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Sep.25
2009

Limitations...

I know we've talked about this before, but it's always fun to harp on a subject near and dear to your heart. I've recently begun working on a new Micronaut EP, and I decided, since I was already set up for it as a result of the RT60 material (and also, I'll admit, due to a current fascination with the Chosen Lords album), to make it entirely hardware.

Notice I didn't say "analog." I'm not a complete masochist. And you can have my Lexicon 300 and Eventide H8000FW when you pry them from my cold, stiff fingers, and even then you risk a zombie attack.

Since I can't make a track without a heaping spoonful of AD plug-ins any more, and I'm recording in to a DAW (Live 8, for this project), realistically the only limitation is that I won't let myself use samples or soft-synths; all the originating sounds are generated outside the DAW. The track in the post prior to this one is a fairly good example of the palette involved: a couple monosynths for basses and "lead" sounds, and I've got the alphaSyntauri, TX802, and MKS80 for more sophisticated fare. Drums from various boxes, including the afore-mentioned synths.

Anyhow, as a return to the subject at hand, I've found that in my advancing years, with a few thousand songs under my belt, I'm not able to actually create anything at all unless I have a framework or paradigm in which to work. I have to say "for this one, I'm only going to use PureData" or "for this one, the lyrics will contain no proper nouns" or something of that ilk before I can even start. Just happening across a cool groove and building on it doesn't seem to do the trick any more, and my hard drive is littered with 1/3rd-finished tracks to prove that.

So, it comes as no surprise that I'm a big proponent of setting limitations for oneself. My question is thus: is that a proper method of working for someone just starting out? At what point is your personal palette and experience perhaps too large that you need to purposefully limit it in order to keep yourself (and thus your audience) interested?

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"Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem." - Rollo May

posted September 25, 2009 by meeglosh

Personally, I think limitations are great. Right now I'm in a project using only 4 samples giving me a total than less than 1Mb of sample data, and built in effects from Ableton Live 8. I haven't felt this good about creating something in quite some time. Some day I plan on releasing this to the world in hopes of being able to pick up some paid gigs for sound and patch design (a pipe dream I know), in the least I get the satisfaction of finishing something with the extremely tight limits I've set on myself.

Ot may be nerve-wracking, but go for it man. I;m sure the rewards are more than worth it.

posted September 25, 2009 by RFID

I find setting limitations sparks more creativity in my musical workflow. When I sit at a computer using softsynths (especially w/ a huge library of random Reaktor Ensembles), I get stuck browsing through patches, vstis, etc.... and nothing but garbage comes out of it. However, when I sit at the ESX or MonoMachine, I can come up with something interesting rather quickly.

I think a paraphrased version of John Maeda's 1st law of simplicity can be applied to a musical workflow. Ask yourself, "how simple a setup do I need to make music" and weigh that against this question, "how complex does the setup need to be to make it interesting".

posted September 25, 2009 by senorfrio

I think when you're starting out you're so limited in terms of craft, method, etc. that you've already GOT limitations - your own skills, if not gear and ideas.

For most of the people on this list, I suspect the problem is reducing possibilities, not expanding them.

Personally, I love limitations - time (RPM challenge), gear, whatever.

posted September 25, 2009 by Jinsai

That's a very good point, I have to admit.

-CR

posted September 25, 2009 by Chris Randall

Limitations are essential. Half the tracks i've made were nothing but an MPC2000 with 8 outs, into a hardware mixer, and a few FX racks.

With limitations, once you hit the wall where what you are setting out to do is limited by the environment you are doing it in, you're forced to figure out a work-around and usually you discover a whole new sound/lick/hook/bassline thanks to being forced to work around the limitation.

posted September 25, 2009 by AdamJay

I work in a totally different way. I write the song (chords & structure) on piano or guitar and then record a draft version. I put this one in my mp3-player and listen to it while taking a walk the next day. I usually get an idea on how I wanna produce the tune at this stage, so the limitations lies within this idea, not my way of working or my tools. I don't ever write tunes in the studio anymore, as that usually makes me blind - i.e. I start with an idea of what kind of music I wanna make and how I want it to sound, but the song that I start writing is almost never a perfect fit for the already decided method or production.

But as always, that's just me.

posted September 25, 2009 by rasmus_nyaker

Nothing happens without a vision.

Sadly, this has been a stumbling point in my own work.
I can make interesting beats all day, put the microphone in my hand, and suddenly I have nothing to say.

Vision, my friend.

THX,
Jason D. // Chicago

posted September 25, 2009 by Jason Duerr

This is a very interesting point about production. It seems that during the woodshed phase there's nothing wrong with the obsession that I imagine we all went through where producing a track means putting every last trick and slick chord voicing, stutter effect, etc. in, hoping to achieve mythical glory. Then, after a certain level of proficiency or mastery is achieved, one comes to the realization that they have too much skill and musical interests to possibly put everything in and have it come out as a polished, professional sounding recording.

I personally hit a period of writers block when I reached this point and ultimately took a lot of inspiration from homebrewing, which requires a significant amount of planning before execution. Now I try to do more preproduction before recording, only tracking once all of the sounds and samples are prepared. I also try to obsess on finishing over perfection.

posted September 25, 2009 by drewkeys

Part of the allure of setting limitations for yourself is that it can sometimes take the place of a specific vision of where you want a track to go. At the very least you can narrow your focus based on a certain set of boundaries, arbitrary or otherwise.

This does bring up the question though, of whether or not a track created within a strict set of conditions somehow has value added as a result- that is, if you crate a track entirely in PD, or using just 4 samples, does that give the track any more value that if you composed it a more conventional manner? I really don't know the answer to this, but I struggle with it everytime I listen to certain types of music- would I like X piece of music if I didn't know it was, say composed using only multiples of the number 3? I think early Pole is a good example of this, he used mainly samples of a defective Waldorf filter (so the story goes, anyway) but whether or not you know that he was limited to that sound set the songs are still great. I dunno, but I think it's an interesting question to ask as an extension of CR's topic. In the end I don't think it matters much, as long as you're happy with what you're doing that's all that matters.

Personally I like trying to use one instrument to make a full track, not just in a "looping multiple guitar parts" way, I once did a show using nothing but samples of tuned crystal glasses recorded, looped and processed live, on the fly, and that was a challenge. It certainly forced me to approach my live set in a new way, and I learned some interesting things from the experience.

Hey Jinsai, cool you know about the RPM Challenge- I'm actually one of the organizers, hope you do it again this Feb...

posted September 25, 2009 by atari5200

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