Really stuck

[JonasEdenbrandt]

Ahhh post-modernity everybody has there own idea of what art is...

[NewSc2]

dont even think about writing a whole tune till you can get some simple loops together which you're totally into, then move on to the next stage.

care to elaborate on this "next stage"? i'm pretty much at the point where i'm a little comfortable with my 8-bar loops, just unsure how to progress them and flesh them out into full-out tracks. i've arranged several tracks out, but i always feel like my loops don't hold weight when pushed to a ~5-minute track.

[steevio]

dont even think about writing a whole tune till you can get some simple loops together which you're totally into, then move on to the next stage.

care to elaborate on this "next stage"? i'm pretty much at the point where i'm a little comfortable with my 8-bar loops, just unsure how to progress them and flesh them out into full-out tracks. i've arranged several tracks out, but i always feel like my loops don't hold weight when pushed to a ~5-minute track.

everyone works differently but what works for me is live tweaking.
once ive got a loop which is rhythmically interesting and tight, and the elements are all in their own frequency space, i assign controls to as many elements and parameters as possible, and just find interesting possibilities for tweaking the synths.
so that i can even have a tune which is just one simple loop of 3 or 4 elements, but by tweaking, fading, muting i can get a whole tune together without even arranging anything at all.
its much more spontaneous than laying things out on a time line, i find that frustrating and closterphobic.
but thats just my way.

because we only have two hands, the secret is to assign multiple parameters to one knob. in other words as you turn the knob, you may have 10 things changing within the sound. (or even in more than one sound at once)
i usually start with total silence at one extreme of the knob, and the peaktime sound at the other. so as you turn the knob it gradually builds from nothing to the optimum sound, morphing as it goes.
that way you can bring sounds in without using faders which usually sounds too obvious.
if you do this with all your synths (alternative you can assign parameters to the modwheel if it has one) you can make a whole tune out of a very simple midi loop of 3 or 4 parts, but with loads of control over whats happening in realtime, its live and rewarding, and its never the same twice, i just record everything i do, and there's always soemthing usable when i listen back.
if there isnt one really perfect take, i sometimes make an arrangement out of all the best bits of all the takes, and be creative with how they all go together.

its also worth assigning LFO's to various parameters, or automations.
use some synched to midi clock for rhythmicity, and others on random or unsynched to provide subtle nuances which morph throughout the tune on a long time line.

you have to keep things changing all the way through the tune, even if only very subtley, the brain tires of loops very quickly unless they are changing even just incrementally

hope thats some help mate.

[wokends]

wow amazing tip steevio, thanks a lot

[nrjizer]

everyone works differently but what works for me is live tweaking.
once ive got a loop which is rhythmically interesting and tight, and the elements are all in their own frequency space, i assign controls to as many elements and parameters as possible, and just find interesting possibilities for tweaking the synths.
so that i can even have a tune which is just one simple loop of 3 or 4 elements, but by tweaking, fading, muting i can get a whole tune together without even arranging anything at all.
its much more spontaneous than laying things out on a time line, i find that frustrating and closterphobic.
but thats just my way.

I've been making tunes in Logic for a while now and feel like this is the way I want to go. My only real outboard piece of kit is a Nord 2x, and I have a lot more fun tweaking it than I do looking at a screen. I do like Logic a lot though--it just seems to lack the capability for spontaneous jamming that someone with a hardware setup might have.

Any advice for some pieces of outboard gear that would be good for live control? I'm thinking the most cost effective thing to do would be to buy Ableton and some kind of nice midi mixer, so that I can bounce all my sounds of out Logic into Ableton, press record, and start jamming. Once the ideas come out I can just re-produce them in Logic and polish them up. I'd like to eventually do my own livesets and will probably run those out of Ableton anyways, but I'm open to other suggestions.