Paralysis of Plentitude

How do you folk handle this embarrassment of riches we all have in electronic music? Multi-Gig libraries of sounds that might takes days to install and weeks to audition. A new synthesizer each month that takes a while to master. I have accumulated so much stuff this last year - Komplete, Alchemy, Omnisphere - I'll never get the time to go through it all.

I usually like to make music with my own sounds and presets - at least I have so far. But I haven't even begun to learn how to use Alchemy, beyond the basics.

Right now I've come to the conclusion that the best way to approach this is to learn enough about the software that you can gauge it's strengths and weaknesses, so that when you come to need a certain sound or effect you know where to go - then at that time dig into the software. But that might disturb the creative juices of the music-making.

What I have been doing lately is make three-part inventions - a rich-sound-generator, a frequency-domain-mangler, and a time-domain mangler in that order. The first provides a rich source, the next filters it, the last changes the timbre.

A nice rich-sound-generator is something like Collision in Live, or rachMiel's jitter ensemble. Filterscape, MFM2 and the Camel effects are good choices to the filters, and Spectron makes a nice timbre changer. So quite recently I've been exploring the jitter-Filterscape-Spectron mixture. rachMiel's glitch series and Twisted Tools Buffeater are also good timbral changers if you want glitchy sounds rather than organic sounds.

When I get some combination that I like, I map controllers to useful functions and start improvising for an hour or two - recording all as I go. The beginning is rough, but things get better as I learn the feel of all the interactions.

Then I take that two hour session and throw it away or clip out the good parts - some form loops, some make hits and stabs, some could be samples, some are nice phrases for future mangling.

After a time I make a big Reaktor sample map and throw it into one of the granular resynth ensembles.

Eventually I'll get enough material to cut and paste the things into something consistent and interesting (to me, anyway).

But so far this year I have not made anything and with only a short time left I'd like to do something good by year end.

 

interesting and important thread - I'll get back to this after some meditation
just posting to bump it back on top again ( bump )

 

Hello, welcome in my nightmare !

A month ago, I find a solution wich works really well, until the next one, of course :

We have to keep in mind that a song (or whatever with an artistic goal, I think) is made of one, and only one, idea.
So, my workflow being really close to yours, when comes the moment of building the final result, I ask "what is the only thing I couldn't erase ?"
And if the choice is too hard, I copy the project and erase all, absolutely all, except one thing.
With this thing, wich could be as small as one beat of a sound, the most important is that it moves you, I reopen the original project or import its old friends in a new one or, even, the best : I import it in another DAW and start from scratch from this thing.

Nice thread…

 

interesting and nice idea

ciao herw

 

what i've found is that if my intention is to create a specific-ish genre/style of music -- a dnb bassline, a synthpop lead, an electronica groove, an ambient pad -- having hundreds of good instruments to choose from can be more of a curse than a blessing.

but if i'm soundcombing -- tapping into the essential nature of an instrument and capturing some of what it has to offer, without regard for genre/style -- the more the merrier! it's like exploring a fantastically rich garden.

 

What could be an interesting experiment is that someone else but you Jim would actually evaluate your long Impro session and isolate something that would be worth keeping. It would most likely be something else than you would have chosen as tastes and expectations vary so much and the definition of "quality" regarding music and sound is obviously so subjective.

Reading various Forums I find the hype about new VIs, Plugs and Sample Libraries often ridiculous. Not that I don't participate in that hype myself, if I see a new Instrument, test it and then love it I will buy it, even if I might already have a Plug that can do similar things. But then I also try to reduce my means depending on the project I'm working on, otherwise things get abrasive very quickly and life is just too short to think hours about the question if I should use this Plug or that Plug or rather hire a musician who plays an instrument I don't master myself.

Good thread!

 

It leads to the question "why is my musical project for ?"
As mentionned by rachmiel, if it answers to a query, from you, from client or for fitting in a particular genre or "already identified" niche, commercial or not, the needs will be very different. And hence the tools. It's a walk between these two points : Do you need to master your tools as much as possible or do you need to be, day after day, always surprised and excited ?

I think the best question is "why I'm doing this ?" or better : "why the hell, am I making music ?" :lol:
For dreaming, eating, dancing… ?
The answer gives you a beginning of answer to the Jim's question.

 

I recognize my self in the above descriptions. My own conclusion is that I'm lacking an artistic idea. I'm focusing to much on the tools and to little on the artistic (music) result. I've got no vision/goal when making music. I fiend of mine has much less technical skills than I have but creates so much more music than I ever have with much more limited tools... but he has a clear vision and works very fast, not getting stuck. If the end result is not satisfactory he moves on to the next project.

Another way of keeping the creativity and focus on result is to get a creative partner. Contributing to each others work in different ways. Could be a friendly competition, or just to get a comment or feedback or to have someone to mix/remix your work however unfinished... or to work on a project in turns. Or set deadlines - create 1 minute every day no matter what!

 

i'm really in a 'one instrument-ensemble' mode at the moment because of this. simply choose a single reaktor ensemble and compose an entire track using that, and that alone. I allow myself the luxury of multitracking and a small amount of mastering, but thats it. seems to work nicely for me at the moment and being a lot more productive rather spending hours faffing with complex ensemble/instrument layouts.

 

Brian Eno is always good for a quote on such things so here we go :
"If I had a stock of fabulous sounds I would just always use them.
I wouldn't bother to find new ones."

however what I was looking for was a remarkl I recall from a 198ties interview where he said something along the lines that he prefered his 4 string bass to any synth cause the bass has only 4 or so different sounds while the synth has too many sonic possiblities to choose from
maybe not exactly or not at all what he said but you cant misquote a quote-producing android like Eno,
its folklore of the future. the Buckminster Fuller of Audio so to say

the question remains why he used the word "if" and I think thats part of the dilemma
<bump>

 

Although I'm generally indecisive and overwhelmed by life itself I'm not overwhelmed by the sonic choices available.

I think this stems from how I learnt to make music. Twenty years ago I spent a year writing music/fx for computer games. Jumping in at the deep end and trying to make music to order in BASIC and assembly language for three channels of lo-fi sound was an invaluable experience, since it forced me to acquire a certain discipline and attitude, keeping the music as simple and focussed as possible. I think this will be of great benefit to me now that I've decided to get back into music, even after such a long time.

I've just added Reaktor to my small synth collection, and a day spent just playing with most of the standard synths' presets was enough to confirm that it was a good move. In fact, if I can find the funds in time to benefit from the present upgrade offer I'll probably upgrade to Komplete for its range of options.

The thing that is overwhelming me music-wise is the need to learn how to use my music software: although I'm still in my forties I find it much more difficult to learn new things than I used to. It's not so much the synths, since even the most complex synth is useable from the start, but the DAW. I've recently switched from Reaper to Cubase, which seems more suited to beginners and to the way I want to work, so I'm hoping that this will make the difference...

 

I remember when I bought Logic originally, I thought 'If I forced myself to use X sounds from Logic per week to make a track - including all the sounds I don't like - I wouldn't use up all the sounds even if I did nothing else for the rest of my life.'

Then I bought Reaktor and I felt I had at least double that amount

One of my responses to this anxiety is to choose not to add any more huge tools/softsynths to my setup. I like to just keep learning more about the ones I've got.

This assumes you like the broad mass and sound possibilities of what you've got, and I super like both Reaktor and Logic.

With the possibility for us to endlessly resample and recombine our own output, in a sense, there will never be an end to a work until you choose for there to be one. There also won't be a start unless you make some kind of decision. 'I will use this particular synth', etc.

People are crippled by consumer anxiety all the time now because they're given a million choices in most contexts in life and always fear there might be a better option than the one they pick. It's not exactly the same in musicmaking because the options aren't mutually exclusive over time, but I imagine the psychology is similar. 'If I keep playing synths, I'll find something better/ more amazing than the sound I'm fiddling with now.'

 

Well my 'solution' has been to never concentrate/frame the question in relation to the tools. I always start with the abstract concept first, then simply 'shop' the tools into place and taste.

The only time the 'tool' itself becomes a focus is when I theorize interesting ways a particular one might be 'broken' and abused.

Much as you concluded Jim, usually very basic 'modular' ideas that can then easily have the generators swapped in/out to produce continual variations on a theme .

Of course these concepts in themselves supply the needed 'limits' to constrain and focus the ideas, providing a 'system' or container which then the free flow of creativity can be freely poured. From there, it is just a matter of 'riding the dynamics of the system' which is again the creative impulse in motion and out of 'editor' mode.

Most often, when the synergy exceeds the mere addition of the parts, then it leads to further refinements and 'standardization' in my 'book of techniques', while the 'failures' almost always reveal new concepts to be explored.

I myself can never get enough resources to swap in/out of my conceptual frameworks/systems but then again I am a self-proclaimed 'experimentalist' so the exploration of the new is my passion.

If I were still 'in the game, I would probably pick a small kit and stick with it. My guitar rig when I was a 'club musician' usually only changed when I changed whole bands! and most of the variation came from technique and approach but that was greatly influenced by the intrinsic logistics of that kind of work so perhaps my embrace of the 'embarrassment of riches' and infinite horizon of computer music is a delayed reaction to those limits ;-)

 

Loopy C,
It's a good exercise to work with differing systems on different projects - it stimulates discovery. I've built up a fairly complete system (for my needs) over many years, and now, instead of looking in bewilderment at the myriad of choices, I think of it in terms of which door is the entry (acoustic, software, hardware, etc), and what is a good starting path. The growing project then guides me to my timbral palette. I'm set up to work either with or without a computer, or both according to desired results. So, for me it's the choice of approach that starts the aural adventure.
aip