Is it done yet?

[bloodbit]

How do you guys know when your tracks are finished? Is it simply an "a ha" moment or do you guys settle with "this is good enough, next track".
For me one of the biggest problem I think is knowing when to stop and questioning my judgement in deciding if it is appropriate to leave the track as is. Sure its done when it sounds good to you as the creator but I never have gotten to a point where I was 100% satisfied with what I was creating. It has never felt "done", so is this simply a matter of my production has not caught up to my standards and that for the time being I should just keep writing tracks until one day production level meets my standards? If so how do you get over coping with the fact that you are uploading (if you upload them at all) mediocre tracks? The fact that I know its subpar production and that I am just adding to the junk online bothers me. This leads me to two solutions, either don't care and upload them because they would just sit on my harddrive space anyways and hope someone enjoys them or simply hoard all my tracks until one day they both production and standards levels are equal?

I know there is no right answer I just want to know your thought process, what bothers you and if you feel the same way. 
Many questions that will hopefully provoke some insightful discussion, feel free to jump in anywhere!

[Marrow Machines]

I try to limit my songs to no more than 5 mins. After that, it's tough to create variety, especially with my work flow.

I know i have a song when ever i got a bass line, melody, and drums.

Once i know i have a song, i know that i can finish it with different parts.

I've gone through so many phases of trouble trying to create the different sections, that i actually incorporated this tension.

I now have absolutely no tension when creating the song. Only when i need to sit and think about how to perform the musical content, routing for effect chains (i am a reason user), and arrangement ideas is when the tension exists. And i think that's better than getting frustrated.

To be quite honest, if you're finding yourself getting so worked up over a tiny little detail, i think it's time to call it a day and check out.

Knowing when to leave the party, is the art of partying. Know when you're whipped, and get back on the horse some other time.

until you develop a sense of knowing yourself and your work flow, you may never actually get to a beneficial state for creating.

Literally, take things in steps and accomplish parts of the song and eventually you will have constructed an entire track.

Leave the day satisfied with the work you've done. If you aren't satisfied, then go back to it the next day.

As much as people want to say that you have to actually create things to make it fit into the mix, i think that's kind of counter productive. You should really just focus on making individual sounds, and then with understanding of mixing them later, try to put them in and see what works.

This will lead you down the road to being more efficient with your time, but it might take a few years of seeing how it works for you.

You can only add so many layers, and so many effects to the song before it sounds weird. Find out what that number of effects and layers are (please note that effects and layers should count as the same idea; because it gets harder to jam another musical piece when a phase is roaming about your mix).

It should be a relatively low number of both things, but together they create a more powerful mix IMO.

Start being aware of your tendencies and nip them in the bud if they are bad, and learn to be satisfied with unfinished results, but satisfied with the results you have produced.

RESPECT TIME.

[Lydian]

I never have gotten to a point where I was 100% satisfied with what I was creating. It has never felt "done", so is this simply a matter of my production has not caught up to my standards and that for the time being I should just keep writing tracks until one day production level meets my standards?

This is the exact same issue that I face and only recently have I begun to look past it. The last track I made took me about 80 hours and that's because my standards are far too harsh. I know that my music is missing that special "something" that I hear in the tracks of my favorite artists. With that being said, I've come to accept that at this stage of my producer journey I'm just not going to sound as good as Zedd who as a child would write a song a day and has been recording/engineering since his early teens.

If so how do you get over coping with the fact that you are uploading (if you upload them at all) mediocre tracks?

Here’s how I cope with it. If I’ve learned something new since the time I started a track and finished a track then I am willing to get over it’s mediocrity. You aren’t going to get better by trying to jump from level 1 to 100. Progress reveals itself in much shorter increments. When I listen to a track that I made one year ago and compare it to one that I made today I want to be able to say “I’ve gotten better.” Nobody is forcing you to upload your music online if you don’t feel that it meets your standards. It may be beneficial though to share it with more experienced producers who can explain to you “why” those standards aren’t being met.

For me one of the biggest problem I think is knowing when to stop and questioning my judgement in deciding if it is appropriate to leave the track as is.

I don’t think you should ever stop questioning your judgement. If you know your tracks are missing something then you shouldn’t have to lie to yourself about it. Just realize that you might not discover that “something” at your current level of skill. In these situations you have a few options.

1. Spend hours trying to figure out why you’re track sounds like shit through trial and error.
2. Ask for feedback from more experienced producers and they’ll point it out to you.
3. Move on and the leave the track as is.

Option 1 is time consuming and extremely exhausting but can result in huge breakthroughs if you manage to figure out what the problem is.

Option 2 isn’t as time consuming but it can be difficult finding an experienced producer who will dedicate their time to listen to your track and offer quality feedback.

Option 3 is the least time consuming but still leaves you with a bad judgement of your track. Which goes back to what I was saying earlier. You might not discover that “something” at your current level of skill. If you find that no matter how hard you try you just can’t get something to sound the way you want it to then sometimes it is best to just move on.

It’s just like Marrow said.

RESPECT TIME.

Leave the day satisfied with the work you've done. If you aren't satisfied, then go back to it the next day.

To be quite honest, if you're finding yourself getting so worked up over a tiny little detail, i think it's time to call it a day and check out.

All great phrases IMO.

[Mussar]

I've been taking to the ill Gates methodology of workflow in terms of working on and finishing tracks lately: Set a guillotine timer for working on a sound or effect, and another one for the project. As an example, ill Gates has said he has a "5 minute rule" and a "20 hour guillotine": If it takes longer than 5 minutes for him to get something to fit with the track, he abandons the idea and moves on to something else. If it takes longer than 20 hours for him to finish the song, he'll gut all parts from the song for use in later projects and scraps the entire project.

The theory behind this process is that we can get so bogged down with the endless array of options and possibilities presented to us and the infinite rabbit holes of sound design and audio engineering that we don't ever actually finish our work because we can waste all our time on making this one song perfect instead of making a bunch of really great songs. You put yourself on a deadline, so that you have to get your ideas out faster and don't get so bogged down by details. As you get more comfortable working within your timeline, getting it how you like it and moving on, you also increase your workflow pace which will either mean you complete more songs in the same amount of time, or you complete more detailed songs in the same amount of time.

I think it's also important to stress how important referencing is when it comes to situations like this! If you don't know what a finished song needs, go look at all the songs that have been finished and see what they contain! I bet if you dissected 10 different songs you love, you'd know a hell of a lot about what it takes to finish a record. 

[Marrow Machines]

I've been taking to the ill Gates methodology of workflow in terms of working on and finishing tracks lately: Set a guillotine timer for working on a sound or effect, and another one for the project. As an example, ill Gates has said he has a "5 minute rule" and a "20 hour guillotine": If it takes longer than 5 minutes for him to get something to fit with the track, he abandons the idea and moves on to something else. If it takes longer than 20 hours for him to finish the song, he'll gut all parts from the song for use in later projects and scraps the entire project.

The theory behind this process is that we can get so bogged down with the endless array of options and possibilities presented to us and the infinite rabbit holes of sound design and audio engineering that we don't ever actually finish our work because we can waste all our time on making this one song perfect instead of making a bunch of really great songs. You put yourself on a deadline, so that you have to get your ideas out faster and don't get so bogged down by details. As you get more comfortable working within your timeline, getting it how you like it and moving on, you also increase your workflow pace which will either mean you complete more songs in the same amount of time, or you complete more detailed songs in the same amount of time.

I think it's also important to stress how important referencing is when it comes to situations like this! If you don't know what a finished song needs, go look at all the songs that have been finished and see what they contain! I bet if you dissected 10 different songs you love, you'd know a hell of a lot about what it takes to finish a record. 

big up, I love the ill.gates methodology.

[FarleyCZ]

How do you guys know when your tracks are finished?

I don't.
...but so George Lucas didn't and he created huge nerd religion anyway. So there's nothing bad about it I guess.

[Arktopolis]

EDMprod has the answers! http://www.edmprod.com/checklist/