Heh, yeah, until you get to tweaking later and realize that the patch you spent so much time trying to find no longer is the perfect match for the track and the search starts all over again!

(Plus I'm a sucker for playing with those presets that are so over-the-top that you'd never really use them in a mix, but they sure are fun!  "Film Drama" on my Korg N5 comes to mind as well as a bunch from my MS-2000...)

craigb


Heh, yeah, until you get to tweaking later and realize that the patch you spent so much time trying to find no longer is the perfect match for the track and the search starts all over again!

(Plus I'm a sucker for playing with those presets that are so over-the-top that you'd never really use them in a mix, but they sure are fun!  "Film Drama" on my Korg N5 comes to mind as well as a bunch from my MS-2000...)

Photone, the Reaktor synth, is great for that. 

I rarely have a complete song in my head.

I can be pretty good at coming with a riff or a chord sequence, even a melody and putting them together (call it a verse for sake of simplicity)and coming up with somewhere different to go, either via a chord change,  rhythmic change or even both sometimes (again, call it a chorus if you like) is usually straight forward

But where I struggle is trying from that point to get back to where I was.

Bristol_Jonesey


I rarely have a complete song in my head.

I can be pretty good at coming with a riff or a chord sequence, even a melody and putting them together (call it a verse for sake of simplicity)and coming up with somewhere different to go, either via a chord change,  rhythmic change or even both sometimes (again, call it a chorus if you like) is usually straight forward

But where I struggle is trying from that point to get back to where I was.

Oh to have back all of the awesome riffs and 4-bar segments of guitar that I have come up with over the years, vowed to develop the next day, then promptly forgotten. 

sharke

Bristol_Jonesey


I rarely have a complete song in my head.

I can be pretty good at coming with a riff or a chord sequence, even a melody and putting them together (call it a verse for sake of simplicity)and coming up with somewhere different to go, either via a chord change,  rhythmic change or even both sometimes (again, call it a chorus if you like) is usually straight forward

But where I struggle is trying from that point to get back to where I was.

Oh to have back all of the awesome riffs and 4-bar segments of guitar that I have come up with over the years, vowed to develop the next day, then promptly forgotten. 

This is why Keith Richards used to carry around a small tape recorder.  One day he woke up (probably with a hang-over - lol) saw that he had recorded something and played it back.  What he heard was the main riff that became "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and he doesn't remember playing it originally.

Have tried that! The trouble is:

1) I'm often too lazy to stop and hit record
2) Sometimes I will listen to it the next day and thing "now how in the hell did I play that?" Especially if it's some kind of intricate fingerpicking part. 

I wonder how many people approach their musical projects with a clear idea in their heads of what the end result is going to be, and how many people - like me - start off with a tiny seed of an idea which is then thrashed around and twisted and warped and revised and ditched and reinvented many times over before finally resulting in a finished tune which is maybe 1% similar to how it started.

 
The things you hear in your head are universal, ( don't ask me to expound on that), the things you hear in your DAW and instruments are science, craft, math, matter, you see where I'm going I hope. Recreating what you hear in your head when you create is going to take more time than you want to spend. To assume that your brain, music, instruments, and the universe are in tune with matter and now is asking a lot. It's always the way you describe, make it fit.

sharke


Have tried that! The trouble is:

1) I'm often too lazy to stop and hit record
2) Sometimes I will listen to it the next day and thing "now how in the hell did I play that?" Especially if it's some kind of intricate fingerpicking part. 

Re: 2),


Now we have Melodyne with DNA and you could figue out that intricate singerpicking part.


HTH.

I have usually a few lines of lyrics with a rough idea of a melody and a story or a "mental state" I want to express. Then I start playing with chord progressions and more lyrics.

When I have the song approximately in order, I record a base sketch with acoustic guitar, vocals and guitar on the same track, a sort of memo track. Then I start building the actual project, looking for sounds and arrangement ideas.

bapu

sharke


Have tried that! The trouble is:

1) I'm often too lazy to stop and hit record
2) Sometimes I will listen to it the next day and thing "now how in the hell did I play that?" Especially if it's some kind of intricate fingerpicking part. 

Re: 2),


Now we have Melodyne with DNA and you could figue out that intricate singerpicking part.


HTH.

I've got a short piece of triple tracked acoustic guitar that I recorded years ago on my old Fostex 8 track and to this day, I cannot separate the 3 parts into individual tracks - I just don't know what I did. (the Fostex is long gone, all I have is the stereo mixdown)