Music Production Tips to Help You Finish Your Songs

Boost your creativity with six music production tips that can be applied to any style, genre, or DAW.

It's easy to become caught in the many possibilities that music creation software provides. There are always fresh presets to test and effects to experiment with. Exploration is an important element of what makes music making enjoyable. However, if you don't know where to quit, completing projects becomes extremely difficult. Consider following restrictions that limit your alternatives and generate new ideas if you want to be more productive in the studio.

But what do you decide to let go of? Here are seven producing tasks that will force you to focus and get you into music-finishing mentality.

Use a single synthesizer for everything.

A solid understanding of synthesis lets you to create the sounds you hear in your head without relying on presets (not that there's anything wrong with that!). Once you've established a solid foundation with one synth, you may apply your understanding to others.

Learn your synth from the ground up by creating a whole track with just one editable patch. To generate leads, pads, and basses, switch between oscillator waveforms. Smash the LFO knob to generate slinky SFX. To sculpt drums and percussion, use the finesse ADSR controls. By the end of your track, you'll be a synth wizard.

Perform it live.

Punch in your beats in real time with no additional tweaks. A little natural swing and shuffle makes a significant difference in a world of quantized, to-the-grid music. The first few attempts may be sloppy, but you'll soon develop your own flow. This challenge will need you to put more faith in your own creative instincts and conclusions.

You can also experiment with musical elements. It will be more difficult if you lack theoretical training or practical experience, but what are regulations for?

Reverse your process (or scramble it).

We all have a preferred method for creating music. Most producers use a similar formula: start with drums, then add a bassline, and last chords and melodies. If this works for you, keep doing it. But, every now and again, our own formulas fail us, and we want a creative boost to get us back on track.

One simple approach to accomplish this is to reverse or simply change the order of your workflow. Begin your track with an aspect you generally save for last, and let your ears guide the sequence of everything that comes after. This challenge will push you out of your comfort zone and inspire you to think creatively.

Accelerate or decelerate samples

Music genres and styles are overlapping, mixing, and borrowing from one another more than ever before. Now is an excellent time to experiment with new tempos in your DAW. Labels and audiences alike want to hear music that defies expectations.

Return to unfinished sessions and adjust the global tempo by at least 15-20 BPM. You'll gain a fresh perspective on an old project, as well as the motivation to complete it. At already fast tempos, the effects can be hilarious, so use your best judgment here. Alternatively, you can start a fresh session from scratch at an unknown tempo. This is normally a more difficult task, but the payoff is well worth it.

Sixty minutes from start to finish

Finishing music is the most difficult step of the creative process for most producers (including me). However, without a complete set of tracks, you cannot release music or tour. Set a goal for yourself of finishing a complete track in 60 minutes. You'll be astonished at how much you can do when working under time limitations.

It's critical not to get bogged down in the technicalities here. When you get an idea that makes you nod your head, tap your foot, or dance about, save it and move on to the next piece. Many producers work under strict time constraints for remixes, EPs, and singles. When commercial jobs come your way, this quick technique will come in handy.

Disable your DAW's loop function (kind of).

I normally create full tracks in a loop, then arrange the individual pieces on my DAW timeline to structure them. Unfortunately, what works in a loop format does not always function in a full track.

Consider working in a linear manner from the beginning of your DAW session. This will increase your sense of progress. There will be times when you will need to loop elements of your music, but keep these to a minimal. Always be on the move.

Most music producers' inventiveness fluctuates. If you're lacking on creativity, try one of these challenges in restriction. DAWs provide us with a plethora of alternatives for producing music, but it's easy to get trapped if you don't have some direction or discipline. Make some ground rules for yourself. You'll rapidly figure out what to do, which will allow you to compose more songs.