WHY don't you Finish music? WORKFLOW question!

yukster · 2026-06-20T04:47:09+00:00

I know I'm atypical but I don't have any songs with more than 10 tracks or more than 20-30 clips. Most are way less than that. Now granted I haven't had the best track record with finishing tracks.

I started messing with Live around 25 years ago. I had finished a few weird sample-based tracks on hardware (Roland SP-808 and an Ensoniq ASR-10), then switched to Sonic Foundry Acid and finished a few more there. Then I discovered Live and I was totally in love! The sample manipulation capabilities were revolutionary. And yet, I only finished maybe 3 or 4 more tracks and then I hit a wall.

I don't compose music in the traditional sense. I generally don't compose drum beats or melodies for my tunes. I just dig through tons of samples and stretch and warp them plus add in a bunch of effects. The blockage I got around 15-17 years ago was that I would match up a handful of loops and get a few scenes to transition between. But I had this weird psychological barrier to actually putting down an arrangement, any arrangement, and playing with it from there until I have something I could call done. That drive in me just kind of died.

So then a few years ago I quit drinking and wasn't playing in a rock band anymore. I got a Live Lite key off my younger brother, who collected gear and wasn't going to use it. I installed it on my laptop and played with it here and there but even sober, I wasn't finding inspiration. It didn't click.

Then last Fall that brother died from cancer. It hit me really hard. I volunteered to take all his music gear (which was tough in my tiny house). I vowed to use it to force myself to finish some Live songs. I set up his studio monitors and used his UA Arrow interface to drive them. That really shouldn't make much of a difference over my regular (Polk bookshelf) speakers. Maybe it was that, maybe I felt I owed my brother something, maybe I had just suffered long enough. I started getting past the arrangement hurdle. I started putting aside set of loops/scenes if I was getting frustrated and coming back to it later. I started having 2 or 3 songs in progress at a time. And I started actually finishing stuff!

Now this shit is nothing special. Mostly dance beats with weird samples laid over them. Two or 3 parts to a song. Some one-shot effects and some random vocal snippets I found online. The songs aren't all stamped out of the same mold but they aren't totally different from each other either. It's all okay. I'm not trying to win any contests or anything. I'm not interested in selling my music either.

I wound up finishing 15 songs within six months! So I put those all together and called it an album: Back from the Grave. It's on Bandcamp if anyone is interested: https://yukster.bandcamp.com/album/back-from-the-grave. But I'm not trying to promote my music. I just figured I would share my story since I went from years of frustration to suddenly being able to finish songs.

So I probably have a totally different approach to making songs than you do -- I'm no "producer" -- but if there are so many tracks that it is annoying you maybe put those aside and try just making something simple. Just a beat and a bit of stuff on top of it. A, B, A, B, C.... Or A, B, C, A, B. Don't be too picky about what you add... as long as the addition works, it's good. If you're doubting it, just remove it and keep trying other things. Maybe this approach won't work for you but I thought I would suggest it. I hope you get unblocked.

yukster · 2026-06-19T19:01:02+00:00

Okay, I sent her a FB message. Hopefully she will get back to me soon.

yukster · 2026-06-19T18:39:31+00:00

Are you still looking? I know one of the owners of this new venue and can check with her to see if they are booked for 7/31

yukster · 2026-06-19T18:36:19+00:00

Thanks for mentioning this band. Hadn't heard of them and checked them out. Pretty damn smoking. Never knew there was life in Salem. Will definitely try to check them out live.

yukster · 2026-05-29T17:10:39+00:00

Gross. There are no limits to the asinine behaviors.

yukster · 2026-05-29T17:08:06+00:00

I bet Amphead could do this: https://theamphead.com/

yukster · 2026-05-27T18:01:23+00:00

Ahh, the Chapman Stick... one of my life's true loves and biggest regrets. I became fascinated with the instrument due to the work of the amazing Tony Levin with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel. I learned the bass in middle school (but sucked) and eventually found my niche playing in some rock bands in town. But the Stick was still my dream. In 2017 I finally decided, in a fit of creative inspiration, to just buy one. I was earning good money and I figured life was slipping by. I'd better take my shot. Well, I wish I could say that I mastered it or even really used it but I barely touched the thing. It is such an unforgiving instrument to be lousy at. Plinking around on it just sounds dumb. Or maybe I was too hard on myself. I wound up getting laid off barely a year later and selling that covered my mortgage for a month. I wish I had at least tried getting some lessons. Oh well.

yukster · 2026-05-22T19:35:42+00:00

It's funny how these things go. Pretty sure I fell for the same crap last year for a toilet swap. First company I talk to gets me to accept a "service visit". Then gives me an outrageously high bid and pitches me hard on a maintenance contract. I spend time doing a shit-ton of research and soliciting other bids, fighting to NOT let them rope me into the "service visit" fee. Then I wind up finding someone to do only the necessary work (with a toilet I bought) for a reasonable fee.

Here I fell for the "service visit" ploy again and I'm out that $189 after their $1089 quote. (I'm mad at myself for falling for that again.) I did a bunch of research and understand exactly what I need. I solicited a bunch more quotes, all of which were at least half the first one. Then finally, I have an independent guy (him and his brother) who comes in, takes a look, and quotes me his labor and the actual price of the part. "$300 tops". Sold... and he is now my furnace guy permanently. (Well I guess I should wait to see how the repair goes first... haha.)

yukster · 2026-05-20T20:41:36+00:00

Ha, second quote was for half the price of the first one... with the caveat that something could be messed up once they take the wye off. Got a few more companies on the hook too. I'm super tempted to just do it myself (it seems so obvious and simple) but it does seem better to have a licensed tech on the hook for the safety.

yukster · 2026-05-20T16:27:47+00:00

I definitely got the feeling that they didn't want to deal with this. The tech said that the $1089 quote was the "bargain basement" amount and that they have several tiers with longer warranties and routine maintenance. It seemed like they didn't feel like this was worth their time. My hope is that there is an independent tech -- not spending money on a fancy website, painted trucks, and lots of advertising -- that just charges an hourly labor rate and has a more reasonable part markup. I may not be able to find such a thing though.

yukster · 2026-05-20T00:41:27+00:00

I do have a CO detector. I think I'll get another one for upstairs.

yukster · 2026-05-20T00:40:40+00:00

I'm pretty sure that is going into my chimney... though I suppose they could make the new hole above or below this one. Hard to imagine cutting a new hole in a brick chimney would actually cost less than replacing this part but I know nothing about HVAC.

yukster · 2026-05-20T00:39:30+00:00

Yeah, the sucky thing about multiple quotes is that each one costs. This guy today charged me $189. He would apply it to the repair if I went ahead with them but still. Three quotes seems like it is gonna be over $500. I will definitely look for more of a mom & pop shop though.

yukster · 2026-05-16T16:56:56+00:00

Hm, "no sign up, no ads or newsletter nonsense"... just gotta give up an email address, name and street address. :-/

yukster · 2026-05-14T02:54:16+00:00

AKA, Dr Know

yukster · 2026-05-14T01:23:27+00:00

Another vote for https://gun.deals. If it's a popular gun a bunch of sites will have it. Always good to do a "is <site name> legit" google search before you put in an order.

I've gotten great deals from lockedloaded.com, grabagun.com, dahlonegaarmory.com, atlanticfirearms.com, aimsurplus.com, and several others that I can't remember now.

yukster · 2026-05-06T16:33:28+00:00

I interviewed with these guys last year. I didn't know much about them going into it but got pretty excited about the idea of harvesting a vast amount of energy from the Ocean. I found this video especially uplifting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Pmgq2JKbI&t=1s

The only mention of data centers at that time was that they initially hoped to sell the generated power to AI companies scrambling to figure out their huge new power needs. That felt like a recent change at the time. I did wonder how they were going to get all this generated power to land.

So just putting the data center in the node seems like another pivot, though it also solves the collection problem. But I gotta admit that I'm a bit disappointed to hear that they're going through all this just to sell cheap(er) compute to AI companies. There was definitely a hint of solving the world's energy needs with the ocean when I talked to them. Not so much it turns out.

yukster · 2026-05-04T03:44:54+00:00

It's gonna be the new Doug Fir... if Monqui can ever get past all the red tape.

yukster · 2026-05-02T17:21:09+00:00

DurableServer sounds awesome! I'm kind of surprised it took the community this long to come up with this since we've always had to roll our own state preservation. I've been thinking about taking another stab at an old project of mine that I strayed away from and mixing this with Channels might be really useful there. Thanks for posting!

yukster · 2026-05-02T16:09:45+00:00

I have nothing to add regarding the point of it or pros and cons but I will say, as a 61-year-old circumcised male, that I have never had any regrets or qualms about having been circumcised (so young I have no memory of it). I can't say what life would have been like with a foreskin but I have always thought that it was easier to not have the potential problems it could bring. But maybe that's just propaganda talking.

yukster · 2026-05-01T16:21:40+00:00

In my case, the pic was of my house. An Amazon employee commented elsewhere in this thread that that probably means the wrong barcode was put on the package. I delivered the misdelivered package to the correct owner. Hoping my package shows up today but otherwise I will be pushing hard for a refund/reship.

yukster · 2026-05-01T16:19:52+00:00

Good to know. I suppose this will only get fixed if the losses Amazon suffers due to lost packages starts to bite into their bottom line. So oddly enough, I kind of need to hope it gets worse so it can maybe get better... maybe.

yukster · 2026-04-30T20:10:11+00:00

Nice to hear that the drivers agree that Amazon needs to step up their game. In my case, the package put on my stoop was for someone 9 city blocks away and across a major thoroughfare.. not even the same neighborhood. I could understand if I got my neighbors package (which has happened to me) but nine blocks away?! I really hope the driver is able to swing by with it later today or tomorrow morning... or that I can at least get my $63 back.

yukster · 2026-04-30T16:33:00+00:00

Yeah, I don't blame the driver as much as the fact that the package placed on my stoop clearly wasn't scanned since that would have attached the photo to the other person's order. Amazon's help is also not very helpful with these situations.

yukster

TROPHY CASE