I think the created process for making a track, or a remix should be a fast moving evolving process. If you spend too much time and energy trying to create a track you end up with a stagnant and forced track that lacks driving and flowing energy. So how do you know when your track has become stale? When should you bite the bullet and start again? Read on for my hints...

Sometimes.you.just.
 have.to.let.go.

Where did I go wrong?

A track should start with an idea of where you want it to go. A hook maybe, a bass sound or some kind of inspiration.

 

I recently started work on a remix of Mark0's air track to be released by this label. This track is quite simple to begin with, my goal was to achieve a mix that I thought would complement the European minimal style Mark0 has with a harder hitting more driving Australian Electro style. I intended for this remix to take me a week or two at most but somewhere along the way I got lost in the mix and finally came to the realisation that it was completely dead. I thought rather then have my entire fortnight to be a complete waste, I would take a look at the mistakes I made and try to improve to make sure it doesn't happen again and look at the steps I took to overcome the problems and start and finish a fresh new mix.

 

How to identify a dead mix

Here's a few of the signs I should have seen coming that told me that my mix had in fact kicked the bucket.

 

Too many inspirations

One of the first problems I had with the track was trying to sound like a whole bunch of other tracks. It is common practice to be inspired by another artist or track wether you mean to or not, but it is quite easy to be inspired by too many other tracks, and even to be so inspired that you end up with almost the exact same sound and spend more time trying to force originality. Big mistake.

 

Too many mediocre ideas

A good electro track, or any progressive/minimal styled track should be built on no more then two of three great ideas. My track on the other hand was built on mediocre idea on top of mediocre idea. I expected each new idea to shine out of the track, but all that ended up happening was another idea was bogged out in mediocrity.

 

Poor structure

Track structure is absolutely vital to a good catchy club bomb. Trying to follow a formula and forcing a track to conform to a standard structure can really lead to problems that cant be undone. Dance music is all about the flow and I absolutely killed the flow of my track by locking down where I wanted it to go before I had solid and good ideas.

 

Too many instruments

So with too many inspirations, too many ideas and a poor structure I ended up trying to smooth out the rough areas by adding synth on top of synth. This was the icing on the cake and just made things worse. The time had well and truly come to put this track down, out of it's misery.

 

Time to simply go File -> New

 

 

Freshen up your track minimally

Admitting that your track is dead is hard, but you have to face the music and in most cases you would probably have been better if you had done so sooner. I personally should have bitten that nasty bullet after the second realisation.

 

Where do you go from here? You might know you have the skills as a producer, and you have a few ideas but how can you avoid making the same mistakes twice (or even three times)?

 

Start minimally.

 

Export some of your ideas from the previous track so you can throw them in later. For now, focus on a 16 or 32 bar section of the track, and try to build up the main theme or anthem of the track. Once you have that you can strip it back, but at least you will have a sick main riff that you heading towards.

 

In this genre, it's the drums that drive the track. Come up with 16 bars of a sick and driving drum track. Maybe throw in some loops from your sample collection, but use a sample player to cut bits of them out, layer some effects and generally screw around with them.

 

Then you can proceed to throw on some bass, a couple of synth and some changes here and there to your percussions. Before you know it you will have a great, completely original peak point of your track to build up to. Remember to stay minimal, you don't need fifteen synths when one will do.

 

For build-ups and breakdowns in your track, again think minimally. Use simple effects first like reverb and delay to  build tension. A simple white noise synth with some delay and reverb can work great as a build up tool. If you think your track needs something else come back later but to get your production flow happening keep things minimal.

 

Hope it helps you to see how I can screw up a track, but strip it back and start again!