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Inspiration/Creativity/Motivation / Re: (How) do you divide your time between sound design and composition?
« on: February 10, 2016, 09:44:42 am »
I think separating sound design and composition is a very good practice if you can keep a strict timetable.
If you think about it, sound design during composition just doesn't make sense. You don't tune your guitar halfway through the track. Traditional composers don't pore over counterpoint theory while writing their cantata. Should we really add the stress of sound design into the composition process when it's already so difficult to stay in that 'flow' - that cerebral zone you don't want to be dragged out of when you have to spend thirty minutes designing a decent sub or pluck, making the notion of a full track in any reasonable length of time seem impossible?
Although, if you do decide to cut the umbilical cord between the two elements of producing, you need to take care that they don't fall away completely. However you plan on storing your patches, you need to be able to access the right one at the right time. If you have to spend thirty minutes looking for the preset you made earlier, what's the point?
Procrastination is as always a problem. That's why a 'timetable', whatever that may mean to you, is important. For example, you might work on tracks during the day (i.e. when you could potentially finish the track in one sitting) and work on sound design during the night, when you only have an hour or two to spare. You might work on sound design and other associated production elements during the week, and then on the weekend sit down and say to yourself "Right, this week I have prepared everything I need, I MUST write something now, good or bad."
It's hard in the beginning because you presumably won't have many presets to work with, but it will pay off in the long run as you will not run out of steam on sound design and lose inspiration, and you will also be able to spend more time perfecting synth patches.
If you think about it, sound design during composition just doesn't make sense. You don't tune your guitar halfway through the track. Traditional composers don't pore over counterpoint theory while writing their cantata. Should we really add the stress of sound design into the composition process when it's already so difficult to stay in that 'flow' - that cerebral zone you don't want to be dragged out of when you have to spend thirty minutes designing a decent sub or pluck, making the notion of a full track in any reasonable length of time seem impossible?
Although, if you do decide to cut the umbilical cord between the two elements of producing, you need to take care that they don't fall away completely. However you plan on storing your patches, you need to be able to access the right one at the right time. If you have to spend thirty minutes looking for the preset you made earlier, what's the point?
Procrastination is as always a problem. That's why a 'timetable', whatever that may mean to you, is important. For example, you might work on tracks during the day (i.e. when you could potentially finish the track in one sitting) and work on sound design during the night, when you only have an hour or two to spare. You might work on sound design and other associated production elements during the week, and then on the weekend sit down and say to yourself "Right, this week I have prepared everything I need, I MUST write something now, good or bad."
It's hard in the beginning because you presumably won't have many presets to work with, but it will pay off in the long run as you will not run out of steam on sound design and lose inspiration, and you will also be able to spend more time perfecting synth patches.
