Obsession with quality?

ItsChilla

New member
Maybe someone on here can help me with this. I've been producing for almost two years now and I have enjoyed every minute of it. I have also jumped around from style to style and genre to genre, but I think I have found my own sound that I am none the less satisfied with. But recently I've been overly obsessed with my tracks quality in terms of melody catchiness and overall mood rather than just letting my mind create and not worry. It has really slowed down my workflow and now if an idea isn't amazing or creative enough I can't bring myself to finish it, no matter how many times I tell myself it's good. I get maybe 2 tracks out a month at the most, but they are no doubt catchy and sound more like a song rather than some edm mix that sounds like every other track that's on the beatport top 10 charts. Long story short, I want to work more quickly without hurting my current creative process. Any ideas ?(Mindsets, remedies,workflow techniques, etc)
 
2 tracks a month isn't bad. (about as many as me at max productivity- I'm a nearly full time student though so I can't focus fully on music)

How many hours do you put into music on the average week?
 
well in the summer i have more time and i would say from about 2-6 hours if i decide to work on music that day
During school and everything else that i do i try to get an hour a day
 
Hey ItsChilla,

I made a whole list of things you can do to speed up your workflow on my blog.
Some of these I picked up in books, some from professional songwriters, others from producers,
but they all doubled my productivity, making me over 50 times faster these days than I used to be:

7 Productivity Techniques

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Friedemann
 
I completely understand. I often listen to older tracks and am embarrassed with how amateurish they sound, and I feel obsessed with making my mixes sound as great as possible.

Just keep moving forward and don't stop producing, and you'll be fine bud. Don't get discouraged.
 
I can relate. I took off some time to build up my catalog and work on my craft so I'll always have a steady schedule and not overwhelmed. But that's just me.
 
Let everything be about quality over quantity. Never assembly line anything as music is an art first and foremost. Society treats it as a business solely and not a healthy addition (depending on what one listens to as music alone isn't damaging, lyrics only are depending on whether or not listeners know how to separate fantasy from reality) to one's life.
 
Just do things as you feel them. Never worry so much over quality that you skip vital processes that you can't tell, but will make your track sound better on down the mixing and mastering chain.
 
The more you produce, the faster you'll figure out whats most important in a specific situation. Noone can mix a track like "you always have to mix the Kickdrum in this way" "Snares have to have this and that" because it always depends on the context in Song and what u want to achiev with them atm. A lot of the time i start making a beat with a clear vision, so i already know what the Kicks have to sound like. Learn your DAW including Mixing Plugins inside out so u can make them sound like u need them to real quick while producing and focus on finetuning later on.
 
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