Tips & Tricks to Help You Finish Your Tracks [Vol 1].

I’ve heard it many times before; “I have loads of unfinished projects”. This is a problem I used to think was unique to me but over time I have heard or read this so many times I realize it must be something many of us battle with. You want to finish your projects? Here are a couple tips I that helped me.

Remember the pandemic. Yes, it sucked for all of us. But I tried to make a small positive out of the extra ‘’home time’’. In the beginning of the pandemic I told myself; “I will finish a song no matter what”. Like most of us, I had already told myself this many times, and perhaps my commitment would fizzle out into more unfinished tracks. But this time I really meant it and wanted to complete a full track. Somehow, I did indeed starting churning out more complete pieces of music. Although there are many tutorials and posts on this, I wanted to share the tips that personally helped me. Nothing is one-size-fits all and this may or may not help you.

1 Find a theme of motif for inspiration

One of the most helpful things for me is to develop some kind of theme or motif for a track to get it going. The theme or motif may take many forms, such as a vocal sample you think sounds cool, or perhaps inspiration from a particular lead sound in a track you like. Before starting your track, think of a vocal cut, or a song that you draw inspiration from. You don’t have to copy the exact lead you take inspiration from, but you can look at the tempo, key, etc. COPY, then recreate. A vocal may seem like there is nothing to inspire, but the voice is also an instrument and can be very complimentary to an idea.

2 Throw everything at it

Over time in your production you will find some cool techniques and methods, many of them being unique to you! When you are ‘’stuck’’ on a track go through some of the tricks you learned along the way, dig deep down. ‘’What if I did this or that?” — try it!

The more random the better. I try many different ideas on a track then delete it if I find it isn’t working. Take a small break, come back and see if you REALLY like it. If not, NO SWEAT. We can come up with more ideas, probably another 100. I heard a producer say; “that’s what we do!”

Perhaps you even have another unfinished project where you had a cool lead or melody that might be useful for something else. Get the midi and change it into the key of you current project if you need. All your previous work might not have been a waste after all.

3 Record (A LOT)

You should get in the habit of just hitting record on some of your VST (or hardware) leads and get them into audio. Once you cut up the best bits you like its much easier to mess around and have fun with audio than twisting the filter cutoff on a lead. Talking about the cutoff and filter, while you are recording find the nice knobs to twist to bring some interesting changes and dynamics. Just keep recording, don’t even be afraid to throw some random plugins to get some weird result, that’s how I made some of my best sounds. Just freestyle some notes on the keyboard. HD space is cheap as chips. It doesn’t matter if you don’t make a great recording right away because it’s the fun part and you can do it again anyway.

4 Don’t give up on your idea.

Just keep at it. Seriously — I used to give up waaay to easy back in the day. I got bored of the track or whatever and couldn’t see it potential. Yeah it will always sound pretty basic in the beginning, and will not sound pro. But you have to keep chiseling away at the granite, sanding the surface, the inner work you imagine will eventually begin to reveal itself. If you have already started a project you like, it has decent kick and bass, decent drums and overall foundation, then just keep working on your project until it IS done. Do whatever, if you must, copy the first part of a midi recording then duplicate it, then add variations to that. Like I mentioned, space it cheap and it doesn’t matter. Essentially you are building your own sample banks for the project. Process them with an effect that gives them a common tone, such as a multi-band compressor. This will ‘’glue’’ the sounds a bit.

5 Keep all your work

Years later I stumble across tracks I started and WISH I had the project file because it sounds dope again. NEVER delete your projects, back them up and take real good care of them.

***Above all take care of your ears***

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Peace