Finish Now OR Later?

When you guys make beats do you guys hammer out a whole lot of unfinished ideas that you are going to finish up later...


OR!


Do you make complete beats at a time .....


I like to do complete beats in one sitting but recently I have been testing out making a whole bunch of ideas then finishing them later.

I do things with the intent of finishing them later and then I never do.

I basically make the whole beat...and then add bass later...or make the whole beat and then add or remove stuff later.

I tend to finish it off there and then, but then I might make changes after writing verses etc. so it all fits and that.

spectre wrote:I do things with the intent of finishing them later and then I never do.

That used to happen to me a lot too. Now I just try to work faster, and call a beat 'finished' a little sooner - the best hiphop instrumentals are very basic anyway, so my beats are just waiting for MCs.

My best beats are the ones I did in one sitting, without thinking. When I have an unfinished beat I go back to later, I sometimes just mess it up by thinking too much and it loses it's vibe.

That said, some of my bangers are tracks I worked on for days, tracking sh*t in Logic, adding more and more layers, cuts, etc... But my favorite way of working is working fast, and tracking the whole beat through the board straight to stereo. Keeps things way fresher than tracking.

I get bored easily when working on the same beat, so I tend to make 2 or 3 tracks at a time. If someone wants a particular beat ($$), then I will dedicate my time and complete it.
I used to complete tracks when I first started, but I would always get Mc's that wanted me to make changes so the beat would fit their lyrics. Once I get the basic 8 or 16 bars, I move on. I don't want to make it sound easier than it really is.. there are many days where I can't/don't make anything worth saving.

i've been making one beat a week. in 3 or 4 sittings. Usually get the basic idea down first then fill it in later. I've gotten better response from my emcees since adopting this style. My shyt just sounds thicker and more polished when i spend more time on it. I used to do it all in one sitting though.

My time is more chopped up now since we had the baby so to be able to get as much done as i do (practice with the group and tracking out beats on my man's new protools setup), my wife has been really generous with giving me my time. life's ill.

i havent finished anything and i have been doing this for 9 years, time seems to pass very quickly

Yeah it seems best to me to just get ideas down. Setup some basic change ups. But then dedicate time to complete the beat if a rapper wants.

the best hiphop instrumentals are very basic anyway

????????

the best hip hop BEATS are very basic - beat meaning a composition used to provide a backing for an emcee

the best hip hop INSTRUMENTALS - stand alone musical works without performed vocals - are NOT basic. instead they have breakdowns, changeups, transformations, tempo/sig changes...anything you want...

big different between a song and a beat

I might run through I don't know how many tracks before I find that one,most of it's done in one sitting as I like to move on to the next vibe.can't wait to hear what I'll do next.

all my "real bangers" are made in like 10 minutes start to finish, nothing really needed, no real effort or difficulty.

i find that if it takes me longer im not letting the creativity flow right or focusing too much on one sound when i should just move on.

if you are comfortable with your skills, at some point you should become good enough where you dont have to think about it, but just do it naturally; your standard of quality should increase and you can make quality deciscions more efficiently.

sometimes however it might not be the right moment, even if you have a good idea or good start going. Thats why I also keep everything and work at them later.

most of the times if the track isnt finished, its because i need to rework the groove, or replace a snare, maybe even take an entirely differant approach.

Basically, the better you get, the easier it should be to finish a track.........what makes you even better is if you try to perfect each part; even if that means setting it aside for awhile and coming back to it. Part of being a good producer is being able to make the call if something is worth the work or if you should move to something else. Moving to something else doesnt mean you are giving up. You have to realize that sometimes its not you. Sometimes a crappy track will develop into a great one.

you should try to examine "what happened" when you made your best tracks. THeres a reason my best ones only take a few minutes.....but what works for me, might not work for you. It might take someone else 2 weeks for thier best; thats perfectly fine.

Part of improving your skills is realizing what good things you can do, not just looking at what you cant do. Stay humble no matter how good you are.

"Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first" Jay z

Antonym wrote:

the best hiphop instrumentals are very basic anyway

????????

the best hip hop BEATS are very basic - beat meaning a composition used to provide a backing for an emcee

the best hip hop INSTRUMENTALS - stand alone musical works without performed vocals - are NOT basic. instead they have breakdowns, changeups, transformations, tempo/sig changes...anything you want...

big different between a song and a beat

i see no difference between "BEATS" and "INSTRUMENTALS". they are both "stand alone musical works without performed vocals" and both can be "used to provide a backing for an emcee". there is a difference between "beats" and "songs" but i agree that many greats "beats" or "instrumentals" or whatever you want to call them are very basic. many of dre's beats for example. not really a whole lot going on there but still smooth as ****. my .02

make the main loop, then move onto a something else, then come back if i still like it then ill start tweaking it making it tighter then sequence it.

my workflow for those that care:

start drums on airplane, airport, or hotel in reason's redrum (I travel around this country tracking every week)

when i get back to my studio i scan the drums for the type of track i want to work on.

i then start playing on my triton until i find some nice chords.

next is bass

after that comes the bass.

then i work on the changes

lastly i stack all of the sounds using various synths and modules until it sounds like a record.

next i add to the drums until they r thick.

then i do a mix

after the mix i do an arrangement

then i play the tracks for my production team if they r feeling it we put a hook on it.

lastly i do the mastering and it goes to my publisher or sometimes i will send it to artists directly (the publisher get's a cut regardless of if i place it or he places it.)

when i first started i used to do as many tracks as i could and they were more instrumentals than actual songs. once i started to get people on my tracks and got a publisher i switched to going hard on one idea until it is finished. i also try to come up with a melody or hook while i am writing the song and 9 times out of ten if i can't then i scrap it and move on.

i maintain a reel of 15 tracks which i recommend everyone do. as tracks get placed and as u make better songs replace them on the reel. anything more than around 20 songs and the listener will be overloaded and they will either forget what is hot or become numb.

the mistake i used to make is not going hard on every song. i find this to be a common mistake made by aspiring producers. i used to make beats in 10 mins but that stopped 2 years ago. if u look at my workflow u will see that there is no possible way to do that from start to finish in 10 min. yeah it might take me 10 min to get the basic drum line and chords down, but to make a quality track takes time. I just switched from using reason's redrum to using guru yesterday, so that is the only change so far for 2006.