I'd spent a few days on creating drum kits and layering drums I would be more inspirated, especially because I always end up using the same sounds...

And I didn't create this thread only just for my own sake, I'm pretty sure other people feel the same way quite often and every thread is about techical shit so I feel like we don't share this kind of stuff too much. I don't want to go full emo on this one, but I'm sure you all know what I mean

n4L, yeah no doubt. I love threads like this that often end up 50/50 tech/feel and flow discussions. This pursuit is such a potentially rabbit hole proposition, in both good and bad ways, but more to the good I'd say.

When I did the whole year of free styling loops it was 3 main folders. Drum loops, synth loops, and then any kind of sample freaked/re sequenced in a third folder.

On the drum ones I just went off on all the stuff I have, libraries, VST's, collected samples, everything. Then I worked on FX chains to take more advantage of all the great plugins I have. Super quick to go in and of course I'll eventually chop all of them into a 1000 MPC PGM's.

Also I'm a sampled boom bap guy by background, but I love all kinds of electronic music. So the whole 2k loop project was spent making a lot of house and other genre type patterns with a slight hip hop slant. With genres outside of hip hop like deep house I've found that the personal sound seems to come from your FX and usages of that stuff in your loops and drops.

But no I don't see these threads as too emo, although we go off making deep house and stuff our tracks might get more emo, mine did.

Expand your creative field. Listen to things you wouldn't normally find yourself listening to. Find things you like in other styles of music, and apply that to your own. I think that helps creativity flow a little bit. I think if you try to make something specific, that's where your hangups come from. Just experiment and try new things.