Has song writing ever taken you near to the edge of dispair?
 

Sure has for me. I spent an intensive weekend with m8's and the sole objective was to get a completed 6 min track done from start to finish. We did it on reason (synths and drums), virus kc and some other softsynths (from what i can remember anyways).

It just sent me mental. Ive come to realise I cant work with more than 2 people at any one time. Too many ideas going off....

How do you guys cope with this kinda challenge?

Cheers

DS

Too many chefs making a one pot of soup. The only way to get a big collaborations to work is to have each an own area of responsibility. Like a drummer, guitarist, keyboardist, sound technician, etc. For example if there are five people mixing, mastering and playing keyboards it's a doomed project.

come back later and see if you can get the ball rolling again.

Muahaha! Classic! "The Scream feat. Access Virus B desktop".

I find it really hard to collaborate with anyone at the same time. About all I can do is lay down some basic tracks and hand them off to everyone in my band and say, "Ok, now everybody go do something with them." From the completely disjointed wreck that comes out of that, I'll take bits and pieces, rearrange, mangle, etc. Every now and then something good will come of it...most of the time my collaborative efforts end up sucking pretty bad.

Jamming is different, usually we can do better stuff in that kind of scenario.

It depends on how the person is that i am working with;

I hate people that -"No my idea is better - I am smarter than you therefor I'll make this and that" and it doesn't even sound good.

A coop is 50-50-thing. Just like an relationship. hehe

Hey that looks like me! You should send that to Access!

DS

whenever i take the reigns of the virus, you can sort of hear the supersaw coming out. 2 of my mates start thinking...hes turning it into trance again...and sure enough both will vote me off the virus so they can swing things around and dirty it up a bit. one of my mates is very good at making helicopter sounds with the LFO. he has this unique talent. every patch he edits eventually turns into inaudible sub bass sludge. then he twiddles the LFO (its always the last thing he twiddles cuz it doesnt make much sense to him). voila. another helicopter. he can make it sound like its a helicopter over the horizon. widen the filter cutoff, bit of resonance, sub osc on 0. he can make the helicopter sound like its right overhead - sub osc on full, resonance 0, attack on both envelopes 0. the genius bit was when he opened the LFO to make the helicopter start up then take off and disappear over the horizon. was funny as hell but we achieved nothing that day. the song in the works was total pants.

'i heard another helicopter again on my virus and felt an eternal scream passing through nature.'

i think it would be funny to ms paint a picture of my mate sitting down and twiddling on my virus and saying in a speech bubble 'this is the best muthaphuckin' helicopter sound i ever made' and out the window you can see a commanche hovering.

or...sex shop. confused/embarassed looking woman. techy geek behind the sales desk saying whilst edging into the picture a black and red object, 'this is one of our best sellers - its got more knobs than you'll know what to do with.'

i think everyone has felt like the scream when they realise one of their tunes is almost irreversibly flawed or they realise all their songs sound like shat despite buying an expensive synth. bin that song. start over - the artist's casualties of war. mwahaha.

You all have strange laughs...so ill laugh like a spaniard...jejejejeje

ok now for collabs...i love working with ppl...but i hate working with musicians...i have alot of knowledge in the area of music and i most of the time give 50-50 work ratio...but it utterly disgusts me when some with less experience wont listen to your ideas at all...or take a second to ponder on them...they just know better, better than anyone...

now most of my collab sessions were almost fatal...theres a guy i work with now that is still in the beginning but we are both breaking out of our teadious shells...I use to do round robins with musicians that just couldnt come up with an idea for a song (or didnt want to be on the spot) back in my rock days...where i would make a couple notes on guitar then pass it on to the other guitarist where they would copy what i wrote then add on to it...little practice lessons and they worked 3/4 times i did it...most of th e time it was just plain musical chairs with the instruments...switching around so much you didnt know who played what in the band...seriously sickning...overall most of the time i dont want to work with anyone...but you get bad writters block more often working by yourself...or you start making the same song over again...ultimately is good to go out and work with ppl but i would never have a band again...

peace
Blank

I quite like having a second person there...someone to bounce ideas of and who inspires creativity within yourself.

In fact, I think I work best in this way...

I have done some great songs that were collaborations, and in then end, the process of making the song, and the great times you have with the person creating with you, are what you remember...you remember the laughs, the company of good friends, and the social interaction.

Not the ratio of compression you used for the vocals.....

It is the energy that is passed between the two (or more) of you that makes the session special, the ideas flying around, and of course, you will always run into problems when ego's are involved, but this is going to be something you deal with your whole life, and the more experience you have dealing with ego's, the more you can use them to make the experience more enjoyable...

*jase gettin all deep on yo' ass!*

my problem is im more passive now adays so for me to tell some1 they are being totally ego maniacle is out of the question...so until i learn to be more affirmative i am very selective in the ppl i work with!!

peace
Blank

Oh, for sure....you have to be! You even have to be choosy about your everyday friends and associates...

Those that are not happy, positive people, will bring out the worst in you, but those that are, inspire happiness within yourself

i think this is more to do with the people you work with as opposed to them being musicians. i occassionally work with musicians but more in a jamming capacity and so far, mostly for guitar jams. those jam sessions worked out pretty well despite the fact i couldnt always keep up with the key changes that were expected of me. both the guitarists ive jammed with in the past 3 months i would consider are better than i am. at least for the purposes of improvising everything (cuz they both have this knack for figuring out chords on the fly whereas it takes me a couple of seconds to work out in my head how to suspend a chord or add a 6th or 7th to it etc).

on the flipside, the people i write dance music with mostly come from a DJ background, with no musical experience and no sound engineering experience. so i find it very frustrating when writing a tune with them because i can see from a mile off that their tune is never gonna work when its going 25 dB over 0 cuz theres far too many instruments with prominant bass and sub. and i sometimes hate being left as the one that has to engineer my way out of messes like this. the last hard house track me and 2 friends co wrote i ended up ditching for this very reason. i got it down to about +10dB and more and more flaws kept emerging in terms of how the instrument timbres had changed, how thin some of the instruments sounded. i considered it irreversibly flawed.

i think i can sum it up as,

i hate working with people who i consider are faaar behind me or too far ahead of me in production and musical terms. i wouldnt particularly like working with someone who i considered alot better than me at producing because i dont feel i could really impact on a production that seems to be going fine without my intervention. likewise, i wouldnt really like working with someone who doesnt know what the hell they are doing because i seem to get very unproductive when this happens.

That seems good and all but there is one little flaw to what you are saying...it is what i meant in the first place...you dont go work with some1 better than you expecting to be an equal...you go and work with them expecting to learn from them...and showing your musical ability or production ability (whatever they are not strong at)...

and you dont work with ppl who think they are "musicians" yet have no talent in music...because that is a bad connection...they think they are the shit yet cant do anything to prove it...besides blab alot!! atleast unless you just want to have fun...

work with ppl for the right reason...or dont work with them at all...honestly i could give a shit and only a shit...i work with the type i work with because i get more out of it...whatever you get more out of keep doing it...

peace
Blank

yer ill agree with that. it just so happens the people i most enjoy working with are people who i think of as equals. not necessarily coming from the same angle as me. but people who work with you and you dont feel you are burdening them or they are burdening you and in the end it seems as if all people involved contribute as much as they can to a song in order to make it the best they can. and enjoyment is key, cuz if i dont enjoy what im doing, it really shows in the song. if you know what i mean.

I agree completely...its hard for me now because i have been pushed so many times by over bearing egotistical musicians...that when it comes to music i get really protective of my inputs on a song...and get suspicious of how much the other party is going to control the output of the song!!

peace
Blank