Ever find yourself stuck at a crossroads during the creative process? Spending too much time wondering what to add next? We’ve all been there, your crafting your latest production, you’ve added all your musical elements and reached that dreaded moment, now what? Procrastination kills creativity, now is the time for decisive action. Check out our 10 tips to help you finish your beats.
1. Intention
What is your intention before you begin? What is it you want to achieve? Envisioning the final outcome could certainly help take you closer to your goal. If you find yourself lost along the way you can always refer back to your initial objective to get you back on track. The ethos of the productive producer is to finish what you start. Have a plan and stick to it.
2. Plan
Plan your work, work your plan! Sure sometimes it's great to get lost in the creative process, jam and see what happens but if your suffering with not completing your beats maybe it's time for a new approach. Planning can be one of the most under utilised tools at a beatmakers disposal. When you see other art forms produce amazing artefacts weather it's movies, photography, the latest fashion line how much time and effort do you think went into the planning process? Sure you can leave a certain amount of what happens in your lab up to the creative gods but maybe it's time to really take ownership of what's gonna happen. Your the captain of this ship, it's on you!
3. Workflow
Having a process to your production method doesn’t mean you need to stick to an inflexible method every time you want to be creative but it can be a tool to help you start finishing those tracks sitting on your hard drive. Streamlining and making your production process more enjoyable can really help speed up your workflow. By separating each section into more manageable chunks you'll be well on your way to creating your very own production formula.
4. Change
On the other hand if your process has become to rigid that could be whats killing your vibe to produce the music you truly want to create. Maybe its time to change things up. Change your environment, the room your in, the pictures on the wall, your desk position. Change the sounds you work with, the instruments, think outside the box away from your usual comfort zone. Have you become too used to those late night beat making sessions like many of us have? Maybe try a different hour of the day to shake things up a bit. You might be surprised by what a difference a change makes.
5. Templates
Get your favourite way to work ready for when the inspiration hits you. Don’t let any of that valuable creative energy fade away while you work on the routing of that latest FX plugin. Ideally you want to be able to turn on whatever machine your working on and have it loaded up ready to go in the fastest time possible. The quicker you can get locked in your creative process the closer your be to executing your ideas.
6. Sounds
Keep those go to sounds available to hand. Spend less time searching through your collections looking for that right sound. Have your go to presets ready and prepared. Dedicating some time to work on the sounds for your project will speed up the creative process in the long run and remember its always possible to refine individual sounds further down the line.
7. Break
Having a break is healthy in any aspect of life, especially music production. Keep it fresh, if you listen to that beat on a loop continuously for the next three hours the chances are your gonna reach your listening limit. Ear fatigue is no joke. Take breaks and come back with some fresh perspective. Don’t get audibly lost in what your creating.
8. Time
When was the last time you set yourself some dedicated time to produce? Life is full of distractions, but there's nothing worse than having to close down your session when your locked in the creative process. Be kind to yourself, create a Distraction free zone. P.S That means no phones or wifi.
9. Perfection
There's a thin line between wanting to produce your best and perfectionism. This isn’t to say that striving for the best particularly in yourself is a bad thing. Its not its actually something we would always advocate, but is the persuit of perfection holding you back? Trust us when we tell you there is such a thing as trying too hard. Don't let the weight of your own great expectations stifle your creativity.
10. Deadline
Pressure has a habit of bringing out the best in us. How about creating a manufactured pressure environment. You could try setting yourself a deadline. Sometimes a time limit forces you to make decisions and move on. It's a good feeling when you complete a project and sign off. The more you do it the more it becomes ingrained in your nature, fuelling your momentum to complete one project after the other.
There we have it. Hopefully these help inspire you to get on and complete those unfinished beats sitting on your hard drive. Do you have anything else you could add to the list? We wan't to hear from you, feel free to like, share or drop us a comment below.