I have no other beatmaker to work and collaborate with so it's very hard for me to take a fair look at what I'm doing. The last week was especially hard mentally: I felt very bad because my music didn't sound like I expected it to sound like. Don't get me wrong: I'm vibing when I'm working on it, I'm feeling good and I like it but it's not quite something you'd want to listen yet.
The problem is that there's no blueprint that can be learned; you have to fail, again and again, until things finally start clicking together. You gotta select better sounds, be more deliberate with how you mix (fader first, effect chains after). You always have to be self-concious if no one is working with you, looking at yourself holistically to know what works and doesn't.
Here's a few things I've learned:
- start to break out of the 8-bar loop as fast as possible to not get stuck on the arranging
- select good quality sounds because no matter how hard you try, you will never sound good with dogshit sounds
- less is more, try to do as much as possible with simple sounds; it will help you switch things up to make the music more interesting
I love it but it's very tiring. I know I made a lot of progress but the road to mastery is very long. I hope I can be more constant in the future.